Fox News host Bill O’Reilly on Tuesday night said that the decline in Americans who identify as Christians signals that the United States “is in trouble” and placed some blame for this decline on the “rap industry” and “pernicious entertainment.”
According to a Pew study released on Tuesday, between 2007 and 2014, the number of Americans who identify as Christian has fallen from 78 percent to about 71 percent of the population, while the number of Americans who do not identify with a religion grew from 16 percent to about 23 percent of the population.
“There is no question that people of faith are being marginalized by a secular media and pernicious entertainment. The rap industry, for example, often glorifies depraved behavior, and that sinks into the minds of some young people, the group that is most likely to reject religion,” O’Reilly said after referencing the Pew study. “If you are a person of faith, then the media general thinks you are a loon.”
O’Reilly said that if Americans continue to move away from religion, it could hurt the country.
“Any student of history knows that when a nation turns inward toward the pursuit of individual gratification, the country is in trouble,” he said, noting that the Roman Empire collapsed after people “rejected sacrificing” for the republic.
“The same thing is happening in America today,” he said.
O’Reilly also attributed the decline in the number of Christians in the U.S. on corruption in the Catholic Church.
He claimed that the Founding Fathers “did not want a secular nation” because they felt the country needed a “strong moral code.”
Watch the clip via Fox News:
