What Americans Really Believe

it is a very good review of some opinion polls about religion in America. I hoped it might be more text than polls, but it is not. But, it is interesting.

All too often, conservative politicians will claim America is a Christian nation. But do the numbers back up their claim? "What Americans Really Believe" is a scholarly and far reaching study on a number of subjects ranging from politics to faith to the paranormal, to even the value of civil service. The surveys presented are quite intriguing and a look into the true American mindset when it comes to how their minds work. "What Americans Really Believe" is quite intriguing, highly entertaining, and educational.

This book does a great job giving the rest of the story behind the common themes talked about in churches today. For example, they explain where all those "missing" young adults are who have left church.Hint: Check their apartments, they may just be sleeping in as young people have done for as long as people have been paying attention to church attendance stats. Either that, or they are attending another church that has a program they prefer more. "These examples also reveal how often even very reputable observers of American religion get things wrong and some of the potential costs of their errors. For example, it would be a waste of their funds for some churches to mount a campaign to save their young people from leaving the church, when no such thing is going on. On the other hand, some groups clearly are loosing their young (and many of their older members too), not to irreligion but to other denominations. For those churches, any effort to reverse their declines depends upon being able to motivate their current members to reach out to others." (page 14)