Book Review: The Myth of the Dying Church by Glenn T. Stanton

It’s a book that seems too good to be true: Christianity isn’t declining, in fact, authentic Christian faith is on the rise, both in the United States and globally. This is the message of The Myth of the Dying Church: How Christianity is Actually Thriving in America and the World (Worthy Publishing, 2019).

The author, Glenn T. Stanton, is a researcher, columnist, lecturer, and debater, and directs the Global Family Formation Studies at Focus on the Family. He makes his living doing research and among other things, actually reading, studying, and finding the nuances and trends in current sociological research papers, rather than just quickly skimming headlines of major news publications the way most of us do.

Stanton reports that “Church attendance is at an all-time high”, “Biblical churches are holding strong”, and “Global growth of Christianity is booming.”

He goes on to assert that atheism and agnosticism aren’t growing wildly, and that children who are raised with strong Christian influence are very likely to became strong Christians themselves, rather than “leaving the church in droves” as is commonly believed.

All of this, of course, contradicts much of what a lot of Americans, both Christians and non-Christians believe. So, it is true? Can Stanton’s book live up to its title?

The book soon makes an important distinction: Mainline churches that are theologically liberal (“…those denying the deity of Christ; rejecting the reality of sin; doubting the historical reality of Christ’s death and resurrection…”) are, indeed, dying. They’re the ones losing people in droves, “hemorrhaging members”, is the way Stanton puts it.

According to Stanton, churches that change the Bible’s message to appeal to what’s currently popular actually lose members more quickly than those that hold to traditional beliefs about God and the Bible.

Which to me, makes perfect sense. Strip Christianity of the deity of Jesus, and the Bible of its authority, and there’s not a whole lot of motivation left to crawl out of bed on a Sunday morning.

However, churches that teach traditional versions of Christianity, including evangelical denominations and nondenominational churches, are either holding steady as a percentage of the population or have grown slightly. Trends like increased prayer and greater church attendance indicate that America’s Christians aren’t rapidly bailing out on their faith.

Stanton goes on to quote Dr. Barry A. Kosmin, the sociologist who coined the term nones (meaning those who have no religious belief), as saying “The rise of nondenominational Christianity is probably one of the strongest [religious growth] trends in the last two decades”. Stanton adds that Dr. Kosmin says “the percentage gain is ‘many times larger’ compared to those we have come to know as the nones.”

So, “it’s the ‘nons” and not the ‘nones’ that are mushrooming”, says Stanton.

The Myth of the Dying Church quotes a huge number of studies and scholars from both Christian and secular organizations. Stanton also found some bad news in his research, for example, Bible literacy is down. But overall, he paints a positive picture for Christianity, in America and worldwide.

The Myth of the Dying Church is readable and has enough human interest stories and bits of humor to keep things enjoyable for the non-scholar. His conclusions seem reasonable and balanced to me, and if you are interested in this subject, I highly recommend buying a copy of The Myth of the Dying Church. You can get the book on Amazon here or get a copy from CBD here.

One of the most thought-provoking parts of the book for me was this question, asked in Chapter 9.

Book: “Is your church shrinking? Are your friends’ churches declining?”

Me: Well, no.

Lancaster County, where I live, has thousands of churches. There’s at least five churches within a 15-minute walk from my house, and I don’t live in the city, either. (One of those five churches is where I shot the main image for this blog post.)

The local Mennonite churches, the ones I’m most familiar with, are thriving and overflowing with people. (Yes, this is mostly due to a high birth rate. However, those cute little people running around after church every Sunday are human souls, so that’s irrelevant.)

One very conservative Mennonite church in my area had to build an addition onto their meetinghouse, because, at least according to one member, “There are so many single people coming that they fill up the church.” Imagine the renovations that would have had to happen if those single people had all gotten married and had children!

My own church, Oasis Mennonite Fellowship, spent two years looking for a new church building in New Holland. (Several other churches were looking in the same area at the same time, and not really finding any building or land available.) We’re now making plans to move into a former silk mill.

Okay, so, no, I haven’t noticed too many shrinking churches. Nor have I seen many of my young adult peers forsaking Jesus. But, I thought, isn’t this because I live in Lancaster County, home to Pennsylvania’s Bible Belt? The rest of America is probably different.

Maybe not. Stanton says, “But this is not what we are seeing in the churches in our neighborhoods. But because we hear so many gloom and doom stories, we assume it must be happening elsewhere. It’s really not, though. Your community is not really that different than others a thousand miles away.”

It’s like he was reading my thoughts! Okay, Lancaster County does have its quirks. But perhaps, just perhaps, overflowing churches isn’t one them!

Note: below are two photos of very different groups of Christians sharing their faith in Philadelphia. I took these two pictures on the same day a couple years ago.