(US) Christians decline by 13 million since 2009 + (UK) Religious hate-crime on rise

[Zinjanthropos]

Maybe it’s been said before but.....Great tweet I read re the religious aspect of the recent Canadian election, Conservatives in particular, “Who needs an education when the Bible has all the answers”. Maybe Bibles have seen their day.

[Ben the Donkey]

Modern spirituality is the dying wheeze of ecclesiastical history.

[Syne]

Even though religion is on the rise worldwide.

[Leigha]

The way Christianity is practiced in the West differs from other parts of the world where many have left native religions, converting to Christianity. I watched a recent discussion on YouTube whereby a man born and raised in India (still residing there) who converted to Christianity, laughed as he told the story of his visit to American churches. How full of greed many are and how it seems like a big show. How vastly different is Christianity celebrated and taught in India.

I’d have to agree with him on his observation. Many American churches resemble the Pharisees, more than they do Jesus’ teachings of humility and grace.

That said, you don’t need a designated building or a religious organization to follow Jesus.

[Magical Realist]

If Jesus and his disciples were to come back today and see the churches that operate in his name, they wouldn't recognize them.

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[Yazata]

Share of Americans with no religious affiliation is rising significantly

Yes, that seems to be happening.

I'm a bit skeptical of this Pew poll though, for several reasons.

For one, it seems to smear two separate things together: One is religious adherence, the question of which religious group somebody considers themselves belonging to. The other is religious belief, what that particular individual happens believe about various religious questions. I like the ARIS surveys because they ask separate questions to explore this. Unfortunately, the last ARIS survey was in 2008 I believe, so their data is a bit dated.

They asked whether respondents identified with a particular religious group and if so, which one. They got X percentage self-described Roman Catholics for instance. Y percentage Southern Baptists. And so on. Then they asked whether respondents believed in a personal God, a non-personal higher-power, or nothing divine at all. Interestingly, the number who said they believed in a personal God was lower than the number who said that they identified with a theistic religious denomination. Some of the individuals who self-described as members of a Christian denomination went with 'higher power'.   

It seems that here in the United States, religious adherence is as much part of one's social identity as it is a matter of personal belief. It's not just a question of individual philosophy, it's a matter of belonging to a community. Just think "Irish Catholic". 'Irish Catholic' is an ethnic identifier and I'm sure than many self-described 'Irish Catholics' don't believe very devoutly in Catholic doctrine. I expect that the same thing happens with Muslims. In traditional Islam, leaving Islam is a death-penalty offense. Even in the US, I'm sure that it can get people shunned and persecuted by their ethnic homies. So I expect that there are lots of people who still say that they are Muslim, but don't particularly believe any of it. We see people identifying as 'Episcopalian' because it's a family tradition, not because of religious belief. Same for any religious denomination, pretty much.

Meanwhile, 26% (about 67 million) describe themselves as religious “nones” (atheists, agnostics and nonaffiliated), up from 17% in 2009.

This is another place where the confusion between adherence and belief is important. Are these "Nones" (I'm one of them) 'nones' because they lack affiliation with an organized denomination, or are they 'nones' because they lack religious belief? Interestingly, the ARIS survey (2008) found that the number of self-described atheists was much smaller than the number of 'nones'. So apparently many people are found here that consider themselves 'spiritual but not religious'. They feel a personal religiosity but don't know which organized religious group best represents it.

Pew says all categories of the religiously unaffiliated population ... Self-described atheists now account for 4 percent of US adults, up from 2 percent in 2009; agnostics account for 5 percent, up from 3 percent a decade ago; and 17 percent of Americans now describe their religion as “nothing in particular,” up from 12 percent in 2009.

So 26% are 'nones', but only 4% are self-described atheists? That cries out for more investigation.

I personally think that with the rise of the internet and everyone's exposure to every variety of religious ideas on Earth and 16 other planets, more and more people are going what we might call "new age". They are exploiting the established religious traditions like shelves in a spiritual supermarket, picking up something they like on this shelf and something else on that shelf. Then fashioning their own personal brand of 'spirituality' that doesn't really cohere with any of the religious traditions. But that might be more of a California thing.

The age differences in religious participation that Pew found might be as much social as a matter of religious philosophy. The age group that goes to church the most are the so-called "silent generation" born during World War II. These are all seniors now and they are more apt to focus their social lives on a church group than on the hippest downtown nightclubs. People are always exclaiming about how churches are filled with white-haired oldsters, and take it to be a sign of the decline of the churches. I suspect it's just a matter of churches being social centers for many seniors. Particularly older females. They go to church because that's where they meet their friends.

I think that probably the biggest part of the 'nothing in particular' phenomenon is that people are becoming more secularized. Religion plays a smaller role in their lives. (Sundays are for Football, damn it!!) They don't attend church except for weddings and funerals and they rarely even think about it. So when somebody suddenly asks them, the immediate answer is "I don't know...".

What I wonder is what these people people would find if they searched within themselves. How many would just find a blank, a void? How many would find Science! or Marxism or feminism or some secular faith like that in the emotional spot where religion went in previous generations? And how many people would find a vague 'higher power' thing? I guess that my bottom line is that there's probably lots of interesting variation among these 'nones', from the rabidly angry anti-religion atheists, to airy, spacey, anything goes if it feels good "new agers". It might be hard to generalize about the "Nones", when even they aren't sure what they believe. Lots of interesting psychology of religion work could be done here.

[Syne]

LOL! I read "Science!" in Thomas Dolby's voice.