Understanding Religion in America
Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion has released some very interesting research into religiosity, Christianity and Atheism.
The two items I found most interesting were about megachurches and the relationship between religiosity and superstition.
Megachurches:
Even with congregations of more than 1,000 members, the Baylor Religion Survey found that megachurches surprisingly are more intimate communities than small congregations of less than 100 members (Ch. 5, “Megachurches: Supersizing the Faith”). Megachurch growth is mostly due to their members, who tend to witness to their friends, bringing them into the group, and witness to strangers, much more often than members of small churches.
When compared to small congregations, the survey found that megachurch members display a higher level of personal commitment by attending services and a Bible study group and tithing.
As a person who grew up in a tiny (less than 40 people) congregation, the notion of attending a megachurch has always scared me a little. When husband and I married, we had to find a church that met in the middle. He was attending a baptist church here in Hamilton that had upwards of 500 people a service, and I was attending my little 40-person church. His was too big for me, and mine was too small for him. It was the first and only time I “church-shopped” as we looked for a new community of faith, and we were eventually led to the Nazarene church we are now attending that has approximately 100-120 at Sunday service.
Superstition:
…The ISR researchers found that conservative religious Americans are far less likely to believe in the occult and paranormal than are other Americans, with self-identified theological liberals and the irreligious far more likely than other Americans to believe. The researchers say this shows that it is not religion in general that suppresses such beliefs, but conservative religion.
“There’s an old saying that a man who no longer believes in God is ready to believe in just about anything, and it turns out our data suggests it’s true. That is to say, religious people don’t believe this stuff, but there’s no education effect,” Stark said.
The report goes on to say that those who read “Purpose Driven Life” were less likely to believe in the occult and paranormal than those who had read “The DaVinci Code”. As many know, I have never been a fan of the “Purpose Driven” paraphernalia, but I find it humorous that it has a new “purpose”.
Tags: baylor university, christianity and culture, faith, megachurches, religion research
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March 23, 2009 at 2:34 pm
That shouldn’t surprise me about the mega-churches (but it does). It is not a fair assumption that the Sunday service is the sum total ecclesial experience of any tradition. I know that there is a huge emphasis on cell groups within the mainstream evangelical culture – as a result of churches trying to emulate the megachurch model. One thing we can never accuse megachurches of is being sloppy and unplanned (except maybe in their exegesis
). Interesting how this counters the current insistance that church plants are the primary means that people come to Christ.