{"id":2038,"date":"2007-04-05T02:30:17","date_gmt":"2007-04-05T02:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2007\/04\/the-truth-about-conservative-c.html"},"modified":"2007-04-05T02:30:17","modified_gmt":"2007-04-05T02:30:17","slug":"the-truth-about-conservative-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2007\/04\/the-truth-about-conservative-c.html","title":{"rendered":"The Truth about Conservative Christians 7"},"content":{"rendered":"

The implication of chp 7 in Andrew Greeley and Michael Hout’s book, The Truth about Conservative Christians<\/em>, has an edge of irony or even humor — but statistically accurate: if the Mainline Christian couples want to have more influence in the elections, they need to leave their boycotts and city hall protests and get home, have child-producing you-know-what and start having more babies. Yep, you read it right.
\nWhat explanations are you hearing of why Mainliners are declining and Conservative Protestants growing?
\nOne of the most interesting conclusions that Greeley and Hout discovered is that church growth begins at home, not with the evangelistic tract or evangelistic efforts in CP churches. Conservative churches are growing, not so much by attracting spiritually unfed liberals and mainliners, but by having women who statistically are more fertile. Conservative Christians have more babies than Mainline Christians. CPs have 2.1 children per family; Mainliners have 1.9 children per family. (Contraception is a major issue here.)
\nExcessive liberalism as an explanatory device for growth in CPs is a myth (in their opinion).
\nCPs [Cons Prots] have statistically grown for decades … not by evangelism so much as by having more children; and Mainliners are not holding their own when it comes to the statistical average (or they barely are).
\nConversion stats — from Mainline to CPs — have remained steady for 75 years. 70% of the growth of CPs over Mainliners comes from fertility; the other 30% comes from a drop in conversions to Mainline churches.
\nHere are the possiblities and their statistical conclusions:
\n1. Increased conversion from Mainline to CPs? No.
\n2. Natural increase due to fertility? Yes (70-75%)
\n3. Decline in conversions from CPs to Mainline? Yes (25-30%)
\n4. More apostasy among Mainliners? No.
\n5. Greater inflow from outside Prots to CPs? No.
\nSignificant: CPs have retained the upwardly mobile CP; in former decades many of the upwardly mobile converted to the Mainline churches.
\nThe evidence is that this numerical growth advantage is about to level off so that the stats will remain about the same for the time being.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The implication of chp 7 in Andrew Greeley and Michael Hout’s book, The Truth about Conservative Christians, has an edge of irony or even humor — but statistically accurate: if the Mainline Christian couples want to have more influence in the elections, they need to leave their boycotts and city hall protests and get home,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Truth about Conservative Christians 7 - Jesus Creed<\/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\/jesuscreed\/2007\/04\/the-truth-about-conservative-c.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Truth about Conservative Christians 7 - 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