One of the most interesting dynamics in religion is the large number of people who become dissatisfied with their religion and then stay with their religion anyway, sometimes trying to change it.\u00a0 Others find another religion that suits them.\u00a0 The remaining individuals drop out of the religious \u201cuniverse\u201d or become atheists or agnostics.<\/p>\n

Many Catholics have a difficult time disengaging from their religion.\u00a0 Because there are so many rules and regulations in the church that are hundreds or thousands of years old, modern Catholics have a huge range of issues that they\u2019d like re-examined.\u00a0 These include priesthood for women, equal rights for those in the LGBT community, accepting pre-marital sex, and removing the vows of abstinence for priests and nuns.\u00a0 Most \u201clapsed Catholics\u201d say that these rules just don\u2019t make sense in the modern world.\u00a0 However many prefer to fight from within to get the rules changed rather than just putting the church behind them and entering another church, becoming non-affiliated, or becoming an atheist or agnostic.<\/p>\n

Moving away from the church is also happening in the far-right fundamentalist churches.\u00a0 In a recent article on CNN on-line<\/a>, Rachel Held Evans<\/a> discusses many of the modern but largely unsuccessful ways of bringing young people back into the fundamentalist churches.\u00a0 She says:<\/p>\n

Time and again, the assumption among Christian leaders, and evangelical leaders in particular, is that the key to drawing twenty-somethings back to church is simply to make a few style updates \u2013<\/strong> edgier music, more casual services, a coffee shop in the fellowship hall, a pastor who wears skinny jeans, an updated Web site that includes online giving.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Discussing Millenials and herself, Ms. Evans says:<\/p>\n

Many of us, myself included, are finding ourselves increasingly drawn to high church traditions<\/a> \u2013<\/strong> Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, the Episcopal Church, etc. \u2013<\/strong> precisely because the ancient forms of liturgy seem so unpretentious, so unconcerned with being \u201ccool,\u201d and we find that refreshingly authentic.<\/p>\n

What millennials really want from the church is not a change in style but a change in substance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Many secular humanists tend to believe that it\u2019s either religion or their way.\u00a0 That\u2019s because seculars tend to believe that all religions share many of the same flaw: incomprehensible stories, rules, and regulations.\u00a0 Why wouldn\u2019t someone want to leave an organized religion for the freedom of being unaffiliated?\u00a0 The fact is that most who leave a religion find another one to their liking.\u00a0 It is indeed a very special person who chooses to be unaffiliated, an atheist, or an agnostic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s difficult to determine what percentage of the Americans have no particular religious affiliation.\u00a0 The figure ranges from a low of 15% to a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[77,1512],"tags":[1919,1596,2069,2067],"yoast_head":"\n