Americans leaving churches in droves

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By Julia Duin

"Quitting Church: Why the Faithful Are Fleeing and What to Do About It" (Baker Books) is the new book by Julia Duin, assistant national editor (religion) at The Washington Times. In this excerpt, she details her personal experience and survey numbers showing the difficulties evangelical churches have with keeping their members.

"You're not going to church?" I asked him.

It was his birthday, so we had met for dinner at the Olive Garden, one of our favorite Italian restaurants. He shook his head. "Matt," I will call him, was legally blind and unable to drive. That and a few other handicaps had not prevented him from having a decent-paying job with the U.S. government, from amassing a world-class library in his home, and from being the go-to guy with answers to all my questions about Reformed theology.

But here he was, disconsolate. A reporter by trade, I dragged his story out of him.

"I don't mind taking the metro to church, but you know me," he said. "I'm pretty Reformed, and the kind of church I like is always at least two miles from the nearest stop."

I named a church in Alexandria, a posh suburb with its own historic district. He'd been going there the last time we talked.

"Oh, they promised they'd find me a family that could pick me up," he said. "And they did, for a while. Then they started forgetting I was there. It was like Russian roulette. I would get dressed and wait for them, but I never knew which Sunday they'd actually show up at my front door."

By the time he'd get this family on their cell phone, they'd already be in the church parking lot and in no mood to double back and get him. When he brought this up to the leaders at his church, they told him he was on his own. Finally, he just quit going for more than a year. No one from his church ever called to ask where he was. He contacted some other churches, but none would offer him any help in getting to their services.

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