I. History of the Terms – II. Significance – III. Empirical Aspects – IV. Need for Conceptual Differentiation
I. History of the Terms
Toward the end of the 18th century, the term “churched” was coined in the face of the increasingly widespread ¶ phenomenon of the “unchurched,” i.e. of persons who were no longer willing to allow church doctrine to dictate their religious convictions, who only occasionally attended wor…