It’s no exaggeration to say that Americans’ faith in institutions is at a nadir. A June 2023 Gallup survey found that public confidence in everything from the presidency to the medical system to newspapers is at or approaching record lows. Trust in religious institutions is also plummeting, a fact underscored by runaway rates of disaffiliation. As recently as 2007, 78 percent of Americans identified as Christian, while only 16 percent described themselves as religiously unaffiliated. Since then, self-identifying Christians have dropped to just 63 percent of the population, while “the nones” have risen to 29 percent. Some experts anticipate that the religiously unaffiliated could constitute a majority as soon as 2070.
The reverberations of this trend are visible across the country, including at the Mainline Presbyterian seminary where I teach. The percentage of nondenominational and unaffiliated students in our student body is growing, while the overall applicant pool for the Master of Divinity is shrinking. Many of those who matriculate are uncertain about whether they want to be ministers or work for a religious institution at all.
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