Friday, January 23, 2009

More Buddhists than Orthodox Christians

This survey by Pew Forum reports that there are more people who call themselves Buddhists than Orthodox in the United States.

A large part of this is arguably the lack of awareness and knowledge of the Orthodox Faith, which is one of the primary reasons for the significant opportunity in America to bring non-believers to the early, pre-denominational Church.

However, I wonder how many "Orthodox" Christians who are members of culturally based Churches are embarrassed to say they are Orthodox. We should take this as a reminder of the need for internal evangelizing especially within culturally closed communities.

1 comment:

street theologian said...

There are probably many reasons that we can also name. For a while, and perhaps still, Eastern religions have been a trendy alternative for the counter-culture kids disenchanted with Christianity. The Orthodox Church can offer all the discipline, all the mysticism, and all the personal relationship with the Divine that any other religion can provide, but as we repeat endlessly, it has never been communicated so well in America.