Is religion in the West terminal?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

So, decades of polling have shown a steady decrease in religious affiliation across the West. It seems to be a pretty constant decline and consistent amongst all the major 'dominant' denominations - Anglicanism, Lutheranism, Catholicism and Orthodox faiths are all declining even in their bastions. It also doesn't seem to be affected too much by government policy from what I can tell.

True, some religions in the west are rising. Islam is slowly rising, but only due to birth rates that will probably slow soon. Some new capitalistic evangelical groups are feasting on former established religions, but I don't think they have the same effect on the steadily rising "non-affiliated" number. Is such a decline in religion unprecedented?

[DC Al Fine]

Is such a decline in religion unprecedented?

The answer, like the answer to all good questions is "it depends".

The problem in answering this question is that there's a huge lack of data. Polls of people's beliefs only go back to around WW2, and censuses often didn't ask religion until around 1900, so we have to do a lot of guesswork.

I caution against the myth that people were docile orthodox Christians until the enlightenment/industrial revolution/whatever came along.  The Discovery of France relates an example of villagers abandoning the priest for a pagan witch doctor because of the former's inability to prevent hail... in the 1840's. Although we don't have hard data, there are plenty of anecdotal examples of loose theology and declines in religious observance that aren't that different from our "spiritual but not religious" age. Christian belief in the West is in a very serious decline, but it is not unprecedented.

Now in terms of affiliation, the decline appears to be unprecedented. People are unaffiliated at record levels and there is little in the historical record to suggest that this has happened before. Even in the Middle Ages, I'd guess that the random unorthodox type would answer Catholic on our modern census, or at least Pagan or Cathar or something.

[RFayette]

A few big factors are at play here, in my opinion:
1. The Internet is certainly contributing to a lot of the doubt that is forming in people about the word of God.
2. Major institutions which once affirmed religion (and Christianity in particular), such as universities and the media, have become increasingly hostile as of late.
3. The secular religion of scientism has grown in popularity thanks to charismatic acolytes like Neil Degrasse Tyson.

[afleitch]

A few big factors are at play here, in my opinion:
1. The Internet is certainly contributing to a lot of the doubt that is forming in people about the word of God.

Not particularly. Greater human interaction informs people's understandings of the world. If faith is left wanting because of it, it's because the faith fails, not because the people doubt.

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The media have never affirmed religion, or irreligiousity either. The universities affirm learning. If learning is contrary to religious belief, then of course it's going to take precedent.

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You can be scientific and not secular. Science is not a religion. Neil Degrasse Tyson is a scientist, not an acolyte.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

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The first sentence is highly questionable, and I don't say that solely as an anti-liberal statement. There are poor motives all around and thought is often shunned. I also don't see how learning is contrary to belief in any notable circumstances unless you find evolution's existence completely contradicts everything.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/06/zen-no-more-japan-shuns-its-buddhist-traditions-as-temples-close

Interesting similarities

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/06/zen-no-more-japan-shuns-its-buddhist-traditions-as-temples-close

Interesting similarities

In Japanese religious history specifically things bearing varying degrees of resemblance to this have happened several times. The most disconcerting aspect of this particular instance is its connection with the emptying of rural areas, which is a genuinely severe and unprecedented problem. Aum Shinrikyo was a genuinely shocking and disorienting event in Japanese people's psyches and I'm sure did shift the way a lot of them thought about religion, but playing it up as a serious contributing factor twenty years later, or mentioning it in the same breath as the gloomy reputation caused by Buddhism's association with elaborate funerals, is disingenuous. I wouldn't be surprised if the Grauniad had some sort of editorial interest in making this look more similar to the position of Christianity in Europe than it in fact is.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Although religion (however defined) in both the West and Japan is doing considerably better than the newspaper industry...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Anyway, you're asking several different questions at once without perhaps realising (people often do this wrt the sociology of religion). For one thing identity would be a matter of Confession rather than Religion in most cases (even if the two things are related), after all. I suspect that this post will be rambling and incoherent, which is ironic given that I've just raised the matter of clarity.

To answer your question directly: No. It is now fairly clear that the secularisation thesis is wrong and that religion is not going to disappear as an inevitable result of modernisation (typically the great fall in religious observance has broadly leveled off - if in rather strange ways in certain cases - and religious organisations remain one of the most important elements of civil society; talk to certain academics of a certain age and they are often surprised and slightly bemused by the latter), but it is equally clear (though has been since the 1960s, frankly) that the 19th century model of mass membership religion is absolutely terminal (in much the same way as the 19th century model of mass membership politics is; I maintain that this is not a coincidence), and that religious organisations have had to adapt accordingly (to varying degrees of success). But then the entire history of the Christian religion has been of adaption to social change; 19th century religion would have been utterly alien to people living in the 17th century and 17th century religion to people living in the 14th century and so on. Minority religions have (and always have done, even when there was only one) a different relationship - always somewhat countercultural even if not always actively so - with wider society of of course. Religion will remain an important aspect of Western society so long as there is such a thing, though anyone who can be sure on the exact form of it is lying (either to you or themselves).

Now, it is also clear (and this is something new) that the relationship between Christianity and the state has changed utterly even in countries that continue to have Established churches: Western states are no longer defined as Christian (see the disappearance of stodgy default Anglicanism from British public life over the past few decades - did that ever have much to do with religion except in a tangential sense? - and the fact that British schoolchildren were once taught that This Is A Christian Country and are now informed that We Live In A Secular Society. I would argue that both statements are ridiculous and borderline delusional, but that's a different matter) and Confession is no longer as important a marker of personal identity as it used to be. A fifty year old who answers 'Christian' on a census form or to a pollster (the opportunity to have a pop at quantitative sociology looms at this point but I shall manfully resist) is quite probably no more religious than a twenty year old who answers 'No Religion', they were just brought up at a time when state and society affirmed certain things that they do no longer. Perhaps Confessionalism is terminal (but probably it will hang around in some form as well, even if only in the vague sense of knowing that you are not one of Those People, whoever Those People happen to be). How much this matters depends on your point of view: to me it is mostly a curiosity, but then I have become very bored with identity obsession and this can easily lead to a certain intellectual intolerance (but at least it isn't National Identity he mutters to himself).

And there's little point in talking about belief, because not only is it as undesirable to open up windows into men's souls as Elizabeth I thought, it isn't as though it is even possible...

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Although religion (however defined) in both the West and Japan is doing considerably better than the newspaper industry...

I've taken classes on Japanese mass print culture, including one specifically on newspapers. Newspapers in Japan are doing about as well as Buddhism in Japan which is doing better than Christianity in the (non-US) West which is doing better than newspapers in the West.

It's also worth noting that levels of actual religious commitment and popular religious sentiment in Japan aren't estimated to have changed much one way or the other (disregarding the arguably-'religious' aspects of Japanese para-fascism) since, in fact, the early Edo period.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

... mentioning it in the same breath as the gloomy reputation caused by Buddhism's association with elaborate funerals, is disingenuous.

All the Dharmic religions are gloomy. At best, they encourage an enjoy life while you can mentality because sooner or later life will suck unless you can manage to escape existence. It's why altho I usually find much to admire in their ethics, their theology repels me.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

... mentioning it in the same breath as the gloomy reputation caused by Buddhism's association with elaborate funerals, is disingenuous.

All the Dharmic religions are gloomy. At best, they encourage an enjoy life while you can mentality because sooner or later life will suck unless you can manage to escape existence. It's why altho I usually find much to admire in their ethics, their theology repels me.

There are certain sects of Mahayana--the ones that take Nagarjuna's dialectic to its logical conclusion (if you're sympathetic to said sects) or a ridiculous extreme (if you're not)--of which that simply isn't true, including several of the sects most prominent in Japan. I don't know a huge amount about Hinduism but I suspect there are types of Hinduism of which that isn't true as well. Also, treating the feeling or vibe of a religion as actually practiced and lived as being primarily defined by the technical ins and outs of that religion's theology is a fool's errand.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

... mentioning it in the same breath as the gloomy reputation caused by Buddhism's association with elaborate funerals, is disingenuous.

All the Dharmic religions are gloomy. At best, they encourage an enjoy life while you can mentality because sooner or later life will suck unless you can manage to escape existence. It's why altho I usually find much to admire in their ethics, their theology repels me.

There are certain sects of Mahayana--the ones that take Nagarjuna's dialectic to its logical conclusion (if you're sympathetic to said sects) or a ridiculous extreme (if you're not)--of which that simply isn't true, including several of the sects most prominent in Japan. I don't know a huge amount about Hinduism but I suspect there are types of Hinduism of which that isn't true as well. Also, treating the feeling or vibe of a religion as actually practiced and lived as being primarily defined by the technical ins and outs of that religion's theology is a fool's errand.

Perhaps, but it's the same errand that led me to being a member of a UU church rather than a mainline Christian denomination. To me, the theology is important.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

... mentioning it in the same breath as the gloomy reputation caused by Buddhism's association with elaborate funerals, is disingenuous.

All the Dharmic religions are gloomy. At best, they encourage an enjoy life while you can mentality because sooner or later life will suck unless you can manage to escape existence. It's why altho I usually find much to admire in their ethics, their theology repels me.

There are certain sects of Mahayana--the ones that take Nagarjuna's dialectic to its logical conclusion (if you're sympathetic to said sects) or a ridiculous extreme (if you're not)--of which that simply isn't true, including several of the sects most prominent in Japan. I don't know a huge amount about Hinduism but I suspect there are types of Hinduism of which that isn't true as well. Also, treating the feeling or vibe of a religion as actually practiced and lived as being primarily defined by the technical ins and outs of that religion's theology is a fool's errand.

Perhaps, but it's the same errand that led me to being a member of a UU church rather than a mainline Christian denomination. To me, the theology is important.

It's important to me too, but words like 'gloomy' make the most sense when applied to what people do with a religion.

[Deus Naturae]

Fertility rates say no.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Well humanity everywhere is terminal, so, I guess yes.