Imagine borrowing $200,000 to become an LCMS pastor lol

 Whatever happened to Romans 13:8? And have you ever listened to some of those numbskulls who come out of the seminaries? They take "This is my body" quite literally, but not this:

Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. 

Becoming a pastor was a lot easier in Jesus' day.

All you had to do was sell everything, give it to the poor, and follow.

So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.

-- Luke 14:33

The most expensive non-Catholic seminary educations in the country in 2022 were, drumroll please, in the church of my ancestors, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

  

 

Are the churches emptying because they've been too successful?

 

I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. 

-- Luke 5:32

Ryan Burge puts nondenominational Protestant Christianity in America at about 13% of adult population using the General Social Survey

 Which would be about 33 million.

Using the 2020 Religion Census the number is only 21.1 million.

He discusses the data here. 

 

Ryan Burge discovers what Larry Norman always knew: Church is middle class, a hospital for the healthy

 The group that is the most likely to attend services are not the poor, nor the wealthy. Instead, it’s people who smack in the middle of the income distribution. This analysis points to the following conclusion: the people who are the most likely to attend services this weekend are those with college degrees making $60K-$100K. In other words, middle class professionals. ...

Increasingly religion has become the enclave for those who have lived a “proper” life. College degree, middle class income, married with children. If you check all those boxes, the likelihood of you regularly attending church is about double the rate of folks who don’t.

Data here.

Non-denominational Protestant Christianity will be the big winner in the future in the United States and already is at 29 million strong

 Ryan Burge, here:

There is absolutely no way to gather data on that tradition, but it’s clear that it’s growing incredibly fast. ... Denominational Christianity used to be an incredibly important cultural force in American life. Leaders in these traditions use to hold sway over millions. Today, they are a shell of their former selves. ... The big winner? That new non-denominational church down the road that has no institutional baggage.     

And here:

What may be an even bigger threat to the SBC is the dramatic rise in nondenominational churches. When looking at the size of every major Protestant tradition over the last 14 years, the common thread is decline. Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, and Presbyterians are all a smaller share of the population now than they were in 2008. The only exception is nondenominational Christians. They were 7.1 percent of the total population in 2008, but that number has risen to 8.6 percent in 2022.

One advantage of nondenominational churches is that they don’t have institutional baggage like many denominations, including the SBC. While people are skeptical of putting money in the offering plate and having some of it go to a head office hundreds of miles away, in nondenominational churches those leadership decisions are handled by people sitting in the pews each weekend. In a time of declining trust in institutions, nondenominationals are well-positioned, and are reaping the benefits through rising attendance and giving.

The rise of The Nones will plateau because . . .

 Atheists Just Don't Have Many Kids:

. . . look at the change in the atheist/agnostic share of the adult population in recent years. In 2013, it was 10%. In 2016, it was 12%. In November of 2022, it was still 12%. ... It’s harder for a “religion” to grow if it has to achieve that growth largely through conversion.