Posts Tagged 'evangelicalism'

The third American Religious Identification Survey has just been released, and it shows some interesting trends.  In terms of percentage, overall self-identification as “Christian” has stayed about the same as it was in 2001 -  76%, but there have been a couple of areas of significant change:

• Non-denominational Christians have tripled in size (as a percentage) to just over eight million.
• Evangelical Christians have doubled in size (as a percentage) to over two million.
• Mainline Christians appear to have dropped the most, down to twenty-nine million.

US Population by Religious Tradition

Using the religious tradition categories above, how do you identify yourself?

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I’ve been doing some reading about “mission” this week, as I prepare for a teaching time about one of the core elements of a Christian’s “call” to follow God.  What is our purpose, our mission, our calling, etc?  At a high level, it seems threefold – all followers of God are called to holiness, to community, and to mission (which, not surprisingly, is also how our series is unfolding!).  But what is “mission”?

This is where my reading comes in.    Over at Christianity Today, there is a brief article called “The Greatest Social Need” that explores various social needs and concerns, but does so by asking the question of what the root problem is.  The author concludes, and I would agree, that the greatest social problem is

The Centre for Research on Canadian Evangelicalism just released a report that analyzes recent trends in Canadian giving, volunteering, and participating.  Given the media’s propensity to portray evangelical Christians as intolerant, politically threatening and divisive, the report’s conclusions are particularly timely and intriguing.  You can access the full report here.

Read the report and post some comments and observations …