On March 8, statistician, pastor and author Ryan Burge tweeted a series of graphs showing responses from survey participants sorted by varying frequencies of religious service attendance. Participants answered the question, “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can…
Why is the SBC so influential? Look at the number of congregations
If you want to understand why Southern Baptists are in the news so much, one simple chart produced by Ryan Burge might show the answer. The SBC counts 51,379 congregations in the United States, far more than any other denomination….
Interpreting the recent dramatic decrease in American teen pregnancy rates
Ryan Burge — pastor, author and statistician — frequently shares intriguing research data on his Twitter account. On Nov. 19, Burge tweeted a graph showing the dramatic decrease in the amount of recorded U.S. teen pregnancies with the caption, “Can…
Children being raised in America today attend church far less frequently than their parents and grandparents did
Children being raised in America today attend church far less frequently than their parents and grandparents did, largely because their parents have stopped attending as adults. Gallup reports that more than a third of American adults have fallen away from…
Have the ‘nones’ hit a plateau?
The so-called “nones” may now have something in common with most American churches: They’ve plateaued, according to Gallup. Amid all the attention that’s been given to the dramatic growth of this segment of the American population — those who tell…
The nondenominationalizing of American Christianity
Joel Osteen is an ecclesiastical phenomenon, an American, evangelical, charismatic, postmodern, megachurch, media savvy, health/wealth/motivational speaker, gospel-preacher phenomenon. A 59-year-old who doesn’t look it, Osteen seems made for the media — razor thin, self-effacing, pragmatic and guileless to a fault,…
What to do with the nones?
Ryan Burge is rather convincing. As an academic (Eastern Illinois University) social scientist and American Baptist pastor, he has a foot in two of the worlds many of us occupy. He was our guest recently for a day of conversation…
Moderates are an endangered species in the pews, but they aren’t completely extinct at the ballot box
Moderates are such an endangered species that even when you see one in the wild, they’re easy to miss. Pick your favorite hot button topic of the day and you can likely summarize what the left and what the right…
Burge: Churches should brace for the downsizing still to come
If they haven’t done so already, American churches should brace themselves for the acceleration of social, political and religious trends already ravaging faith institutions, researcher and author Ryan Burge warned. “I think we’re in for a serious downsizing of American…