Where Have All the Religious Americans Gone?

Where Have All the Religious Americans Gone?

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Where Have all the Religious Americans Gone?

Rabbi Steven Morgen, Congregation Beth Yeshurun, May 15, 2015

Last year the Pew Research Center came out with dire news about the American Jewish community. Jews in America continue to marry later in life (if they marry at all). They have fewer children – slightly less than two children per family, not enough to reproduce our numbers. The rate of intermarriage continues to climb and the statistics now show that only 20% of intermarried couples are raising their children exclusively in the Jewish tradition.[1]

Younger Jews seem increasingly uninterested in joining synagogues, which form the backbone of Jewish community life. It is hard to imagine how Jewish life will continue to exist in the United States without synagogues. But they are also much less likely tosupport the Jewish Federation orother Jewish institutions that are also necessary for the future survival of our people. It is not that they do not support charities. They just do not support Jewish organizations – or at least not at the same level as their parents, and not nearly to the same extent that they support non-Jewish organizations.

And that is only a few of the findings. The day the report came out, I felt like the groundhog on groundhog’s day. I came out of my burrow to look around that morning, I read the report, and I immediately scurried back into my hole in the ground. I don’t know if that meant a late Spring or what.

Well, a new Pew Research Report just came out … and it has brought us some “good news”!(In a perverse kind of way, at least.[2]) The Jews in America are not alone. It turns out, the Christian community in America is suffering from the same maladies. The New York Times a few days ago carried a story under the headline: “Big Drop in Share of Americans Calling Themselves Christian.”[3]

According to the Times article: “The Christian share of adults in the United States has declined sharply since 2007, affecting nearly all major Christian traditions and denominations, and crossing age, race and region, according to an extensive survey by the Pew Research Center.”

Of course, a “sharp decline” for Christians is not nearly as alarming as it is for Jews. According to the Pew Report[4], there were 227 million adults in the United States in 2007, with 78% identifying themselves as Christians. In 2014, the number of adults in America had risen by 18 million but the percent of those adults considering themselves Christian had fallen from 78% to less than 71%. That’s a seven percent drop. But, because of the increase in the adult population overall, the actual number of Christian adults in the United States had only dropped from 178 million to 173 million.

On the other hand, the Jewish population in the United States is only around 6 million. So, a drop of 5 million Jews would just about wipe out the entire population in this country.

But that being said, it is nevertheless useful to put our own situation in the context of the general religious trends in the United States.

According to the Times: “The decline [in the Christian population] has been propelled in part by generational change, as relatively non-Christian millennials reach adulthood and gradually replace the oldest and most Christian adults. [Sound familiar?] But it is also because many former Christians, of all ages, have joined the rapidly growing ranks of the religiously unaffiliated or ‘nones’: a broad category including atheists, agnostics and those who adhere to ‘nothing in particular.’” (Also, familiar!)

Consider also the following data from the Times article: “low levels of Christian affiliation among the young, well educated and affluent are consistent with prevailing theories for the rise of the unaffiliated, like …, a broader disengagement from all traditional institutions and labels, the combination of delayed and interreligious marriage, and economic development.” These are all factors in the rise of unaffiliated Jews as well.

In the Jewish Forward’s report on this new Pew study[5], it related that “Just as we found the center dropping out of the Jewish world – with a sharp decline among Conservative Jews – so, too, the Christian center is shrinking, and the ranks of the unaffiliated are growing. Intermarriage across the country has dramatically increased. Ditto in the Jewish world.”

But, I am not suggesting that just because our Christian neighbors are having the same tzuris that we are, it is OK. This is not an occasion of “misery loves company.”

Actually, I think there are some truly good elements that come out of these reports, good news for Jews, in any case. And then, there is a lot of work ahead of us.

First the good news. One bit of good news is that although there was a “sharp decline” in the percent of adults who identified as Christian, the percent of adults who identified as Jews remained constant at 1.9% of the population. The absolute number of Jews seems to have remained fairly constant as well. We are not declining … yet.

The second bit of good news for Jews, in my opinion, comes from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s report on the Pew study.[6] According to JTA, “Seventeen percent of American Jews say they were raised in another religion. Six percent say they were raised unaffiliated, 4 percent as mainline Protestant, 3 percent as Catholic, and 2 percent each as Evangelical and in some other religion.”

Now this bit of information, that many people seem to have overlooked, would explain how the Jewish population has remained steady over the last seven years, both in terms of actual numbers and as a percent of the American population. How did we do it, since we are marrying late, having fewer kids, and assimilating like other Americans? Simple. We have been accepting more people into our faith and community that were raised in another religious tradition.

I see it, of course, because I work directly with converts to Judaism. And, as you know if you have been here on a Yom Kippur afternoon over the last several years, these wonderful people who decide to become Jewish are a real blessing for us. They are overwhelmingly thrilled to be Jewish. They see in our faith and tradition all the wonderful things we take for granted.

And, of course, since they study Judaism as adults, they understand that our faith is really quite sophisticated. It is (or can be) quite rational and fit with our scientific understanding of the Universe. It does not require (at least if you are not ultra-Orthodox) that you accept Bible stories on face value. Stories that seem to describe events that defy the laws of nature. Indeed asking questions about Biblical passages is as Jewish as Matza Ball soup. Arguing with God is a Jewish vocation that goes back to Abraham. There are very few dogmas that Jews must accept.

As you know, the emphasis in Judaism is on what we actually do in the world, much more so than what we believe. And we do a good job of making the “doing” of Judaismsound complicated with 613 mitzvot (commandments), and all kinds of details and particulars that fill books explaining these mitzvot in great detail.

But in the end, the “program” of Judaism can really be boiled down to:

“Be a good person. Be kind and generous, thoughtful, fair and honest. Love Adonai our God with all our heart, soul and strength. Teach your children about our faith and tradition. Observe the holidays. Be a part of the Jewish community in your town or city and part of the Jewish people worldwide. Support that community with your time and energy as well as a portion of your charitable donations. Try to make the world at large a better place. Protect the world that God has given us, and take care of those less fortunate wherever they may live because every human being is created in God’s image.”

I probably left a few things out. But you get the idea. If you want to learn more, we are preparing an expanded Adult learning program that you will hear more about in the Fall. Like my conversion students, anyone can come and learn why Judaism is really an endlessly fascinating tradition with wisdom that has been sharply honed by discussion and argument for over 3,000 years.

So the good news is that – particularly in the unOrthodox Movements of Judaism – we are being infused with enthusiastic new Jews who love our faith, love our tradition, love to be part of our people and are going to raise more Jewish children. And, many of these people left Christianity because they simply could not identify with the beliefs of their former faith. The very things that distinguish Judaism from Christianity, are the very things they could not accept as Christians. When they went searching and discovered Judaism, they realized that this is what they had believed all along. That means that the large numbers of Christians who are leaving their faith are potential candidates to become Jews.

We do not evangelize. I am not going to go out on the corner of the 610 Loop and Bellaire with a sandwich board saying “Join the Jewish People! Come to Beth Yeshurun! Have I got a class for you!” I am happy for Christians who are comfortable in their own faith. And from the Jewish perspective, if they are good people, we believe that is what God cares about the most. But if someone is not satisfied with Christian beliefs. If they are searching. If they are interested in learning about Judaism, then by all means I am happy to have them join my class. And if – after learning more about our faith and history – they decide they want to commit to join us, then we must welcome them with open arms and help them celebrate their new found faith.

And we should also welcome – and even perhaps encourage – intermarried couples to raise their children in the Jewish faith. They, too, are a blessing for us. We have many such families here at Beth Yeshurun who are raising their children as Jews and I am very grateful to them for doing so.

Will the entry of these new Jews be enough for the Jewish community in the United States to survive? Probably not. So that is where we really need to come together as a community. This is the part where I said we “have a lot of work ahead of us.”

We all need to re-examine our priorities. If we love being Jewish. If we feel it is important to pass on our Jewish heritage to another generation. If we want to make sure that we are not the generation that drops the ball that has been in play for over 3,000 years. Then we need to ask ourselves some serious questions:

What can we do to ensure the future of the Jewish people?

What must we do to ensure that our children will also feel invested in the future of our people?

How can we instill in our children a strong Jewish identity that will withstand the powerful societal forces that are driving all Americans away from anyreligion?

Life involves making some hard choices. Unless you are Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, you need to make some financial choices.

Regardless of who you are, we all need to realize that our time on Earth is limited. No one lives forever. Our children will not be young forever.

So, what institutions do you want to support? If we do not support Jewish institutions, who else will? We must all consider using a significant portion of our charitable donation dollars toward Jewish organizations.

What kind of Jewish education do you want to give your children?

What summer camps do you want to send them to? Jewish summer camps are known to provide a strong influence on Jewish identity.

What Jewish rituals do you want your children to grow up with at home and feel comfortable doing themselves?

What kinds of friends do you want your children to have? Do they socialize with other Jewish children?

Do you bring your children to Junior Congregation frequently, or do you take them to sports events instead? Perhaps you can urge the little league to change the time of their games some weeks. If not, you need to decide what is more important for the future of your child’s identity and personality. Maybe they can miss a game once in a while.

If you go on a vacation – and can afford to go abroad – will you take your children to Israel? Can you encourage them to go to Israel for a year in college?

And how about choices in your own life? Our children learn from what we do.

Do you continue to learn about Judaism yourself? Do you take classes somewhere? Read Jewish books? Listen to Jewish podcasts?

Do you come to shul regularly?

Do you light Shabbat candles at home and say Kiddush and have a Shabbat dinner with the family and some friends?

Do you celebrate the other Jewish holidays at home?

I am sure that most of us – because we are here on a Friday night, after all – can answer “yes” to many or most of these questions. Perhaps we can encourage some of our Jewish friends who cannot answer “yes” to join us in some of these activities?

We need to work together on this project. The health and vitality of the future Jewish community depends on what we do. What all of us do. What each one of us does. What we do with our time and our resources ultimately says a lot about who we are and what we value.

There’s an old story about a wise man who always would tell the truth and seemed to know everything about everything. One day an upstart young boy thought he’d outsmart this wise man. He caught a little bird and cupped it in his hands so that it could not be seen. He went up to the wise man who was standing in a large crowd of people, and he told the wise man he had a bird in his hands. Hoping to embarrass the sage in public, the boy then asked, “Is the bird alive or is it dead?” The boy thought, if the wise man says it is dead, the boy would just open his hands and let the bird out so that it would fly away free. But if the man said it was alive, the boy would crush the bird before opening his hands, showing that the bird was dead. Either way the old man would be proven wrong.

“So,” the boy asked, “is it alive or dead?”

The Old Man paused for a moment, and then slowly replied: “The answer, my young man, is in your hands.”

The future of the Jewish people rests in our hands. Let’s keep that beautiful, precious bird alive and vibrant for generations to come.

Shabbat Shalom!

[1] Jack Wertheimer and Steven M. Cohen, “The Pew Survey Reanalyzed: More Bad News, But A Glimmer Of Hope”, Mosaic Magazine, November 2, 2014,

[2]It is not “good news” in the schadenfreude sense. But simply that the “problem” we Jews face is not specific to the Jewish faith or something in particular about the Jewish people. It is a problem that affects religious belief in general in a predominantly secular culture.

[3] Nate Cohen, New York Times, May 12, 2015,

[4]

[5] Jane Eisner, “Why Americans Are Fleeing Organized Religion — and What It Means for Jews,” Forward, May 12, 2015

[6]Uriel Heilman, “1 in 6 Jews are new to Judaism – and 9 other new Pew findings,” JTA, May 12, 2015