Third, Migration Impacts Religious Participation
Migration has always had an impact on openness. In particular, immigration has also impacted religious patterns in the United States and Canada. There are many facets of this reality and too many to examine here.
For example, immigration has kept Catholicism in America afloat. If it weren’t for an influx of new parishioners from other countries, particularly Latin America, Roman Catholics would have experienced substantial decline like mainline Protestant denominations.
But instead, the overall number of Roman Catholics has stayed relatively steady because of the increasing presence of so many Latino Catholics.
On the Protestant/evangelical side of things, immigration from Asia has made an impact in, to pick an example, evangelicals in universities. If you were to visit the student ministries at some of the major universities of the Northeast (or many other places), you’d find a surprising number of Asian-American Christians there.
And it is not just migration—migration is a mostly first generation phenomena. However, migration leads to diversity. And to quote our own Bob Smietana:
Almost everyday, it seems, there’s a new story about how “Millennials are leaving the church.” But there’s a problem with these trend pieces: They aren’t true. American Christianity still has plenty of Millennials—they’re just not necessarily in white churches.
Indeed.
Fourth and Finally, Migration Opens Opportunities for the Gospel
Yes, multicultural expression has been a boost to many churches. However, migration itself may make people more open to considering the gospel.
Philip Connor, a research associate at the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, is an expert on immigration and religion in the United States, Canada and Europe (check out his book here).
He’s studied the religious patterns of immigrants into Canada and found that when people migrate into a Western society—for example, Buddhists from Southeast Asia—they either become much more devout or much less devout.
Few immigrants maintain the same level of religious commitment upon migration.
As he saw reported, immigrants go in one of two directions. Some of them rediscover their spiritual heritage and build mosques or temples in their new communities. Others come here and are open to change.
From the perspective of evangelicals passionate about sharing the gospel, they are open to the Christian faith because they find that the religious underpinnings they thought were secure are unable to answer the questions they have, living in a new cultural context. This brings openness to the gospel.
For the gospel’s sake, let’s consider both the challenge and opportunity that lie before us. In the coming years and decades, we are going to see the percentage of non-Anglo and non-Christian neighbors increase.
What’s Next?
We’ve passed multicultural milestones recently. For example, the majority of school children in the United States are now non-Anglo. This is just the beginning, and it is a challenge and an opportunity.
My hope is that evangelicals will still have a heart for the nations and will engage in global missions. However, my prayer is that we will also have a passion to share the gospel with the nations living next door.