"Christian" overtakes "Protestant" label among younger Christians

[Ferguson97]

https://twitter.com/ryanburge/status/1480547479770869763

[Big Abraham]

I remember there was a girl in my senior high school class, who went to my Protestant church growing up, who did not know what a "Protestant" was. She pronounced it "pro-teestant" when she was introduced to the word.

We need some level of religious education in public schools. The fact that educators even refuse to touch the topic is an embarrassment.

[DaleCooper]

I remember there was a girl in my senior high school class, who went to my Protestant church growing up, who did not know what a "Protestant" was. She pronounced it "pro-teestant" when she was introduced to the word.

We need some level of religious education in public schools. The fact that educators even refuse to touch the topic is an embarrassment.

We wouldn't want to offend anybody.

[Ferguson97]

I remember there was a girl in my senior high school class, who went to my Protestant church growing up, who did not know what a "Protestant" was. She pronounced it "pro-teestant" when she was introduced to the word.

We need some level of religious education in public schools. The fact that educators even refuse to touch the topic is an embarrassment.

I guess I don't really understand why this has relevancy in K-12 schools.

[Big Abraham]

I remember there was a girl in my senior high school class, who went to my Protestant church growing up, who did not know what a "Protestant" was. She pronounced it "pro-teestant" when she was introduced to the word.

We need some level of religious education in public schools. The fact that educators even refuse to touch the topic is an embarrassment.

I guess I don't really understand why this has relevancy in K-12 schools.

Because religion is a fundamental component of society and world history that is important to know about?

I mean, you can't really understand European history if you don't understand the difference between a Catholic and a Protestant

[StateBoiler]

Contemporary churches in general completely reject the classifications of the different Christian denominations, in other words, there's no difference between Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, etc., "we're all Christians". They largely don't even believe in church organization higher than the individual church/it's never treated like it's a serious thing (imagine taking the Catholic Church and then setting up something that is organizationally the complete opposite). These are the churches that have been growing in membership while traditional denomination churches have declined. These churches however are all Protestant in character. They're not Catholic of course and they're not Orthodox. I'm sure if you went to the pastors, questioned them, and dug into their theology a bit you could say "you're pretty much a Methodist", but that's not what the people in attendance could tell you.

Also, from years of attending Presbyterian, various contemporary, and now a Methodist church, I've never heard a preacher say the word "Protestant". It's a word used to describe whole bandwidths of Christianity that those people themselves never use.

I remember there was a girl in my senior high school class, who went to my Protestant church growing up, who did not know what a "Protestant" was. She pronounced it "pro-teestant" when she was introduced to the word.

We need some level of religious education in public schools. The fact that educators even refuse to touch the topic is an embarrassment.

I guess I don't really understand why this has relevancy in K-12 schools.

Any western civilization education should include the Reformation for its impact on secular European (and therefore American as well) thought and life.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Evangelicals largely don't care about the Protestant Reformation. They grew out of that milieu, but they simply do not regard it as relevant. Hard to se why they would either, when their theology is so different to that of the leading reformers.

[John Dule]

I remember there was a girl in my senior high school class, who went to my Protestant church growing up, who did not know what a "Protestant" was. She pronounced it "pro-teestant" when she was introduced to the word.

We need some level of religious education in public schools. The fact that educators even refuse to touch the topic is an embarrassment.

I guess I don't really understand why this has relevancy in K-12 schools.

Because religion is a fundamental component of society and world history that is important to know about?

I mean, you can't really understand European history if you don't understand the difference between a Catholic and a Protestant

Well, it's not like American public schools make any effort to teach kids about European history either...

[TDAS04]

Yeah, in my high school class, the teacher asked "How many of you are Protestant?"

Just a couple kids stood up.

Then the teacher began to name examples: "Lutheran, Methodist,..."

A majority quickly stood up.

[Хahar 🤔]

My immediate reaction to seeing this was that this strikes me as the product of a generation of youth pastors raised on C. S. Lewis.

[Associate Justice PiT]

My immediate reaction to seeing this was that this strikes me as the product of a generation of youth pastors raised on C. S. Lewis.

     Probably a factor, but a lot of the churches where people will identify themselves as "just Christians" would have little respect for an Anglican like Lewis.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This isn't exactly new or a recent development. Per that graph the overlap point when "Protestant" is more is at about age 55.

[LabourJersey]

American Protestants only think of themselves as "Protestant" in areas where they are the minority or close to it. So if you were to ask young people in parts of the country that are heavily Catholic for instance, this graph would be different.

But Protestants who live in areas that are both nominally very Protestant but also increasingly secular, then "Christian" makes more sense to them as a moniker.

And like the other posters said above, a lot of people who are Protestants don't know church history very well and don't know too much about the Reformation/why Protestantism arose.

[RINO Tom]

Thanks, Fundies.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

This is funny to me because many people here (west coast of Scotland) would be more likely to identify as Protestant than think of themselves as Presbyterian or even Christian, for obvious, uh, sectarian reasons.

The trend in the US must be very much because Catholicism became destigmatised in wider American society and as WASPs lost cultural hegemony.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I live in a circle that's virtually 100% evangelical Protestants.  By far the most common is to hear people say that they're Christians.  The next most common label is evangelicals.  Then, after that, might be a denominational preference/background.  Protestant would be the last thing people would answer if asked by a stranger "what are your religious views", even if people understand that they are Protestants.  Granted, I live in an area with relatively few Catholics.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Worth noting that for a lot of people just "Christian" as a religious identity often means "not committed to any particular church or regular attender but still spiritual and believing in a vaguely Christian way", kind of just one step above "spiritual but not religious". It probably applies to a bunch of people who don't see themselves as any type of Protestant and even some who never were Protestant (this sort of categorization is not uncommon for ex-Catholics.)

[Cokeland Saxton]

I remember there was a girl in my senior high school class, who went to my Protestant church growing up, who did not know what a "Protestant" was. She pronounced it "pro-teestant" when she was introduced to the word.

We need some level of religious education in public schools. The fact that educators even refuse to touch the topic is an embarrassment.

I guess I don't really understand why this has relevancy in K-12 schools.

Because religion is a fundamental component of society and world history that is important to know about?

I mean, you can't really understand European history if you don't understand the difference between a Catholic and a Protestant

Well, it's not like American public schools make any effort to teach kids about European history either...

Or history at all

[StateBoiler]

This is funny to me because many people here (west coast of Scotland) would be more likely to identify as Protestant than think of themselves as Presbyterian or even Christian, for obvious, uh, sectarian reasons.

The trend in the US must be very much because Catholicism became destigmatised in wider American society and as WASPs lost cultural hegemony.

Catholics would answer they're Catholics because Catholicism is very much its own thing when it comes to worship and the Church over time has created a Catholic religious identity. The closest to them would probably be Lutherans and Episcopalians (the Anglican Church under its more common U.S. name). Protestantism in contrast all the denominations have borrowed from one another and the differences have gotten muddled and less important, in part due to a strong disbelief in church organization centralization. I grew up a Presbyterian, and yeah, there's things in a Presbyterian worship service that other churches don't do, but they're minor and it's not like we're wholly off the reservation from standard Protestant practice.

[Del Tachi]

This makes complete sense.  American religion is much more influenced by frontier Restorationism or mid-century Jesusism than it is what some dead German guy nailed to a wall nearly 500 years ago.  American religious movements have largely rejected denominational labels in favor of ecumenism.

Posters who want to die on the hill that “Protestant” identity is something worth protecting can go back to their established churches an ocean away

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This is funny to me because many people here (west coast of Scotland) would be more likely to identify as Protestant than think of themselves as Presbyterian or even Christian, for obvious, uh, sectarian reasons.

The trend in the US must be very much because Catholicism became destigmatised in wider American society and as WASPs lost cultural hegemony.

That's been true for a very long time. Like I said note that the intersection point is around age 55.

Also as I noted above some of these "Christian" identifiers probably were raised Catholic and have never been formally Protestant. I believe there's even a Democratic member of Congress this applies to, as in she (I'm pretty sure it was a woman) put down her religion as "Christian" in that Pew survey but said in an interview she was raised Catholic but no longer identifies as such...but I can't remember who or if I'm totally just thinking of someone else who I confused with a Democratic member of the House.

[RINO Tom]

This makes complete sense.  American religion is much more influenced by frontier Restorationism or mid-century Jesusism than it is what some dead German guy nailed to a wall nearly 500 years ago.  American religious movements have largely rejected denominational labels in favor of ecumenism.

Posters who want to die on the hill that “Protestant” identity is something worth protecting can go back to their established churches an ocean away

You act like Mainline Protestants have been some historic minority and oddity in America’s history, rather than a clear majority for the vast majority of it and not that much smaller than Evangelicals now … if the whackier branches of Christianity want to have their fun, go ahead, but it seems rather strange and classless to insinuate normal older churches are somehow “less American.”  Frankly, it wreaks of a South-centric view.

[Make America Grumpy Again]

Simply going to church doesn't make one a Christian either, anymore than I'd be another religion if I started attending another religion's services. It's about their beliefs and in the Christians case, a relationship with Jesus.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This makes complete sense.  American religion is much more influenced by frontier Restorationism or mid-century Jesusism than it is what some dead German guy nailed to a wall nearly 500 years ago.  American religious movements have largely rejected denominational labels in favor of ecumenism.

Posters who want to die on the hill that “Protestant” identity is something worth protecting can go back to their established churches an ocean away

You act like Mainline Protestants have been some historic minority and oddity in America’s history, rather than a clear majority for the vast majority of it and not that much smaller than Evangelicals now … if the whackier branches of Christianity want to have their fun, go ahead, but it seems rather strange and classless to insinuate normal older churches are somehow “less American.”  Frankly, it wreaks of a South-centric view.

That doesn't mean all or most Mainline Protestants particularly care about or identify with the Reformation. Most people today just view such churches as being liberal and don't really care about their historic roots.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I also think it's important to remember the US has not had any real sort of religious sectarianism for like well over 50 years now. Comparing it to Europe isn't even apples to oranges, more something like apples to steak. Europeans acting surprised that religious identity in the US doesn't work exactly like it does in their country (not specifically referring to anything in this thread) has always perplexed me, it'd be like someone from a country with proportional representation being surprised that a country with a FPTP electoral system doesn't have proportional numbers of seats to percentage of votes cast like in their country.