Christianity – Family Council

The Coming Tsunami of Church Closings Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

Nov 2, 2026John StonestreetChristianityChristianity, Church, Church Ambassador Network, Religious Freedom, Religious Liberty

Church attendance is declining, but predictions of a coming collapse go far beyond the data.

The title of a recent article from CNN announced that “(a) ‘tsunami’ of church closings is poised to remake America.” In it, author John Blake suggested that the United States may face a future that is, like Europe, “filled with empty cathedrals and church buildings converted to condos.” One church he highlighted once served 1,000 people but is soon closing its doors to only 12 congregants.

Experts project an estimated 100,000 churches in the US will close or be repurposed over the next decade. Many churches will be unable to escape this “tsunami” of closings—a grim trajectory one pastor described as, “Every year the pews are getting emptier and the collection plates getting lighter.”

Today, less than a third of Americans attend church weekly. 75 years ago, half the population did. But are 10,000 churches closing every year? Not really.

As Ed Stetzer, dean at Talbot Seminary, wrote in response to Blake’s article:

[T]here is no evidence—cited in the article or in the actual data—that something like a tsunami of church closings is coming. The data points to decline. But it is slow decline and churn, not a tsunami.

Specifically, Stetzer argued that there is not evidence to suggest a net loss of 10,000 churches a year. In 2024, for example, 4,000 Protestant churches closed, but 3,800 opened, a drop of only 200 that year. Even including Roman Catholic churches in the analysis does not approach the 10,000 number. Also, the numbers don’t address the somewhat recent experiments with multi-site congregations, or the host of small, nondenominational “storefront” churches that fly under the radar.

The largest number, Stetzer pointed out, (the 100,000 churches to close in the next decade) refers to church buildings sold or repurposed, not congregations dying out. Churches that move are not reflected in these stats, and at least some of the shifting attendance numbers have to do with Christians moving from church to church, not in or out of church altogether.

Part of the problem with the CNN article is the attempt to reinforce an existing narrative. Blake noted, for example, the cultural distrust of institutions, the political divide within churches, issues of sexual morality and identity affirmation, and various scandals in churches over the years. At the same time, his discussion of the positives that churches provide was limited to things like the importance of community and a sense of connection with the past. He worried about what would happen to the social services provided by churches if they no longer exist.

While his concerns are valid, those are things churches do. They aren’t what churches are. The Church is God’s gathered people. A church is where God’s word is proclaimed, His sacraments are practiced, and His people are discipled.

Blake ignored any questions of truth or genuine spirituality. Like too many have, he assumed that if churches don’t “get with the times” and update their doctrines to appeal to younger generations, they will die. In his view, creeds are secondary to marketing concerns. Any talk about spirituality must be subjective, primarily about meaning and connection, not who God is and what He is doing in the world. It should not be missed that the churches that are shrinking are those that think of themselves in the same way.

Thankfully, to paraphrase a line from Mark Twain, reports of the Church’s death are greatly exaggerated. The American church certainly has some problems and, so far, the recent hopes for revival haven’t panned out. But it’s His church, not ours. He promised to preserve it, not always grow it.

Predictions of the Church’s demise are not unusual. G.K. Chesterton wrote that, “(a)t least five times, the Faith has to all appearance gone to the dogs. In each of these five cases it was the dog that died.” Jesus put it even more strongly. He promised to build His church, and that the gates of Hell could not stand against it.

Augustine: The Philosopher Who Solved Anxiety

Sep 14, 2026Jerry CoxChristianityChristianity

More and more young people today suffer from anxiety, depression, or loneliness. But it turns out this isn’t a new problem. Sixteen hundred years ago, a restless university student named Augustine suffered the same maladies. This young man, who would become one of history’s most famous philosophers, found a solution. It still works today. Owen Anderson, Arizona State professor of philosophy and religious studies, tells the story.

Existential Crisis and the Antidote: Guest Column

Aug 19, 2026John StonestreetChristianityChristianity

A 2026 study found that one-third of Americans are currently experiencing an existential crisis of meaning, including 39% of Millennials and an alarming 52% of Gen Z.

Today on Breakpoint, author and professor Dr. Thaddeus Williams has some thoughts on what’s causing the catastrophic loss of meaning today and how the person of Jesus Christ provides what the world needs most.

If we want to speak meaning into our cultural moment, with its epidemic levels of felt meaninglessness, let us run a short thought experiment.

Paul tells us in Colossians 1:16 that all things were created both by Jesus and for Jesus. In Romans 11:36 we see that from Christ and through Christ and to Christ are all things, to whom all glory is due. Theologian Colin Gunton notes that “It is not therefore something which holds things together, but someone,” and that Someone is Jesus.

In our thought experiment let us assume for a moment that the resurrected Person of Jesus is not the ultimate focal point of meaning, what then?

Dr. Loyal Rue, an avowed atheist, helps us run the experiment. In a famous lecture called “The Noble Lie” delivered to the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, Dr. Rue offers us three possibilities for finding meaning. First, each individual can become the centerpoint of meaning for his own universe of personal fulfillment. Rue calls this “the madhouse option,” which abandons all hope for social cohesion. Second, the State can make itself the centerpoint of meaning in an otherwise meaningless cosmos. Rue calls this “the totalitarian option” where all individuality and freedom are lost. Third, we can say that the universe has meaning even though it doesn’t. Rue calls this “the Noble Lie,” which “deceives us, tricks us, compels us beyond self-interest.” In Rue’s bleak trilemma, either the Me destroys the We, the We destroys the Me, or the Lie saves them both, but only by destroying the Truth. (Rue himself defends option three, since “without such lies we cannot live.”) Atheist Alex Rosenberg offers a fourth possibility in the concluding line of his book, The Atheist’s Guide to Reality: “Take Prozac or your favorite serotonin reuptake inhibitor, and keep taking them till they kick in.”

So take your pick: Would you rather live in Rosenberg’s Pharmacy of chemically-induced meaning, Rue’s Church of the Noble Lie, the totalitarian’s Prison of State-imposed meaning, or the relativist’s Madhouse of self-made meaning?

Thankfully, the thought experiment fails. Those are not our only options. Jesus is, in fact, the Telos, the Goal, the focal point where all lines converge and find enduring purpose.

In the era before the seventeenth century, before Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, a fixation on meaning questions often left our understanding of the material world dragging woefully behind. In the era following the Scientific Revolution, we have come to understand the mechanics of the universe far greater than ever before. Yet it appears more meaningless to us than ever. We know more and more about matter but less and less about why matter matters.

Such close-minded materialism has ushered us into a kind of teleological Dark Ages. We have become just as naïve about the meaning of the universe as the medieval alchemist was about the mechanics of the universe. But the meaning void left swirling at the center of a materialist’s cosmos will be filled with something. The human heart, like nature, abhors a vacuum.

To our family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers who are experiencing that existential crisis, we must show them a Grand Telos beyond Dr. Loyal Rue’s madhouse, totalitarian nightmares, and noble lies, a meaning infinitely more meaningful than Alex Rosenberg’s pharmaceutical illusions. We must point them not to an impersonal Something but to the Personal Someone by whom, through whom, and for whom they exist. Bold and clear evangelism—pointing to the resurrected Jesus as the only one big enough to save us from sin and satisfy our deepest existential longings—is precisely what our increasingly nihilistic age needs. Tell someone about Him today.

For more on how the Person of Christ speaks to the meaning crisis of this cultural moment, see the latest book by Dr. Thaddeus Williams, Reflecting the Son: How to Mirror Jesus.