Americaโs Epidemic of Empty Churches
Religious communities often face a choice: Sell off the buildings they can no longer afford, or find a way to fill them with new uses.
Many of our nationโs churches can no longer afford to maintain their structuresโ6,000 to 10,000 churches die each year in Americaโand that number will likely grow. Though more than 70 percent of our citizens still claim to be Christian, congregational participation is less central to many Americansโ faith than it once was. Most denominations are declining as a share of the overall population, and donations to congregations have been falling for decades. Meanwhile, religiously unaffiliated Americans, nicknamed the โnones,โ are growing as a share of the U.S. population.
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