If i had to guess, it would be that they considered themselves christian? But i’m not sure what that would tell us.
I assume whatever they meant by “christian” would be culturally relative, and probably different from what we mean when we say it today. at least it would have very different political and cultural implications.
after reading that book, i tried to find additional information about church membership, particularly going back earlier. it was hard to find anything i could latch onto.
incidentally, the sources from that book are:
A. Roy Eckhardt, The Surge of Piety in America: An Appraisal (New York: Association Press, 1958), 22–23;
Stephen J. Whitfield, The Culture of the Cold War, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 83;
Leo Calvin Rosten, Religions in America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963), 327.
I’ve never joined my current church. I’m pretty involved… sing in the choir, volunteer in the nursery, attend services most weeks, and the VITA site is at the church (although that’s through the IRS and you do not need to be affiliated with the church to volunteer although well over half are). But I never joined. I don’t love the pastor. There’s nothing that makes me feel like “yes, this is where I belong”… I just gave up on finding anything better.
My church in my last city… that just felt right. My biggest complaint was literally that the senior pastor was a bit too militant about keeping the service to precisely 60 minutes and not a single minute more. (No, we are not going to cut a minute out of the music we prepared. If we go over, we go over.)
This church only feels ok. So I never joined. So I guess I’d be a “no” on the first and a “yes” on the second.
But i think that it is church membership that has a more objective meaning.
and it draws into question how we interpret the gallop poll results, at least for me. for example, how many people are no longer identifying as christian because in popular culture it is more readily identified with conservatism, and it’s issues, as opposed to the social gospel and liberal issues earlier this century?
I remember reading an article that claimed cs lewis was not really a christian, and that jrr tolkien’s middle earth was satanic.
My ex-husband told me I was “really reaching for what I wanted to see” after we watched The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and I mentioned that Aslan represented Christ.
I don’t understand why you are bringing morality up.
When i say church membership is more objective, i simply mean it is easier to understand independent of a privileged view of the truth. For example, i mean it’s easier to know what church membership meant in 1850, as opposed to what “identifying as christian” might mean over time.
I’m not sure that’s true actually. Did churches even have membership back then?
PCUSA differentiates between “Active Members”, “Inactive Members”, and a third category that I forget the name of but is essentially folks who meet the criteria for inactive members but whom they expect back. A National Guardsman whose unit was called to Iraq for a year, or someone who took a leave of absence from work and went to Florida to take care of their sick mother … that sort of thing.
That’s all very dependent on how you define the categories, and doesn’t include people like me who probably attend 60 church services a year but am not an active member of any church.
Whereas attendance is measuring butts in seats. I think that’s far more objective.
