In preparing my lesson for our Sunday school group, I came across a survey table that was the most shocking I’ve ever seen in all my years of analyzing data, running the numbers, and conducting statistical tests. For those who worry about religious life in America, you need to see that our problems long predate every excuse we’ve ever given, from the 1960s, our educational institution, a court case, or any particular political leader. And it is going to take a lot more than a simplistically stated solution for what’s become a global phenomenon.

If you’ve studied the issue of religious life in America, you’re probably not surprised by polls that show the declining percentage of those who feel that religious life is judged to be “very important” in our own lives, falling from the upper 60s to the upper 40s.

John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in Georgia. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. His Twitter account is @JohnTures2.