{"id":2263,"date":"2008-01-31T11:14:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-31T11:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/where-is-everybody.html"},"modified":"2008-01-31T11:14:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-31T11:14:00","slug":"where-is-everybody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/where-is-everybody.html","title":{"rendered":"Where is everybody?"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> Wonder why more people don’t go to church? <\/p>\n

A new survey, reported in the National Catholic Reporter, from the Religion News Service, finds some answers<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Almost three-quarters of Americans who haven\u2019t darkened the door of a church in the last six months think it is \u201cfull of hypocrites,\u201d and even more of them consider Christianity to be more about organized religion than about loving God and people, according to a new survey.<\/p>\n

Almost half of those surveyed — 44 percent — agreed that \u201cChristians get on my nerves.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the survey of \u201cunchurched\u201d Americans by LifeWay Research also found that some 78 percent said they would be willing to listen to someone who wanted to tell them about his or her Christian beliefs.<\/p>\n

Researchers, affiliated with the Southern Baptists\u2019 LifeWay Christian Resources, defined \u201cunchurched\u201d as Christians who haven\u2019t attended church in six months as well as non-Christians such as Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists.<\/p>\n

The findings echoed a previous study by The Barna Group that found the vast majority of young non-Christians view Christianity as anti-gay, judgmental and hypocritical.<\/p>\n

Scott McConnell, associate director of LifeWay Research, said the finding that 79 percent of respondents thought Christianity was more about organized religion than about loving God and people should challenge individual Christians.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat really needs to cause the church to check themselves a little bit and to say, \u2018OK, how can we get back to the main thing?\u2019 \u201d he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wonder why more people don’t go to church? A new survey, reported in the National Catholic Reporter, from the Religion News Service, finds some answers: Almost three-quarters of Americans who haven\u2019t darkened the door of a church in the last six months think it is \u201cfull of hypocrites,\u201d and even more of them consider Christianity…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-and-that"],"yoast_head":"\nWhere is everybody? - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/where-is-everybody.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Where is everybody? - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Wonder why more people don’t go to church? A new survey, reported in the National Catholic Reporter, from the Religion News Service, finds some answers: Almost three-quarters of Americans who haven\u2019t darkened the door of a church in the last six months think it is \u201cfull of hypocrites,\u201d and even more of them consider Christianity…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/where-is-everybody.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-01-31T11:14:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/R6H0oYmZqDI\/AAAAAAAAB5s\/-lQvsciqgR4\/s320\/church_resize%5B1%5D.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"deacon greg kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Where is everybody? - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/where-is-everybody.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Where is everybody? - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"Wonder why more people don’t go to church? 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