Christianity and the Body Count Problem I.
How our data leads to terrible strategies, and why studying fertility rates is the answer.
“God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Genesis 1:28
Introduction: Bad Data and its Consequences.
One consequence of looking at the wrong data to understand the shape of a problem is that data always hints at the solution.
For example, during the Vietnam War, U.S. military leaders measured "success" in the conflict using the same metric they used in World Wars I and II: body count—the number of enemy combatants killed. The assumption was that higher body counts equated to progress toward victory.
But the Vietnam War wasn’t a war of attrition. It was a war for public opinion. As a result, strategies were developed to maximize body counts, often at the expense of what truly mattered: winning the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese and beyond. Villages were bombed, civilians were displaced, and atrocities like the My Lai Massacre occurred. In the end, the focus on this narrow, incomplete metric contributed to widespread disillusionment, both domestically and abroad, and the eventual failure of U.S. efforts in Vietnam.
When Christian thought leaders look at the data available to them to understand the problems facing Christianity and to uncover solutions, they make a similar mistake. Here is the data set most leaders are using to make decisions:
67% of the U.S. population self-identifies as Christian, which equates to around 224 million people. This is down from 95% of Americans who identified as Christian in the 1950’s.
However, there is a catastrophic problem with this data.
Surveys that rely on self-reported faith and church attendance are notoriously unreliable as indicators of actual religious engagement. Recent studies have demonstrated that conventional surveys significantly overestimate both church attendance and religious adherence due to respondent bias.
Based on my own experience, when people find out I’m Catholic, due to knowing only Catholics in name only, they often expect me to fit this stereotype.
I consistently disappoint.
The idea behind this data is that church attendance and self-reported affiliation are considered the primary indicators of faithfulness. Thus, if you can win on these two metrics, you win the war. In other words, they think that Christianity is in a war of attrition with modernity. When someone gets baptized or says the salvation prayer, they think, “We got another one! Move them across the ledger!” This is precisely the wrong way to think about religious adherence, and its byproduct is a tremendous amount of time, effort, and energy wasted.
That’s because we misunderstand the war we’re fighting. We are not in a battle of attrition with modernity where individuals move across the “self-identification line” and are “on our team now.” Instead, We’re fighting a war of FORMATION with the modern culture. Each side forms its adherent's behavior in this war to reflect its deeply held beliefs.
The spiritual battle lines and what they mean:
Admittedly, this is an oversimplification. However, to draw a clear contrast between Christianity and prevailing cultural trends, it helps to examine how belief systems manifest in measurable life outcomes. Two competing worldviews are at play here, each shaping behavior and priorities in radically different ways.
Christianity’s worldview:
Nature: God created nature, which is to be respected. Nature sets limitations, and the limits are good.
Hierarchy: Hierarchy is natural and, therefore, good. Loving authority reflects God’s created order.
Egalitarianism: Christian egalitarianism simply recognizes each person's individual dignity. It doesn’t mandate equal outcomes.
Meaning: Sacrifice leads to meaning and holiness. Love without sacrifice is mere selfishness, and suffering is redemptive.
Sexuality: God created man and woman in His image. God’s plan for sexuality and marriage is oriented toward family and children.
The prevailing secular worldview:
Nature: The universe exists to serve individual happiness. Dominating nature—through cloning, abortion, or gender reassignment surgery in the name of surpassing limitations is practically a mandate.
Hierarchy: Power is the ultimate currency. Hierarchy is acceptable if you’re on top but intolerable if you’re at the bottom.
Egalitarianism: Everyone’s outcomes should be the same because everyone is the same. Different outcomes can, therefore, only be attributed to injustice. This does not apply to the elites. See Hierarchy.
Meaning: Pleasure is life’s highest fulfillment. Suffering must be avoided at all costs, and sacrifice is only to be admired if followed by success.
Sexuality: Sex is the most pleasurable thing in existence. Therefore, sexual exploration is the highest form of self-realization. Children, like venereal diseases are a negative outcome to be avoided.
Here is the key takeaway: These worldviews lead to dramatically different life outcomes.
Christianity’s framework prioritizes family, placing children at the center of society. To the Christian, there is no more excellent pathway to fulfillment than sacrificing one’s own desires and needs for the sake of the vulnerable child. The data confirms that Women who consider religion "very important" in their daily lives have both higher fertility and higher intended fertility than those who regard religion as less important.
By contrast, the secular worldview—where autonomy and pleasure are paramount—tends to deprioritize children, treating them as optional, burdensome, or a hindrance to career success. This mindset leads to fertility collapse on the individual and cultural level. For example, families in highly religious groups often average three or more children, compared to about 1.6 children in secular families.
What fertility tells us
As you can see, the battle lines are not primarily intellectual. The battle lines are behavioral.
It is not enough for a person to identify as a Christian. Until they live the primary vocation of a Christian, they are not “on our team” yet. That primary vocation is marriage and family. God calls a few to marry Christ and have spiritual children, but most he calls to reflect divine love by having a family directly.
Therefore, to understand our success in the war, we should study the most important outcome of all: birthrates.
So let’s see American Christians are doing on that, shall we?
First, a note on TFR:
The true fertility rates (TFR) for women of self-reported faith backgrounds are listed below. True fertility is the number of children a woman would have if she lived to the end of her childbearing years and had children according to current age-specific fertility rates. Demographers call two children per woman “replacement fertility.” At two children per woman, the population remains stable. When TFR drops below 2, fertility rates begin to enter a death spiral that only religious zealots seem capable of resisting.
National Average: 1.6
Control Group. Believes and lives the secular worldview.
Mainline Protestants: 1.6
NO statistical difference from the control group.
Non-Hispanic Catholics: 1.68
NO statistical difference from the control group.
Evangelical Protestants: 1.8
Small statistical difference from the control group.
Mormons (Latter-day Saints): 2.1 to 2.6
Significant statistical difference from the control group.
Orthodox Jews: 4.1 to 4.2
Significant statistical difference from the control group.
Amish: 6.8 to 7
Massive statistical difference from the control group.
Some insights may be drawn from this breakdown, but the most obvious one is this: The most radical, most distinct, and least assimilated groups are the most successful at promulgating their beliefs. For Christians, this should be instructive. The more your faith looks like the secular world, the less likely it is to win the formation war.
Conclusion: Wrong data, wrong strategy, right data, right strategy
Sadly, most Christian faiths are pursuing precisely the opposite strategy. They attempt to make themselves more and more “relevant” to mass culture. This might be an effective strategy if all that made a Christian was weekly church attendance and self-reported identification; however, since that is NOT what makes a Christian, this strategy is DOA.
To be continued. In part two, I will discuss the current strategies most Christians are pursuing and suggest what they should do instead.
Learn more about my work at www.sherwoodfellows.com
Thanks for the share!