Secular Dominance & Christian Hypocrisy

Is Allen County leading the way in Christianity's decline?
A column by Kerry Hubartt of The News-Sentinel

The question in this week's editorial poll has generated the biggest response in history, according to editorial page editor Leo Morris.

As of this writing we have received more than 17,000 responses to the weekly online poll question: “Do you identify with some form of Christian religion?” Morris came up with that question in response to the April 13 Newsweek magazine cover story, “The decline and fall of Christian America.”

The Newsweek report found the percentage of self-identified Christians had fallen 10 points since 1990 to 75 percent.

The number of responses to our weekly question is unheard of for what we maintain is an unscientific poll meant only for entertainment and discussion fodder. We generate on average a couple of hundred responses. Sometimes a hot-button issue will see the numbers explode.

Leo recently wrote on his blog, “Opening Arguments” (oa.news-sentinel.com), that we did a poll a few years back about whether our newspaper should publish the county gun-carry-permit database online. “Word was passed around on gun-enthusiast Web sites,” Leo wrote, “and we got a few thousand votes.”

This week's poll offered four responses to the question (which you can still answer by going to www.news-sentinel.com and clicking on the “online editorial poll”): 1. Yes, and my faith is important to me; 2. No. I'm religious but in a personal way; 3. No. I'm of another faith; and 4. No. I'm an atheist or agnostic.

The latest results show 88 percent answering No.4.

Was Newsweek right? Here in the city of churches, does such a vast majority really not believe in God? Is Allen County leading the way in the decline of Christianity in America?

Leo writes in his blog, “What happened is that someone at the FreeThought Fort Wayne blog took note of the poll when the atheist/agnostic contingent was showing about 12 percent, and the poster said: ‘I don't know how long the poll will be open, but feel free to vote. It'd be interesting to see if our little site can skew their results.' Well, looks like they got their skewing done.”

Our poll voting process is designed to allow only one vote per computer, but serious computer geeks know how to disable cookies to get around that restriction.

We'll publish the final poll results Monday.

By the way, the American public opinion polling firm, Rasmussen Reports, reported the results of a national telephone survey the day before Easter that found 82 percent of adults nationwide believe Jesus Christ was the son of God who came to Earth and died for our sins. And 79 percent believe Jesus rose from the dead — the central claim of the Christian faith.

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Kerry Hubartt is editor of The News-Sentinel.