Smaller numbers = better quality?

There has been much in the news over the last few days about a survey revealing that fewer Americans identify themselves as Christians and that increasing numbers self-identify as atheists or as non-religious. The Wisconsin State Journal reports on the local numbers:

Wisconsin's population is becoming less Christian and more secular like the rest of the country, although the state has seen a sharp drop in Catholics not mirrored nationally.

Seventy-six percent of the state population identifies as Christian, down from 91 percent in 1990, according to the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey. The percentage of Wisconsin residents who claim no religion jumped from 6 percent in 1990 to 15 percent last year.

While the percentage of the U.S. population identifying as Catholic remained relatively stable, the denomination’s share of the state population dropped from 39 percent in 1990 to 29 percent last year. ....

Dennis Doyle, a Catholic theologian at the University of Dayton in Ohio, said he is not that alarmed by the decline in Catholic numbers in Wisconsin and some other states.

"The current pope is associated with a position that smaller numbers may mean better quality," Doyle said. "Some people who may have self-identified as Catholic 10 years ago but who were not practicing Catholics may now be identifying in another way."

In every state, the percentage of people with no religion grew. The category includes atheists (no God), agnostics (unknowable or unsure) and those who indicate no religious identity.

"That is music to our ears," said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation in Madison, where membership has more than doubled in four years to 13,600. "It does look like our nation is following in the path of Europe by becoming more secular." [more]

I'm not sure that "smaller numbers...mean better quality" but as nominal Christians fall away the Church may become increasingly what it ought to be — a body of believers.

WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL