Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Sunday America and Sunday Africa

Someone posted this meme to Facebook, so I thought I would comment on it.  In the upper left is "Black Friday".  Upper right is "Sunday America".  On the bottom is "Sunday Africa."

America generally refers to US citizens. [1] But there are 300 million plus people in this country and about 40% of them attend church almost weekly. [2] (The particular church in question is a small Calvinist congregation of 25-50. [3]) Less than one half of one percent of American churches are mega churches and they are attended by 10% of all church attendees.  Half of the approximately 120 million church attendees attend the top 10% of churches. [4]  While most churches in the America may look like the church in question, there are many churches in this country where thousands attend every Sunday.  Of the approximately 12 million people who attend mega churches, 30,000 attend Lakewood Church on Sunday mornings. [5]

This brings us that bottom picture.  Africa is not a country, but a continent populated by over a billion people who are spread out over 54 nations. [6] This picture was taken for a 2009 revival in Maua, Kenya. [7]  Those who took the picture only counted about 3000, about 10% of those that attend Lakewood regularly.  Also, though the revival went till Sunday, this was not a normal Sunday service.

Black Friday 2011, a record number, 226 million Americans, shopped at retail stores.  Surely they did not all wait in long lines before sunrise.  Still, more Americans shopped than attend church regularly.  Yet "regularly" is the key word.  The revival service in Maua is not a weekly event and neither is Black Friday.  For that matter only 40% of Americans attend church while 78.4% profess to be Christians. [8]

Like most memes this picture is very misleading and borderline ignorant.  Africa is the most genetically diverse continent on earth, yet it is treated as if it were a country. [9] Also, two out of three of the pictures do not refer to a weekly event.

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