The Pew survey is a reminder of one of the things that’s best about America, something no one should doubt that our Founders got right: You get to make your own decisions about religion, and what you decide is none of the government’s business.
I grew up in a large Irish Catholic family with eight brothers and sisters. Some of my siblings remain in the Catholic Church, but over the years, others have gone elsewhere. My oldest sister is a Mormon, and my youngest attends Unitarian services. One brother is a Lutheran; another has no affiliation at all.
I used to think my family was a little unusual – so much spiritual seeking and so much church hopping.
But it turns my siblings are not so strange after all. An extensive new poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life shows that more than 40 percent of those responding said they had changed their religious affiliation since childhood.
People switch for lots of reasons. Sometimes a different denomination is just a better fit. Some reasons are social. A person in an interfaith marriage may begin attending with a spouse and eventually join. Some are converted to a different faith by door-to-door proselytizers and other evangelistic activities. Atheists and agnostics begin questioning the entire basis of faith and may eventually discard it.
The Pew survey is a reminder of one of the things that’s best about America, something no one should doubt that our Founders got right: You get to make your own decisions about religion, and what you decide is none of the government’s business.
I don’t really have any brilliant insights to add here – only to say that I’m thankful to live in a country where we have the right to change our minds about religion. Huge numbers of people in many parts of the world today don’t have that right.
I’m also thankful for the mechanism that ensures that freedom – the wall of separation between church and state. One of the reasons people switch faiths in America is that they are sometimes asked to do so. We truly have a religious free marketplace. Would we have had that robust spirit of full-throttle religiosity without the church-state wall? Would we have had it had we gone the route of an established church? No way.
How ironic it is then, to see so many religious groups that owe their very existence to the church-state wall seeking to undermine it today. They are ignorant of their own history and fail to grasp that the wall is their protector and friend, not their enemy.
About two or three times a year, I can count on Jehovah’s Witnesses ringing my bell and offering me some literature. They canvass my neighborhood pretty regularly. I’ve looked at their material, and to be honest, I’m not really interested in what they’re offering me. But every time they come, I am reminded of how great it is to live in a country where their right to approach me is broadly protected.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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