Are Christians Contributing to Unbelief?

Every indication suggests that America is becoming increasingly secular. However, if we mean increasingly secular in the sense that more and more people are now irreligious, secularism has a long way to go. In fact, 78.4 percent of Americans still describe themselves as Christian and ninety-one percent say they believe in God, according to a 2011 Gallup survey. Only 1.4 percent of Americans identify themselves as atheists and another 2.4 percent claim to be agnostic, according to the latest Pew Forum research. Granted, assent to belief in God can (and often does) include those completely unrelated to faith in Jesus Christ and nominal Christians, but that is not my point.

Americans actually remain strongly “religious” and the only change has been in the fact that we are seeing an increased level of comfort among the unbelieving to express themselves. Simply consider the popularity of prominent atheist writers such as Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris-all of whom have published books that made it onto the New York Times Best Sellers list. More recently, Hollywood released a slew of independent films which rail against evangelicalism such as the megachurch satire Salvation Boulevard, the atheist film The Ledge and Sundance Film Festival favorite, Higher Ground.

This raises the obvious question: If Americans remain so staunchly religious then why do books such as Hitchens’s God is Not Great or films ridiculing Christianity seem to be gaining popularity?

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