The Great American Church Migration: A Landmark Study of How, Why, and When People Switch Faiths
About this audiobook
Discover how America's religious landscape is changing--and why.
Over the last five years, 11,000 people a day have decided to stop attending church. What at first looked like a "great dechurching" has turned out to be a mass spiritual migration, with over 60 million people having left the church in the US and significant reshuffling within Christian traditions for those who remain.
Based on a survey of over 100,000 Americans' church-going habits--the largest of its kind ever conducted--The Great American Church Migration, by Ryan P. Burge and Michael Graham, provides clarifying answers to questions like:
- Which Christian traditions are losing the most people, and which are growing?
- Has the US reached peak dechurching yet, or will that trend continue building?
- Is there really a pipeline of young people converting to more liturgical traditions?
- What are the most important factors in determining a lifelong churchgoing habit, and what is the critical timeframe in which that decision is cemented?
- Why are Gen Z females disappearing from church?
If the story of American religion is a migration, then the question is no longer whether people are leaving--but whether the church knows how to meet them along the way. The Great American Church Migration gives pastors and leaders the clarity to answer that question. It shows where influence still exists, when it matters most, and how to engage people before patterns harden for life. For anyone seeking not just to understand the moment but to respond to it, this book offers the insight needed to act with precision, urgency, and hope.
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About the author
Ryan P. Burge is a Professor of Practice at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis. He holds a PhD in political science and has published thirty peer reviewed articles and academic book chapters. In addition, he has written for nearly every major media outlet in the United States: The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and is often quoted in the POLITICO, The Atlantic, and other leading publications. He has appeared on 60 Minutes, where Anderson Cooper called him, “one of the leading data analysts of religion and politics in the United States.” He was also a pastor in the American Baptist Church for over twenty years.
Michael Graham is the Program Director for The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics with The Gospel Coalition. Before that he was a pastor and missionary (CRU) for 15 years and had a second career in finance. Michael’s expertise is in mapping macro trends in evangelicalism, project management, coalition and institution building, and artificial intelligence.
