The Protestant ethic, long a subject of great interest to numerous generations of scholars (including the esteemed sociologist Max Weber), is one of the most debated subjects within the field of sociology. This recent report authored by two sociologists at the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center brings to light the fact that for the first time in the history of the United States, members of the Protestant faith will no longer constitute the majority of the population within the foreseeable future. The 23-page report, authored by Tom W. Smith and Seokho Kim, notes that the percentage of Protestants in the national population shrank from 63 percent in 1993 to 52 percent in 2002. Another interesting finding of the report notes that from 1993 to 2002 the number of people who said they had no religion rose from 9 percent to nearly 14 percent.(From the Scout Report internet newsletter.)
Contracepting your kind out of existence seems to be an easy thing to do.
Does the statistical rise in agnostics reflect an actual increase in agnostics or is it only an increase in percentage (the Prots decrease so the Ags increase)?
I'm not sure I trust the numbers at all. They show the "Catholic" population swinging between 23% and 28% of the population. That's a fluctuation of about 10% either way, and I find that unlikely. The numbers shouldn't differ by more than one or two percentage points a year.
+J.M.J+
Does "no religion" necessarily mean agnostics? Couldn't it include people who believe in God but don't go to church? Those who say, "I'm not religious but I'm in touch with my spirituality".
In Jesu et Maria,
Protestantism, as defined by non-Roman Catholic, Western, Trinitarian Christianity, started to go down in the latter part of the 19th century. It didn't show, because the "mainline" denominations were being taken over by deists who didn't believe in the Bible, the Trinity, or the dual natures and resurrection of Christ.
In response, many but not all orthodox Protestants left to form new denominations, typically called 'fundamentalist' by the press or evangelical by themselves.
Now it is happening again, the mainline evangelical denominations are being taken over by people who don't believe in objective truth, the inerrancy and supremacy of Scripture, or the Christian worldview of creation, fall and redemption.
If you look at the Old Testament, you see the same pattern. The people as a whole fall away, but God preserves a remnant.
But just looking at numbers of people who call themselves Protestant without looking at what they really believe is going to be very misleading.