America is no longer predominantly white or Christian. And it’s certainly not white Christian anymore. In fact, only 45 percent of the country is white Christian now.
In the following video, Robert P. Jones, author of The End of White Christian America, speaks to this cultural trend and gives a brief overview of the numbers behind this statement.
What comes to mind when people think of America is changing, Jones says. It’s changing except in one particular group of people’s minds: “For many white evangelicals, they see something that looks like a Norman Rockwell painting—a white, Protestant family gathered around the Thanksgiving table.”
It is this shifting image of America that is causing fights, Jones says. “People fight like that when they are losing a sense of place, a sense of belonging, and a sense of the country that they understand and love,” he explains.
Jones raises a good question in his interview, one that seems to be the million dollar question for evangelicals whose churches are mostly white: How do we engage this shifting culture? Jones commends evangelicals like Russell Moore, who is trying to thoughtfully navigate this trend. Evangelicals like Moore are “taking one seat at the table and not pretending that they own the whole table.” This group, Jones implies, is humbly trying to find their niche.
However, there is another group, a more vocal, and Jones argues, reactionary group, calling for Christians to “reclaim their dominant space in public life.” Jones believes this group is not going to have much luck with their reactionary tactics.
To read a more thorough overview of the research behind Jones’s interview, you can see his article in The Atlantic http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/the-eclipse-of-white-christian-america/490724/.
