So, Where Do The Disappointed Episcopalians Go?

There's been a certain amount of comment on this piece at The Federalist that argues religious belief in the US is not in decline:

New research published late last year by scholars at Harvard University and Indiana University Bloomington is just the latest to reveal the myth. This research questioned the “secularization thesis,” which holds that the United States is following most advanced industrial nations in the death of their once vibrant faith culture. Churches becoming mere landmarks, dance halls, boutique hotels, museums, and all that.

Not only did their examination find no support for this secularization in terms of actual practice and belief, the researchers proclaim that religion continues to enjoy “persistent and exceptional intensity” in America. These researchers hold our nation “remains an exceptional outlier and potential counter example to the secularization thesis.”

Even so, it's hard to argue that main line Protestantism is not in serious decline, and even Catholicism is barely holding its own in the US, bolstered mainly by immigration. So where are the believers going if they're leaving main line denominations? The piece says, "Yes, these churches are hemorrhaging members in startling numbers, but many of those folks are not leaving Christianity. They are simply going elsewhere." But it doesn't say where "elsewhere" is.

I would say they're mainly going to "non-denominational" churches, which is probably another way of saying Reformed. But I would also guess that upscale Protestants aren't going that route and are more likely just discontinuing church attendance. Certainly Douglas Bess's observation from the 1990s that disaffected Episcopalians haven't gone to the "continuers" remains true, and the "continuers" themselves now acknowledge their movement is not sustainable.

So the market for evangelization isn't lapsed main line Protestants. The CDF errs in thinking Rome can find a ready-to-microwave prelature of instant Catholics someplace, complete with clergy who've had 95% of Catholic formation. This is reckless and needs to be put to an end.

But I note two similar developments, one a lecture by the neo-Thomist Edward Feser at Fermilab, available here:

The idea of a law of nature is central to scientific explanation. Laws themselves are often said to be explicable in terms of more fundamental laws. But what about the most fundamental laws? Why is the world governed by those particular laws rather than by other laws or no laws at all? And what exactly is a law of nature in the first place? Are these questions that science itself can answer, or is there a role for philosophy in answering them?

Second, Bp Barron is associated with a new website that seeks to readdress the common idea that there's a conflict between science and Catholicism. Among other things, it offers free posters of Catholic scientists.

Evangelization needs to go back and start with basic issues and drop the idea that there are numbers of ready-made Catholics out there.