GDR writes:
Actually, as near as I can tell literalism is a view held by a minority of Christians who are primarily North American.
Alas - I wish you were right. The data doesn’t seem to support that. I thought that too for a long time because the majority of the Christians I knew were moderate, loving people like you. However, I’m liberal, with a liberal circle of friends and as we know, our own anecdotal evidence is terribly biased by a small sample size.
Looking at larger studies give a clear and indisputable picture:
In 1990 it was found about 86% of the US was Christian. By 2001 this had dropped to 77% (religioustolerance.org, ARIS data, other sources too). Polls (such as the CBS poll in December 2004) found that about 55% of Americans believe that every single word of the Bible is literally true. About the same percentage believe that man was created by God 6,000 years ago (Gallup, Barna, others). So, that means that 55/77 = over 70% of Christians are “Fundamentalist” depending on how you define that term. Other statistics show similar attitudes. For instance, 30% of Americans want a Constitutional Amendment making Christianity the Official Religion of the United States (that’s about half of US Christians), according to a Barna poll taken in 2005.
Studies by various groups have all shown that since 1900, moderate Christianity has been withering, while fundamentalist Christian churchs have been growing by leaps and bounds. Here is one of many sources for that data:
http://www.pbs.org/fmc/book/6religion2.htm another is the fact that the Episcopal church has withered from over 7 million in the 70s to less than half of that now, while the US population grew, and membership data has shown that for any denomination, the more liberal, the faster it is shrinking, the more fundy, the faster it's growing. I think this is because the fundamentalists challenge moderate Christians to support their views using the Bible, and when they try to, they realize that the Bible supports fundamentalism (I’ve read it cover to cover, and I agree with the fundamentalists on this point). So, they are faced with a choice - uphold the Bible and become fundamentalist, or leave Christianity all together. So moderate Christianity bleed members on both sides, explaining why we concurrently see “no religion” rising, fundamentalism rising, and moderate Christianity shrinking. It also explains why fundamentalist power has been growing over this entire time, even though the number of Christians has been shrinking. I see no reason to expect that this polarization of Christianity will reverse what it has been doing for decades. The only exception to the liberal/fundy grouwth trend above is the UUA, which is slowly growing dispite being more liberal than even the UCC. I think that's because they aren't Christian, and so they don't have to wiggle around the Bible.
There are literally millions of moderate and liberal Christians. I don’t deny their existence. I’m just pointing out that though they ruled the country in the 70’s, their influence and members are disappearing. Moderate Christians aren’t a majority, they are a rapidly shrinking minority. Fundamentalists aren’t a tiny minority of Christians, but are instead a growing majority of Christians - and that’s even more true outside the US (excluding Europe). Most Christians worldwide are fundamentalists in Africa, Central and South America. I know it feels better to think that most Christians aren’t fundamentalists, but that’s growing further and further from the truth every day.
I do hope, however, that you are able to get more Christians to be like you.
Have a good weekend-
Equinox
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