Hello and welcome. It is Eric Erickson here. The Eric Erickson show across the nation. The phone number is 877-97-9-7-9-7-4-25 if you would like to be a part of this year program. I want to start. Look, we're a week from Christmas. I'm actually after Friday, going to step away a couple of days.

I'll be back, of course, for Christmas Eve.

I'm always here for Christmas Eve for you guys, provided it's on a weekday.

I will be back so no one else has to fill in for me delivering my annual Christmas Eve show.

So put it on your calendar, noon to three.

You'll get my Christmas Eve show next week. But there's a story of the Wall Street Journal today. I want to talk

about it because it's relevant to a whole lot of stories out there. And it may otherwise fly

under the radar, but I actually think it's a pretty big deal. This is from Ian Lovett at the Wall Street Journal.

Religious affiliation in the United States has continued to fall during the pandemic,

according to a new survey for the Pew Research Center. The percentage of Americans who

identify as Christians now stands at 63% down from 65% in 2019 and from 78% in 2007. Meanwhile,

29% of Americans now identify as having no religion up from 26% in 2019 and 16% in 2007 when Pew began tracking religious identity.

Many places of worship closed during the pandemic, some voluntarily, others as a result of state and local

social distancing rules, and in-person church attendance is roughly 30% to 50% lower than it was

before the pandemic, estimates Barnah Group, a research firm that studies faith

in the U.S., millions of Americans move to worshiping online, and questions linger about how

many will come back in person. A recent Pew survey in January found that a third of Americans

said their faith has grown stronger during the pandemic,

the highest share of any developed country. But overall, religious engagement trended downward

at roughly the same rate as before the pandemic. This story, I think, is more important than

most people probably realize.

Study after study after study after study after study after study after study after study after study after study after study after study after study after study after study after study.

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