U.S. Religion: Post-secular, More Secular, Post-christian?

In an Emergent Outliers discussion a few weeks ago the question came up as to whether the US is becoming more secular, is post-secular, post-Christian, or just post-denominational. Tough set of words to sort out. So much of what one will define the religious situation depends on one’s religious lifeworld. It is one’s own religious place that will be a source of comparison in order to make such a determination. Certainly, if you happen to be a Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopalian, or Catholic the idea that the US is becoming less religious might seem obvious to some. These denominations have been on a regular rate of decline since the 1960’s. Sociologists, on the other hand, look at trends within populations that are not dependent on a given frame of reference like one’s own religious perspective. It’s hard for most people who are religious and concerned aboutr religious trends to step outside of their religious frame of reference, but not doing so often leads to an inaccurate view of reality.

The truth is that the US is as religious as it has ever been. Among all post-industrial nations, the US continues to rank the highest in terms of beliefs in God, the afterlife, prayer, salvation, etc. Some surveys have pointed out that people in the US are becoming less religious and even less Christian. However, this depends on how those interviewed understand the word Christian. My own status as a Christian has been called into account over doctrinal issues such as by rejection of inerrancy, support of full inclusion of same gender love in the church, and rejection of penal substitutionary atonement as a way to explain how Jesus saves people. It is not so much that I continue to choose to follow Jesus. It is what kind of Jesus I believe I need to follow that defines whether or not I am a Christian. Nor does it matter if I believe that Jesus rose from the dead. It matter how Jesus rose from the dead. All of this leads to the question of what all of this conversation means?

First, from one view, the US has always been secular. That is to say, the US was a new sort of experiment in state establishments since there was no established religion when it was formed. True, each state has a sponsored religion. However, this was rather quickly challenged primarily by Madison and Jefferson following a fair deal of strife between New England Congregationalists and Baptists. They took on a different way with Virginia by writing the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom in 1786. They saw that no matter how you sliced and diced it, religion was not going to work if it was established by the government. So in this sense, the foundation of religious liberty is ironically rooted in and fueled by the state’s equal regard for all religious belief under the First Amendment. US religiosity here is fueled by a distinctly secular state.

Second, the irony is that because of the US secular state and equal regard for religion, minority and small religions are able to compete with larger and more established religions. Sectarian and cult movements have always been able to flourish in the US. This was very true in the early 19th century with the birth of the Latter Day Saints, later with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christian Science. There were other movements like the Quakers and Shakers, Campbellites, and even those sectarian Methodists all had verying levels of success based on how well they could adapt to local communities and economies. This pattern persists today with mega churches, alternative religions, and even Scientology. Secularity has lead to the hot bed of religious diversity that the US was then, and is now.

Third, secularism arose as an intellectual force in the late 19th century for which we can see the echo in the quasi-religious rants of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens. They are redressing the same arguments that developed at the turn of the century. Why did they develop? The rapid progression of scientific and technical expertise that could explain and predict once myterious phenomenon like electromagnetism or diversity of species seemed to be poised to replace religion as a structure to explain the world. Tied to modernization, it seemed that religion was doomed. Thus in the 1960’s and 70’s sociologists were making predictions that eventually the world would become secularized and the Western world would become the crucible for this to happen. Looking at the decline of religion in Europe, this seemed to be accurate. It would only spread to the US.

Fourth, what sociologists predicted in the middle of the 20th century for the US never came to pass. Moreover, other parts of the world in the southern hemisphere found their worlds germinating religions as never before. In fact, even though the Western population of the self-identified religious declined, the rate of population growth has been much slower than the southern hemisphere has outpaced other areas of the world for population growth and has also increased the rate of religiosity. Thus, the world is more religious now than it was before. From a theoretical perspective, this is indeed a post-secularization age. But the nation has never really been secularized.

So, what about the US? The rate of religiosity is and has been fairly consistent.Religion is alive and well in the US and there are no signs of decline. However, even as those once strong mainline denominations continue to decline as their populations die off due to low birth rates, we do have to observe how the boundaries are shifting. The idea that Christianity is less powerful, less important, and declining has to be checked against how people define their own religiosity. Whatever the decline over the past 20 years in self-identified Christians means, it is clear that it is the religion that forms the majority religion in the country. To say that this is a post-Christian age is premature. To say that it is post-Christendom as if Christianity was this mythical state establishment at one point also overstates what this meant in the 18th and 19th centuries. What Christianity is doing is shifting as it always has done in a state structure that makes it possible. Those that adapt to change and promote social change will likely fare well. Those that hunker down in the ideology of an era they will never get back will fade into the wind as a memory.