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Article: faith + values; BRIEFLY; Church attendance holds steady.(VARIETY)
- Article from:
- Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
- Article date:
- March 21, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 Star Tribune Co. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: JEFF STRICKLER; STAFF WRITER
Contrary to widely circulated anecdotal evidence, the economic downturn is not creating a corresponding jump in church attendance.
Several evangelical mega-churches nationwide have reported a spike in attendance that correlates with the drop in the Dow Jones Average, a phenomenon that religious bloggers picked up and ran with all over the Internet.
But it turns out that the numbers don't support the hype. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, an organization that monitors religious trends, conducted a quick survey and discovered that church attendance is exactly the same as it was two years ago when the ...