It has been interesting to watch the buzz over the recent Pew study looking at religious affiliation between 2007 and 2014. Although I’m very thankful to Pew for their incredible work in pulling together the hard data, we’re seeing a widespread reaction (both from within and outside Christianity) that is disproportionate to the amount of surprising data the report contains (which is little to none).
Somehow, it seems like the institutional church is just now beginning to really grapple with the reality. As Canadian pastor Erik Parker pointed out, however, it is not as unprecedented as many seem to think. “The Golden Era of church attendance in the 1950s was the abnormality,” he wrote.
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