Shane Schaetzel †☧ (@RealClearCatholic)

AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY The two charts below represent an accurate picture of what is really happening to American Christianity. I discussed this in all three of my books (Catholic by Choice, The Last Days, and Pine Tree Politics). The percentage chart is a little confusing because percentage is based on the U.S. population, which is growing faster than Christianity is right now. That means the percentage share of the U.S. population in any Christian tradition may appear to decrease while the raw numbers for that tradition may actually be increasing. Nowhere is this more apparent than with Catholicism in recent years. Catholic raw numbers have gone up since 2020, but in terms of percentage share of the U.S. population, the percentage line appears flat since 2020. In the United States, which has more denominations than you can shake a stick at, there are really only three major Christian traditions: Catholic, Mainline Protestant, and Evangelical Protestant. Since 1970, four major things have happened... First, Protestantism (both Mainline and Evangelical together), at just 30% of the U.S. population, is a measurable minority for the first time in American history. Second, Mainline Protestantism has completely crashed, now at just 10% of the U.S. population, and this is confirmed in raw numbers as well, dropping from 44 million to 27 million in a 50-year span. Third, in the same span of time, Evangelical Protestantism (Evangelicalism) has skyrocketed from 24 million to 53 million, more than doubled in size, with the fastest growth happening during the 1970s "Jesus Revolution," now settling at about about 20% of the U.S. population. Fourth, U.S. Catholicism has seen a net growth in overall numbers. from 32 million in the 1970s to 53 million today, dropping from from 23% of the U.S. population in the 1970s, down to 20% of the population today, due to the U.S. population growing faster than the U.S. Catholic Church. So what's the verdict? American Christianity has shifted from Mainline Protestant dominance to Evangelical Protestant dominance in just 50 years, but at the same time, Catholics and Evangelicals are now at close to the same size, both in terms of raw numbers and percentage share of the U.S. population. America is now an Evangelical-Catholic Nation, where Mainline Protestants have become a super-extreme minority that isn't quite negligible yet, but in another 10 to 20 years, it will be. Both Evangelical and Catholic leaders appear to be clueless about this, and neither side appears to be doing what needs to be done in terms of social and political cooperation with each other. Catholic leaders are still operating as if the Mainline Protestants are in charge. While Evangelical leaders are operating as if Catholics are irrelevant. Neither attitude is going to work in this new paradigm. An adversarial relationship (especially in politics) is not only reckless but also stupid. Catholics and Evangelicals are an incredibly powerful voting block if they can learn to work together. This is why I wrote Pine Tree Politics.🌲