From: <[log in to unmask]>

> Church membership or attendance is not in decline. It has remained
> essentially constant over the last 60 years, but the composition of
> the church-goers has changed signficantly over that time. Those who
> call themselves evangelical Christians have risen substantially,
> especially in the last ten or twelve years, increasing 12% since
> 1976 (10% since 1992).

Although Gallup surveys have shown church attendance holding steady, actual church
membership statistics don't match this and there is some evidence that the
discrepancy is because people lie more often than they used to about attending
church
(http://www.religion-online.org/cgi-bin/relsearchd.dll/showarticle?item_id=237).

According to the Barna Group, "The latest study shows that the percentage of adults
that is unchurched – defined as not having attended a Christian church service,
other than for a holiday service, such as Christmas or Easter, or for special events
such as a wedding or funeral, at any time in the past six months – has risen from
21% in 1991 to 34% today." (Barna is evangelical but his research seems to be sound.
He has reported unflattering things about evangelicals, such as the high divorce
rate.)

>
> I'll let you look up those statistics yourself, but they are
> believed to be reliable as they are the results of Gallup polls and
> a study conducted by the National Science Foundation.
>
> The rise of evangelicism connotes a simultaneous rise in
> anti-intellectualism. The central tenet of evangelicism is biblical
> literacy and inerrancy, a philosophical position that leaves no room
> for doubt or reasoned thought.

Actually, there are several meanings and several themes to evangelical Christianity,
including personal conversion, proselytizing, salvation by faith, as well as
biblical inerrancy.
(http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=evangelical)

But, if biblical inerrancy is what you're worried about, you should be pleased to
know that it's at the lowest level ever:

http://www.sciamdigital.com/gsp_qpdf.cfm?ISSUEID_CHAR=39881A42-FA7E-6A44-36941C46965460D6&ARTICLEID_CHAR=39D89955-F411-4731-900609DEC1A0A333
or
http://tinyurl.com/2bm5l

This graph from the March 2003 Scientific American compares trends in different
aspects of evangelicalism over the last 30 years.  The latest numbers for belief in
biblical inerrancy are about 25%, down from about 40% in 1980.

Although the graph doesn't go back that far, in the early 1960s, over half of adults
in the U.S. thought the Bible was the literal truth.
(http://www.icpsr.umich.edu:8080/GSS/rnd1998/reports/s-reports/soc34.htm)

> One person wrote me privately and
> asked what I meant by "excessive piety." To be pious is to be devout
> to a cause or an idea. To be excessively so is to simply stop
> thinking. But mainline Christianity wasn't always so.

And, of course, mainline Christianity isn't now.  You have a distorted view because
a vocal minority is battling your special interest, evolution.

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