It’s not lack of school prayer causing people to abandon faith, it’s that Christianity has become a toxic religion
There can be no doubt about it: Religion, especially Christianity — while still powerful in American culture — is in decline. Fewer than half of Americans even belong to a church or other house of worship. Rates of church attendance are in a freefall, as younger Americans would rather do anything with their precious free time than go to church. As religion researcher Ryan Burge recently tweeted, “Among those born in the early 1930s, 60% attend church weekly. 17% never attend. Among those born in the early 1950s, 32% attend weekly. 29% never attend. Among those born in the early 1990s, 18% attend weekly. 42% never attend.”
“There’s also growing hostility to religion,” Justice Samuel Alito recently whined, in response to criticism of recent Supreme Court decisions meant to foist fundamentalist beliefs on non-believers, particularly the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
As Jack Jenkins of Religion News Service reported, increasing numbers of Republicans are ignoring the plain text of the First Amendment — which says the government shall “make no law respecting an establishment of religion” — in favor of the tortured myth that there’s no separation of church and state. Former Ohio treasurer and failed Senate candidate Josh Mandel, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and, most troublingly, Justice Neil Gorsuch have all dismissed the idea that such a separation is mandated by the Constitution.
Using school prayer as an example, As the Washington Post reported this week, “activists are preparing to push religious worship into public schools nationwide.” Your kid may be Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist or otherwise non-Christian, but too bad. They better recite the Lord’s Prayer in class or risk being punished or ostracized.
Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was heavily criticized recently by Christians and non-religious people for calling Americans to embrace Christian nationalism, which is the belief that the United States is defined by Christianity and that the government should take steps to keep it that way, Dr. Paul D. Miller, co-chair for global politics and security at Georgetown University, explained in a 2021 article for Christianity Today.
She announced on Friday that she would begin selling Christian Nationalist shirts despite the backlash she recently received for touting this belief. The Truth Social post also includes a redesigned picture of Greene and a slogan that reads “stand against the Godless Left” as it advertises the shirt that has “Proud Christian Nationalist” printed on it. The shirts are being sold on her website for $30 each.
“The Godless left is relentlessly attacking me for my Christian faith. I am a proud Christian and a proud American,” she wrote on Truth Social, a social media platform launched by former president Donald Trump. “That’s why I am a proud Christian Nationalist. Claim your Proud Christian Nationalist shirt now and share your love for our great country.”
“[T]hese days it seems the people most likely to identify themselves as Christians tend to be Republicans as well the most vicious, hateful, un-Christian sons of bitches you’d ever want to meet,” blogger Roy Edroso writes. Sure, some people respond by seeking liberal churches. But it’s simpler and easier to just give up on being a Christian altogether, to drop all that baggage.”