0: Introduction

Surprising Data About Religion

I invest a lot of effort trying to understand future trends, both personally and as part of my job.

Like most Americans who pay close attention to trends, two years ago I called ours a society in decline. I watched many positive trends peak and start sliding backwards, and these trends continue to this day.

Recently, though, I ran across some data which upset this narrative.

In a nutshell, religious groups with certain specific features—features which allow them to resist the most-destructive trends of mainstream society—have been growing rapidly for many years now. They may seem weird or quaint at first glance, but what they do is working.

Trying to understand this data, I stumbled across the work of two sociologists of history named Jacques Ellul and Rodney Stark. The data fit their frameworks like a key, unlocking a hopeful new way of thinking about the future for me.

It’s time for us to start paying attention to these groups. They have a hope that the rest of us have lost.

The trendline below shows one high-level example.

And in logarithmic form:

I fully expect you to doubt this forecast at first—in fact I hope that you will—and I look forward to some good conversations about it.

Purpose

This blog represents my attempt to do the following:

1. Explore trends likely to influence the future of American religion, assessing their durability using sociology, history, and proven forecasting techniques.

2. Identify the core practices of growing high-tension faith communities.

3. Collaborate with others on experiments in our own congregations to determine which practices more-mainstream religious groups (like mine) can successfully adopt and maintain.