Name Droppers

            In a recent article, Mike Glenn addresses the decline in church attendance in our country.  Various reasons are debated for this decrease and Glenn offers his own take on the issue.  He likens it to the social practice of “name dropping”, where someone claims to “know” someone yet, in reality, they would hardly qualify as a casual acquaintance.  Read on as he describes what he means:

            “According to recent studies, as much of 40% of students will walk away from the Christian faith as they become adults. Millions of people have stopped coming to church at all and deny any kind of religious affiliation.

“I get it. There are, of course, several reasons that feed into this new reality. One of them is honesty. Several years ago, being a member of a local church was a social expectation. No one really cared if you attended or not, or if you adhered to the church’s statements of faith. You just had to be a member. That means denominational executives were able to claim thousands of members who were never active in any reasonable manner in any church. Their names were the rolls. That’s it.

“So, when the numbers started dropping, I wasn’t surprised. I thought we were finally getting our numbers straightened out. The numbers seemed to be a little more accurate – at least from my experience. Let’s just say there have never been as many Christians in local churches as was claimed. We have a lot of name droppers.”*

            I think he is on to something.  Perhaps as Christianity is increasingly pushed to the margins in our society, there is less of an appeal to merely claim religious affiliation.  The “name droppers” start to drop off when the social benefits of membership start to wane. When the perks of being part of the country club are out-weighed by the cost, people start looking for a different club.  Perhaps Glenn is right.  Maybe tough times have a way of differentiating the “name confessors” from the “name droppers.” 

God loves you!

Mike

*https://www.christianitytoday.com/scot-mcknight/2020/february/name-dropping.html