The Road Christianity Could Have Taken

 

Christianity has steadily become a morally evil force in the United States. This was not an inevitable result, although, perhaps it was a likely one.

Mainline Protestants and Catholics could have tried to nip in the bud the current trend in the bud, denouncing the prosperity gospel, the resort to Old Testament thinking, and the general atmosphere of hate in Christianity. There were seeds of that. In Catholicism there was liberation theology and the social gospel, and as a global faith with a leader in Italy, it has always been a bit more cosmopolitan than American Protestantism, even if it has had no qualms about blending church and state. These trends also made real progress in elite seminary training for mainline Protestants, but the living faith of the people in the pews didn't transform in the same way.

These movements within American Christianity didn't bear fruit. Promising steps in the 1960s and 1970s in that direction fizzled out without fanfare. The path suggested by the Chicago Folk Service faded away, while the path imitating secular arena rock thrived.

One of the big barriers to this path is that Christianity is fundamentally at odds with the metaphysical naturalism that is the correct description of our world. In a scientific worldview, there is no room for miracles, for divine intervention, for prayers that make a difference, for faith healing, for demonic temptation and corruption.

The people who have left Christianity are not a random sampling of Christians. They are disproportionately people who share that scientific worldview, and it so happens that a scientific worldview and more humane moral instincts tend to coincide. This is why a more moral Christianity was always going to be a less likely outcome.

Of course, in the United States, where there is great freedom of religion, it is also the case that heresy can't have legal force. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution means that there is no such thing as a heretical sect in the United States. It is an open marketplace of ideas, and the sects that appeal to the darker sides of human nature thrived in that competition.

U.S. Births Fall Again In 2023

Teen birth rates are again lower than they have ever been in the history and prehistory of humans in North America. 

The provisional number of births for the United States in 2023 was 3,591,328, down 2% from 2022. The general fertility rate was 54.4 births per 1,000 females ages 15–44, down 3% from 2022. The total fertility rate was 1,616.5 births per 1,000 women in 2023, a decline of 2% from 2022. Birth rates declined for females in age groups 15–19 through 35–39 and were unchanged for females ages 10–14 and for women ages 40–44 and 45–49 in 2023. The birth rate for teenagers ages 15–19 declined by 3% in 2023 to 13.2 births per 1,000 females; the rate for younger teenagers (ages 15–17) was unchanged, and the rate for older teenagers (ages 18–19) declined 3%. . . . 

The provisional number of births for the United States in 2023 was 3,591,328, down 2% from the number in 2022 (3,667,758). The number of births declined by an average of 2% per year from 2015 to 2020, including a decline of 4% from 2019 to 2020, rose 1% from 2020 to 2021, and was essentially unchanged from 2021 to 2022.

The provisional number of births declined 5% for American Indian and Alaska Native women, 4% for Black women, 3% for White women, and 2% for Asian women from 2022 to 2023. Births rose 1% for Hispanic women and were essentially unchanged for Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander women. . . .

The provisional total fertility rate for the United States in 2023 was 1,616.5 births per 1,000 women, down 2% from the rate in 2022 (1,656.5); the rate had declined less than 1% from 2021 to 2022, risen 1% from 2020 to 2021, and declined 2% per year from 2014 through 2020. The total fertility rate estimates the number of births that a hypothetical group of 1,000 women would have over their lifetimes, based on the age-specific birth rate in a given year.

The total fertility rate in 2023 remained below replacement—the level at which a given generation can exactly replace itself (2,100 births per 1,000 women). The rate has generally been below replacement since 1971 and consistently below replacement since 2007. . . . 

The provisional birth rate for teenagers in 2023 was 13.2 births per 1,000 females ages 15–19, down 3% from 2022 (13.6) and another record low for this age group. The rate declined an average of 7% annually from 2007 through 2022. The rate has declined by 68% since 2007 (41.5), the most recent period of continued decline, and 79% since 1991, the most recent peak. The number of births to females ages 15–19 was 140,801 in 2023, down 2% from 2022.

Provisional birth rates for teenagers ages 15–17 and 18–19 in 2023 were 5.6 and 24.9 births per 1,000 females, respectively; the birth rate for younger teenagers (ages 15–17) was unchanged from 2022, whereas the rate for older teenagers (ages 18–19) was down by 3%, a new record low. From 2007 through 2023, rates for teenagers ages 15–17 and 18–19 declined by 8% and 6% per year, respectively.

From the National Center for Health Statistics: Births: Provisional Data for 2023.

Birth rates by race and ethnicity are as follows and the differences by race and ethnicity are generally significantly smaller than they were few decades ago: