American houses of worship--like many other institutions--no longer benefit from brand loyalty.
Almost half of Americans switch from the faith they were raised in, a survey released this week said.
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life interviewed more than 35,000 people for the study and said it was unique in its "breadth and depth," because it represented so many people and asked new questions.
Study leaders compared U.S. religion to a "vibrant marketplace" but locals who've strayed and stayed in their faiths don't see religion as a competition so much as a personal choice.
Some shared their reasons for changing affiliation or for sticking with their childhood religion:
The survey found 10 percent of Americans are former Catholics. But Kaila, a lifelong Catholic, chose to stay.
Kaila went to Catholic grade school and taught Sunday school in college, but briefly fell away from the church during his first few years of marriage. He and his wife looked into other churches when they married 32 years ago. When the couple settled in Fredericksburg in 1979, Kaila started teaching youth classes at St. Mary Catholic Church. Kaila rediscovered his faith, and has attended regularly ever since--he and his wife make a point of going to Mass when vacationing.
Kaila said that while attending other churches, "there was always something missing. Maybe it was that I was used to the Catholic 'rules and regulations,' but most of all, I missed the sacraments."
Mike Blake, 31, Spotsylvania County, evangelical Christian
Blake grew up in Roanoke. His parents attended a Presbyterian (USA) church, and Blake did, too, until attending Mary Washington College in 1995. Then, he discovered evangelical Christianity.
"I can't point to one moment in time during that year that I consider my 'conversion' moment or anything like that," he said. "It was more of a transition into a better and more complete understanding of what it means to follow Christ."
He now attends Grace Church of Fredericksburg, an evangelical nondenominational church in Spotsylvania County. That makes Blake like the 31 percent of evangelical Protestants the survey found who used to belong to a different form of Protestantism.
"In the end, I don't think it really matters what your 'denomination' is," Blake said. "If you are putting your faith in Jesus and put your faith into action, then it doesn't really matter. My feeling is that the Lord cares less about what church you attend and cares more about what you believe in your heart and how you live your life."
Anna Victoria Reich, 47, Stafford County, Jewish
Reich said her Jewish faith "plays a special role in her heart and brain."
She contracted a high fever as a child and developed epilepsy. She attended Hebrew school and yeshiva throughout high school and also attended temple every Saturday. She chose to remain in her faith because she is proud of the roots her parents gave her.
Living through epilepsy and a brain surgery "drove me to being closer to my religion," Reich said.
She is like many raised Jewish; the survey found Judaism had one of the highest retention rates: 76 percent of people raised Jewish stay in the faith.
Tod Hale, 45, Stafford County, unaffiliated
Hale stopped believing in Santa Claus by the time he was 6. "It just didn't make sense to me," he said. Neither did the Bible or some Christian tenets.
Hale's father wasn't religious and his mom was a Catholic who began to lose her faith during Hale's toddler years, he said.
Hale was baptized Catholic but never confirmed. As a teen, he wondered how Christians could believe the only way to get to heaven was by believing in Jesus Christ, when there are good people throughout history who never had the chance to hear about Jesus. He later came to the conclusion there is no afterlife and doesn't believe in God.
As a biologist, Hale also can't believe the story in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, which details God's creation of the world.
Friends and neighbors often try to convert Hale, but he is never tempted, he said. The survey's unaffiliated category is the fastest growing, but also the one to lose the most people. Hale doesn't foresee joining a faith.
"I've got my own thing going," he said.
Mike Prowitt, 69, Spotsylvania County, Episcopalian
Prowitt grew up in a nonreligious house and began attending church by himself at age 11.
He found the Congregational church through his Boy Scout troop, which met at the church. He joined the U.S. Marine Corps at the age of 17 and joined the Catholic Church then. Prowitt stayed Catholic through his late teens and his marriage, but he questioned some of the church's tenets.
He found himself drawn to Protestantism and joined a Methodist church. He later visited Christ Episcopal Church in Spotsylvania County in 1989, and found the aspects of worship there that he loved about the Catholic faith without the dogma he'd questioned. Prowitt has been a member of that church ever since.
Prowitt is among the 51 percent of Americans who are Protestants, though their overall percentage is declining.
But he thinks belonging to a variety of faiths early on helped him.
"By changing churches, I think I got a better understanding and toleration for other faiths," he said.
People with too much time on their hands...(posted by
rikkirat
, Mar. 1, 2008 7:26 pm)
Waste it on religion - totally irrelevant and unnecessary. To openly embrace and espouse any "organized" religion is silly. Some people think that they need to be a part of some organization, you'd do just as well to join the Elks Club, VFW or Kiwanis.
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