Religion: Unchanging Faith?

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Many observers hold two related theories about U.S. religion: it is 1) booming, and 2) growing progressively more secular. Sociologist Seymour M. Lipset of the University of California disagrees. While church membership has clearly risen in recent years, Lipset reports in the Columbia University quarterly Forum, there is "no basic trend" in churchgoing: it was 41% of the adult population in an average week of 1939, only 39% in 1950, and 47% in 1957. Other statistics:

¶ A survey of leading businessmen in the mid-1920s showed 37% without religious preference, while a comparable survey in 1950 showed 59%.

¶ In 18 Protestant churches, individual donations compared to members' disposable income were much lower in 1953 than in 1929, and just about equal to contributions in the last Depression years.

¶ Although the proportion of all other professions to the population has increased sharply, the ratio of clergymen to Americans was almost precisely the same in 1950 as it was a century before: 1.12 per 1,000 people, v. 1.16.

As for secularization or dilution of supernatural belief, Sociologist Lipset notes that evangelical religions are now stronger (about 10 million members) than at any other time in this century, and are actually responsible for much of the growth in church membership. His conclusion: "By far the most striking aspect of religious life in America is not the changes which have occurred in it—but the basic continuities it retains."