American Grace – A new study in the US says the rate of none church goers has jumped from 5 to 10% to 30 to 40%.

That’s disturbing. What is more disturbing is why. Street Prophets:

“Many of them are people who would otherwise be in church,” Putnam said. “They have the same attitudes and values as people who are in church, but they grew up in a period in which being religious meant being politically conservative, especially on social issues.”

Putnam says that in the past two decades, many young people began to view organized religion as a source of “intolerance and rigidity and doctrinaire political views,” and therefore stopped going to church.

Canadian stats indicate about 20% of the population in 2000 went to church. The numbers collected in 2000 come from Ipsos Reid, Gallop, Canadian censuses and Dr. Reginald Bibby. More at Canadian Christianity: The State of the Canadian Church. Reasons for decline in church attendance are quite different than reasons given in the US survey.

• The CRTC has approved the sale of The Christian Channel (TCC) from S-VOX group of companies, which includes Vision TV and One: the Body, Mind & Spirit channel. Peter Youngren’s World Impact Ministry has committed to a flag ship show and expects to add 15-20 employees. TCC is a speciality 2 channel.
• In 10 days (March 14th) the Campaign for Life Coalition will holds it’s annual march for life in Ottawa. We’re looking for bloggers familiar with the anti-abortion movement in Canada to provide Religious Right Alert some history and background of the CLC and its march.