Ep. 542: Data Guru Ryan Burge Laments “The Vanishing Church”

Regular readers of MinistryWatch know that I’m a bit of a Ryan Burge fan-boy. His weekly Substack column, “Graphs About Religion,” is required reading for me. I cite it often in my weekly “Signs and Wonders” column. That’s why I’m kind of geeking out today, now that we finally have him on the podcast. The occasion for this get-together is his new book. It’s called The Vanishing Church: How The Hollowing Out of Moderate Congregations is Hurting Democracy, Faith, and Us. I’ve got to admit that when I saw the title of this book, I thought to myself, “I’m not sure the hollowing out of moderate congregations is such a bad thing.” Jesus himself didn’t have much use for lukewarm Christians. But I have to admit that, after reading Ryan’s book, I have – well – moderated my position on moderate congregations. At least…moderately. As you’ll hear, I push back on Ryan’s thesis a bit, and as I think you will also hear, this was a lively and respectful conversation. Ryan Burge is a professor of practice at The Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University. He previously taught at Eastern Illinois University. He is the author of several previous books, including his 2023 book The Great Dechurching, which may have been my onramp to Ryan’s work. In addition to writing his weekly Substack column, which I just mentioned, he is also a regular contributor to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Politico, and other publications. He has appeared on CBS News’ flagship program 60 Minutes, and has been cited by countless other news programs, podcasts, and news articles. We had this conversation via zoom. The producer for today’s program is Jeff McIntosh. If you are listening to this program during the week we dropped it, MERRY CHRISTMAS. Thanks for making MinistryWatch a part of your holiday festivities. Until next time, may God bless you.