Denominations, Change and Culture with Dr. Doug Rehberg

The numbers aren’t good. They really aren’t. Church attendance. Church membership. Religious affiliation.  All down. Gallop tells us that in the past 20 years church membership has gone down a percent a year. 20 years ago 70% of Americans were church members. Now it is 50% and I probably don’t need to tell you that the younger a person is the less likely they have any religious affiliation.

If we dig into that a bit we discover some more trends that are no longer breaking news. Mainline Denominations are leading in this decline. We also discover that this trend is not world wide. According the Guardian “religion is on the wane in western Europe and North America, and it’s growing everywhere else.” Interesting.

To help us navigate these swirling waters we have a guest today uniquely qualified to speak on the subject. He’s a mainline Presbyterian pastor who has never bought into the status quo although he is so buttoned down he makes L.L. Bean apologize for their trendiness. 

Dr. Doug Rehberg started out as an economist with a MPA degree from George Washington, even worked for the EPA before turning religious and getting another masters, this time to Princeton for his Master of Divinity Degree and then got his Doctorate in Divinity from Reformed Theological Seminary. Maybe he can help us sort out this morass of change and tell us what it means.

Welcome Dr. Rehberg to Church Hurts And.