One of the most widely read stories on Christianity Today’s website over the last few weeks was focused on the Mexican holiday of Día de los Muertos or “The Day of the Dead.” The tradition dates back centuries and is related to the Catholic church calendar which includes All Souls’ Day (the last day of October) and All Saints’ Day (November 1st). It’s a celebration in which people make offerings to their dead relatives as a way to insure that they won’t cause any harm to the living. In just the last few years, the holiday has become much more popular and widely celebrated in the United States.
The purpose of the Christianity Today article was to help Christians understand if, and how, they should celebrate the Day of the Dead. What is notable here is that the article contains the perspective of three female Hispanic authors. The perspectives range from totally avoiding the holiday to encouraging Christians to celebrate the occasion with their friends and neighbors. These types of stories will only become more prevalent in the next several decades as the racial and cultural makeup of not just American society, but also American religion begin to change rapidly.
According to the United States Census Bureau, between 2010 and 2020 the number of white people in the United States dropped from 223.6 million in 2010 to just 204.3 million in 2020. Currently 61.6% of the population identifies as white. For African-Americans the change was very small - 12.4% of people living in the United States were black in 2020, down just slightly from 12.6% in 2010.
Hispanics were 16.3% of the population in 2010, but jumped to 18.7% in 2020. According to the best estimates from the Census Bureau, “Slightly more than half (51.1%) of the total U.S. population growth between 2010 and 2020 came from growth in the Hispanic or Latino population.”
But how is that impacting the church going population? According to data I have analyzed from the General Social Survey, there’s clear evidence that the racial composition of those in the pews every Sunday is shifting rapidly and church leaders need to be aware of this significant shift.
In the 1980s, about 20% of all Protestants who went to church weekly did not identify as white. It was a slightly smaller share of Catholics who attended Mass weekly - 17%. But over the next few decades things began to change rapidly. According to the most recent data, nearly a third of Protestant and Catholic churches are filled with members who do not identify as white on surveys. Obviously, this is not evenly distributed across every church, with many congregations being racially homogeneous. But, there’s no doubt that every pastor in the United States will see his or her congregation become more racially diverse in the coming years.
What that means practically is that pastors need to become more culturally aware of religious practices and customs that emerged outside the United States. Discussions like whether Christians should celebrate The Day of the Dead will become more commonplace in churches across the United States. Pastors will need to be sensitive to the heritage and traditions of their members, while also retaining a fidelity to the Gospel.
As the Christianity Today article so carefully lays out, there’s not a single right way to approach these topics. Pastors need to be open to listening to a variety of viewpoints and trying to empathize with people coming at these topics from different backgrounds. If churches want to survive and thrive throughout the rest of the 21st Century, how they navigate these issues will be a key part of their growth trajectory.