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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 3, 1963)
THURSDAY. JANUARY 3, 1983 MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE. MEDFORO. OREGON !: II..'' SNOW IN ENGLAND With trees bowtj London, England, and surrounding corn over with the weight of snow, a bus crawls munities. (UPI) along icy Maiden rd. after heavy snows hit Religion in America End of Rapid Growth Era Noted For American Churches in 1962 By LOUIS CASSELS UPI Correspondent For America's churches, 1962 marked the end of an era. It wa an era in which "re ligion" achieved unprecedent ed popularity, and church membership rose at i spec tacular rate. Since 1B46, when the post . war "religious revival" got under way. American churches have gained about 42 million new members. For 15 consecutive years, - the annual growth in church -'membership substantially ex ceeded population growth. During this period, the pro portion of Americans affiliat ed with religious bodies in creased from less than one half to nearly tworthirds. To make room for the in flux of new members, church es embarked on the biggest building boom in their his tory. Expenditures for church construction, which had to talled less than $200 million in 1946, rose to a level of $1 billion annually in the late 1950s. Begins To Ebb . The Yearbook of American Churches, the : most authori tative compilation of religious statistics, gave clear warning last year that the tid was beginning to ebb. Its figures showed that church member ship gains were only slightly greater than population growth. The new Yearbook of Amer ican Churches was out last week. It reports that church membership gains, for the first time since World War II, have fallen below the rate of population growth. To be precise, church membership rose 1.4 per cent, while the national population was in creasing by 1.6 per cent This means that the pro portion of church members in the U.S. population actual ly has declined - only a frac tion of one percentage point to be sure - -but enough to mark the end of the era of rapid and easy growth. Just Beginning Those who saw a "religious revival" in the rosy statistics of the 1950s may mourn its passing. But there are others who believe that American church es are only now beginning to experience a genuine revival. "The flocking of people to the churches following World War II was a type of crisis religion, a shallow demon stration of popular piety with- ooo MM 193S 193$ 1937 I93 IS39 1940 1941 1942 H CP 1943 1944 194S 194$ 1947 19411 1949 1950 1951 19S2 MS-J 19S4 JS55 I9S$ & Q) 1953 19S9 19SI 1962 out any real depth of con cern," says the Rev. Dr. Ar thur Vincent, a Missouri Synod Lutheran leader. "Today we find that reli gion is not quite so popular among the masses. B it in stead, we are discovering a tremendous growth of inter est in Bible study among our people." 'Clergymen of other de nominations can offer similar testimony. Throughout Amer ica, there are signs - not eas ily measured by statistics, but unmistakable to any close observer of church life - of deepening faith and commit ment. Become More Serious It can be seen in such things as the spontaneous de velopment of small groups of concerned laymen who meet in private homes to wresile seriously with the implica tions of Christian doctrine; in the active interest displayed by adults in religion courses which require them to do real study; In the growing accept ance of tithing as a minimum standard for stewardship of money; in the steady demand registered at church libraries and book stores for rood reli gious books as opposed to the tripe which often hit the best seller lists in the days when religion was being peddled to the public as an easy out for life's problems. Teen-Agers Remain Active It is also reflected In grow ing attendance at week end retreats; in the number of teen-agers who remain active in church lite after they are too old to be "made" to go to Sunday School; in the searching curiosity of college student: about authentic Christianity; in the readiness of young churchmen to risk imprisonment or injury to bear witness for the Christian convictions on such social is sues as race relations. These manifestations of real Christian commitment still are confined to a creative minority in the church. They do not refute the observation that a great many church members remain lukewarm, ill-informed and apathetic. But they do provide better evidence of real religious re vival than could ever be found In the soaring member ship statistics of the postwar era. Not a penny lost Since 19.1-1. when Congress established the Federal Savin? and Loan Insurance Corporation, no one ha ever lust a Jirn in insured savings accounts in any of America's F. 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