The
country which has “In God we trust” stamped on its currency seems in
fact to be trusting in God less and less every year since the motto
first appeared on coins in 1864 and later became the national motto in
1956.
The study carried out by the Religious New Service,
shows that one in five Americans today say they have no religious
identity.
Religious practice has taken a dive among people of any
denomination who call themselves Christian, starting with children’s
baptism.
In 1970 there were 426,000 marriages in U.S. Catholic churches —
a full 20% of all U.S. marriages that year. By contrast, in 2011, there
were 164,000 such weddings — only 8% of all marriages. But in both
years, Catholics were 23% of the national population.
Baptisms have
followed the same trend. Back in 1970 there were approximately 1 million
baptisms registered but by 2011 this had dropped to exactly 793,103.
“There is a de-emphasis on practicing faith.
People want God but they’re not happy with churches,” the Rev. Frank
Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee
said. According to Page, sacraments such as baptism have fallen victim
to an “anti-denominational, anti-institutional, even anti-church era.”
Like the Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) which
rightly considers baptism a key part of the Christian faith, recorded
314,959 baptisms in 2012, a low which has not been seen since 1948. This
is odd when one considers that the number of faithful joining the SBC
has risen from 6 million back then to nearly 16 million now.
An interesting point for religious scholars is
that even Hispanic Americans who have always been considered “reservoirs
of faith” compared to their more secular Anglo-Saxon brothers are
showing a tendency to follow national trends. Hispanics account for 34%
of US Catholics and of this, a significant 13% claim they do not have
any religious identity.
The same percentage of Hispanics seek their
spiritual path in the Evangelical denominations.
While there was great
emphasis on the number of Hispanics – particularly young Hispanics – who
switch from Catholicism to the Evangelical denominations, the same
cannot be said for those Catholics who decide not to have any faith at
all. 80% of those who claim not to have a religious identity are in
favour of same-sex marriage, while only 21% of Evangelicals are in
favour of such unions.
All this is leading to the sacraments – including
baptism – being practiced less and less. In 2006 1 in 4 families in the
US was composed of people of different religious faiths; in 1988 this
dropped to 15% according to Naomi Schaefer Riley’s “Til Death Do Us Part”.
To prevent disagreements, many of these families decided not to baptise
their children in any particular Church immediately. Divorce is three
times more frequent in these types of marriages than in marriages where
spouses belong to the same religious community.
The problems that follow
after these divorces have a negative effect on the children’s religious
life. There has also been an increase in the number of marriages
celebrated in a place of worship.
This is another clear sign that the
couple in question does not see faith or a faith’s sacraments as a key
part of the life they share together.