Time for a rummage sale

There is such a thing, in my opinion, as "fake news." President Trump made that phrase popular. When I think of fake news, I don't think of politics, though. My mind goes to the regular abuse made of statistics, of data, of numbers. This skewing of "the numbers" often leads to inaccurate conclusions.

One of the most abused stats in America is almost laughable. Here it is: half of all marriages end in divorce. Not true. It's never been true. Yet politicians, media figures, yes, even some clergy repeat that canard as if it was holy writ. Here's how the erroneous half-and-half figure was generated. The census report of 1980 predicted half of the marriages formalized in 1976 and 1977 would end in divorce. That 50% number found itself extrapolated into a universal axiom. As such, it was imprinted into many minds. It is manifestly untrue. In fact, much more recent data suggests two-thirds of Americans will never divorce. Since I've assaulted all data points in this column, it is impossible to stand behind this last one either, yet common sense tells you "two-thirds never" is much closer to the truth than the idea 50% of all unions will fail.

There is also fake news involving the church. The church, or so the polls tell us, is going the way of the dinosaur. More and more people are professing atheism, churches are closing, worship attendance is falling, et al. There are numbers to support everything you read in the previous sentence. Rather than a death sentence, though, I see a rummage sale.

Let's play with some more data first before I explain.

You and I live in the 80th most post-Christian population center in the United States -- 80th out of 100 markets surveyed in the U.S. Hmm. You may be wondering what "post-Christian" means. Me, too.

The Barna Group, sort of the Gallup Poll for the church, has been conducting research since 1984 to see which way the U.S. is leaning from a faith perspective. More and more, Barna says, folks are leaning away.

We don't need Barna to tell us there's a trend. Pew Research Center, another statistic-gathering firm, reported in early 2019 that religious "nones" have risen to the highest level since polling began. No fewer than 23 percent of American adults, says Pew, are abandoning traditional religious denominations. Religious "nones" (Americans who identify as atheist, agnostic, or nothing at all) now are nearly one-quarter of the country.

Putting Pew's findings alongside that of Barna's, we see which way the wind is blowing.

A little more on the numbers from Barna before drawing any conclusions. To be classified as "post-Christian," a person must meet at least nine of 16 criteria "identifying a lack of Christian identity, belief, and practice." This was a longitudinal study, meaning it is based on telephone and online surveys of more than 21,000 American adults over a 10-year period. I assume nine is the arbitrary number chosen to tip a person into the post-Christian camp because it is one more than half the way to 16.

Some of the 16 questions are too general and in my mind serve to invalidate the results. "Have you prayed to God in the last week?" Having studied the spiritual disciplines, it is clear there are several ways to interpret prayer, including non-verbal contemplation, or centering prayer, which often involves no words at all. Would Barna count contemplation as prayer -- or does kneeling beside the bed, hands clasped together, silently mouthing words of petition, the only form of God-directed communication that counts? Too general.

Do you agree the Bible is accurate? What do you mean, Mr. Barna, by accurate? If I point out that Genesis chapters one and two, the two stories of creation, disagree in detail, does that mean I think the Scriptures are inaccurate? If you don't mean inaccurate, tell me what you mean! Again, too general. (By the way, I suspect Barna means "believable," not accurate here.)

This author is deeply suspicious of surveys. Methodology is important, and so are the questions asked. There are so many ways to manipulate a poll and skew the data. That said, Barna suggests the Paducah/Cape Girardeau/Harrisburg-Mt. Vernon market is 36% post-Christian. (The #1 post-Christian U.S. market? Springfield-Holyoke, Massachusetts, where 66% of all adults are labeled as post-Christian.)

The late Phyllis Tickle suggested in her 2008 book, "The Great Emergence," every half-a-millennium or so the church has what she calls "a rummage sale." Painstakingly researched, Tickle takes the readers from the first century to today, showing how the institutional church has cleaned out the cupboards of unneeded, unsuitable and unwanted junk and started afresh. She says this has happened every 500 years in church history. And, this genteel Southerner suggests, the church is now overdue for another rummage sale.

You know what? I think Ms. Tickle right. Rather than a depressing time for the church, which Christ called into existence in the Gospel of Matthew, we live in exciting times indeed. I can't wait to see what happens next.