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Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and adherents of other non-Western religions have become a significant presence in the United States in recent years. Yet many Americans continue to regard the United States as a Christian society. How are we adapting to the new diversity? Do we casually announce that we \"respect\" the faiths of non-Christians without understanding much about those faiths? Are we willing to do the hard work required to achieve genuine religious pluralism?

Studies on church growth and decline were done in different parts of the world. This article explores church decline that is continuing in the world's mainline Protestant churches and is also affecting the Reformed Churches in South Africa (RCSA). It is done from a missiological framework, and the description goes beyond numbers in establishing decline to focus more on the quality of believers. Membership quality is all that the church strives for in all believers, and failure to reach that goal leads to decline. The study utilised only primary sources to describe the decline realised in these churches; thus, no human subjects were involved. The various reports of the RCSA deputies for turn-around and church growth as well as the relevant literature, provided the data required for the present research. The numerical data explain the trends in church decline that is taking place in Protestant churches globally and locally which includes the RCSA. These findings are substantiated by the definitions of church decline and church growth as well as indications of church health highlighting 'what happens' to the church in a specific context. The explanation of key concepts and the Natural Church Development (NCD) benchmarks provided the lenses to evaluate the membership statistics of Protestant churches including the RCSA. Through the application of these key concepts and benchmarks, it became evident that the ongoing numerical reduction in membership, which began in 1994, is proof of church decline in the RCSA. Contribution This article chose a 'missiological framework' referring to the Great Commission and the missio Dei in order to challenge a more 'static' (numbers only) and 'church survivalist' approach to the current 'church growth and decline' reality within the Western Church. In this way, the focus on'church health' rather than the dominant Practical Theological approach to 'church growth' will lead to new knowledge that will benefit and subsequently strengthen the current debate.

Based on the survey responses of over 1000 attendees of growing and 1000 attendees of declining Mainline Protestant churches in Canada, this research examines patterns of denominational switching and the characteristics of switchers from both groups. Based on previous Canadian research we hypothesized, among other predictions, that the majority of our Mainline Protestant congregants would never have switched denominations and, of those who had, a plurality would indicate that their previous church was part of another Mainline Protestant denomination. These hypotheses were supported when the responses of growing and declining church attendees were combined but when the responses of the growing church congregants were tabulated separately they were not supported. We show how the switching patterns of the growing Mainline Protestant church congregants are more akin to those of Canadian Conservative Protestant church congregants and we offer explanations as to why this may be the case.

On January 29, 2001, President George W. Bush signed an executive order creating the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. This action marked a key step toward institutionalizing an idea that emerged in the mid-1990s under the Clinton administration--the transfer of some social programs from government control to religious organizations. However, despite an increasingly vocal, ideologically charged national debate--a debate centered on such questions as: What are these organizations doing? How well are they doing it? Should they be supported with tax dollars?--solid answers have been few.

The Great Migration was the most significant event in black life since emancipation and Reconstruction. Passionately Human, No Less Divine analyzes the various ways black southerners transformed African American religion in Chicago during their Great Migration northward. A work of religious, urban, and social history, it is the first book-length analysis of the new religious practices and traditions in Chicago that were stimulated by migration and urbanization. The book illustrates how the migration launched a new sacred order among blacks in the city that reflected aspects of both Southern black religion and modern city life. This new sacred order was also largely female as African American women constituted more than 70 percent of the membership in most black Protestant churches. Ultimately, Wallace Best demonstrates how black southerners imparted a folk religious sensibility to Chicago's black churches. In doing so, they ironically recast conceptions of modern, urban African American religion in terms that signified the rural past. In the same way that working class cultural idioms such as jazz and the blues emerged in the secular arena as a means to represent black modernity, he says, African American religion in Chicago, with its negotiation between the past, the present, rural and urban, revealed African American religion in modern form.

Research on the way Protestants interpret the Bible in relationship to science has tended to focus on biblical literalists; less research, however, has examined the heterogeneity of how nonliteralists interpret the Bible. Utilizing data from semi-structured interviews with 77 evangelical and mainline Protestants who attend high-SES congregations, we find that members of both groups draw on similar interpretation strategies in discussing the Bible and evolution. Both eschew literal interpretations of the Bible, demarcate boundaries between the Bible and science, and subsume evolution under broader theological beliefs. Mainline Protestants and evangelicals differ in the way they interpret miracles, with mainline Protestants revealing more openness to scientific and social interpretations of the Bible's miracles, while evangelicals emphasize God's authority over nature. Findings show that different strategies are evoked depending on the issue discussed, revealing implications for a deeper understanding of the way different traditions provide resources for interpreting the Bible and its relationship to scientific issues. Finally, findings contribute to a more robust knowledge of boundary work between the Bible and science as institutional and epistemic authorities.

Much has been written about the profound impact the post-World War II baby boomers had on American religion. But the lifestyles and beliefs of the generation that has followed--and the influence these younger Americans in their twenties and thirties are having on the face of religion--are not so well understood. It is this next wave of post-boomers that Robert Wuthnow examines in this illuminating book.

This article analyzes explanations for growth and decline given by 22 clergy and 128 congregants from 21 mainline Protestant churches in Canada, including both growing and declining congregations. Both clergy and congregants attributed growth and decline to a wide range of external and internal causes, but people in declining churches were more likely to attribute them to external factors outside churches’ control, while people in growing churches tended to attribute them to the characteristics of the churches themselves. Both groups overwhelmingly relied on human explanations rather than supernatural ones, with some exceptions from growing church participants. We argue that these results align with the predictions of attribution theory and also reflect a high degree of internal secularization that is more advanced in the declining churches. We discuss the role of theological factors in these differences and suggest possible implications for understanding church growth and decline.

Many scholars and citizens alike have counted on civic groups to create broad ties that bind society. Some hope that faith-based civic groups will spread their reach as government retreats. Yet few studies ask how, if at all, civic groups reach out to their wider community. Can religious groups--long central in civic America--create broad, empowering social ties in an unequal, diverse society?

Total membership in mainline Protestant denominations has been declining for half a century. Sharp decreases in the late 1960s and early 1970s were followed by more modest losses for the next 25 years, with sharper declines returning at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Analysis of denominational data on the components of change reveals two major factors linked to the most recent drop: departures of schismatic congregations in five denominations that have liberalized gay- and lesbian-related policies, and fewer individuals joining mainline denominations. Furthermore, child baptism rates are dropping and, in at least one denomination, the ratio of child professions of faith to child baptisms a decade earlier has fallen faster than membership over the past 13 years. These findings are largely consistent with previous research using national survey data that shows low fertility in the mainline, a drop in transfers into the mainline from more conservative churches, and general increases in the percent of the U.S. population with no religious affiliation. Together, the evidence strongly suggests continued mainline membership losses for the indeterminate future.