Hip-Hop, and Other Things the Right Blames for Declining Christianity

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/30376-hip-hop-and-other-things-the-right-blames-for-declining-christianity

Christianity's demographic death grip on the United States continues to loosen its hold, new polling data from the Pew Research Center shows. The percentage of Americans who self-identify as Christian dropped from over 78 percent of the population in 2007 to 70 percent in 2014 – a decline of five million people. Most of this shift is attributable to people abandoning religion entirely; the percentage of Americans who have no religious affiliation grew, over the same time period, from 16 percent of the population to nearly a quarter of it. And this trend shows no sign of slowing down: Millennials represent the most non-affiliated demographic of all, with more than one in three young adults saying they don't have a faith.

This shift is inciting panic among conservatives, particularly those who like to argue that ours is a "Christian nation." After the release of the latest data, right-wing pundits immediately started casting around for anyone – anyone but themselves, of course – to blame.

So whose fault is it, according to the right?

Hip-hop. Bill O'Reilly has long been consumed by apparent anger over the fact that music has changed since his youth, and that so many black people make money off it. But even for him, this one was a stretch: "There is no question that people of faith are being marginalized by a secular media and pernicious entertainment," he whined on his Fox News show. "The rap industry, for example, often glorifies depraved behavior, and that sinks into the minds of some young people: the group that is most likely to reject religion."

(No one tell him about "I Am a God." He'll never stop talking about it.)tells them off, calling them assholes and bullies.