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The Death of Christianity

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14:54 / 11.04.08

Elsewhere, darth daddy said At the bookstores I frequent the "new age" or "occult" areas are continuously shrinking and the Christian book sections expanding. The denizens of this web site are the extreme minority.

So, not wanting to rot the end point of paganism thread (haha), I have started a new one to examine the growth or decline of the churchgoing Christian population.
In a nutshell, that assertion is toss. Christianity is declining rather than rising, while 'new age' beliefs are massively on the rise.

In the UK Between 1979 and 2005, half of all Christians stopped going to church on a Sunday...and all indicators show a continued secularisation of British society in line with other European countries such as France.

"The proportion of the [American] population that can be classified as Christian has declined from 86% in 1990 to 77% in 2001."
76.5% (159 million) of Americans identify themselves as Christian. This is a major slide from 86.2% in 1990. Identification with Christianity has suffered a loss of 9.7 percentage points in 11 years -- about 0.9 percentage points per year. This decline is identical to that observed in Canada between 1981 and 2001. If this trend is continued, then:
-at the present time (2007-MAY), only 71% of American adults consider themselves Christians
-The percentage will dip below 70% in 2008
-By about the year 2042, non-Christians will outnumber the Christians in the U.S.

While it is true that christianity is on the rise in developing nations, in the West it is dying. What do you think about that?

All Acting Regiment

15:14 / 11.04.08

I worry, because it points to a situation where people in countries with less economic wealth adopt a more religious frame of reference, while people with more economic security become more secular, this possibly making it harder and harder for both groups to have any sort of understanding. I'm not saying people 'should' do the opposite - presumably people are doing what seems right to them - I'm just worried about what it means for relations between groups of people.

I may be totally misjudging the situation, but it's something we already see to an extent with regards to the way in which those who are still religious are brushed off as 'crazies' or 'backward' - the way hardcore Christians in the southern US are talked about, for example - even when they have legitimate concerns. Or how, because those Danish cartoon protests and riots were done partly to defend a religious taboo, it was made out that the people engaged in them were protesting and rioting for no good reason, when they weren't (the Mohammed-with-bomb cartoon was a rallying cry for skinheads, among other things).

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15:28 / 11.04.08

One question that interests me is: What is Christianity replaced by, if anything? While the institutions and institutional practices and behaviours associated with organised Christian religions may be waning, what about the values inherent in and derived from Christian worldviews? Take the much-vaunted Protestant/Puritan work ethic: Find something you're good at, practice much and work hard - this will lead to both personal and societal salvation/prosperity. Is this in decline? Bugger if I know. What about charity? Are we more or less charitable than our parents?

A slightly different set of questions would problematise certain aspects of the industrialist-Enlightenment value-sets in relation to pre-existing Christian notions. Capital-p progress, Christian eschatology and post-humanist Singularity-type positivistic science all seem to share a linear and convergent model of history where in the end, through the divine spark, rationality and/or hard work we'll all be saved.

Are these the kind of things you want to discuss, Quantum?

15:36 / 11.04.08

Thank you for your links regarding the increase in new age beliefs and decline in Christianity. My problem is that the footnote reflects a study done in 2002 for the increase in Wicca. I am from Atlanta, Georgia, and most likely my perception is derived from my location. Back in 2002 we had numerous new age bookstores which have since closed. Perhaps this is more a connection with the advent of online sellers like Amazon than an overall decline in the new age movement. After all, even Oprah is shilling Eckart Tolle's new book.

Similarly, I would agree with you specifically in regard to the Catholic Church's well documented problems with new vocations.

15:50 / 11.04.08

Are we more or less charitable than our parents?

Less. I used to work in charity fundraising and the majority of charitable givers are elderly.

Darth- the UK information comes from the census, a big poll done by the government, and is in no way wiccan-biased, and if you think the US figures I found suffer from bias here's another link for you written by a christian-
The fact is, in North America every other religion is gaining converts while Christianity is losing them.

21:36 / 11.04.08

Less. I used to work in charity fundraising and the majority of charitable givers are elderly.

I could be wrong, but I think the question was more along the lines of "are we more or less charitable than our parents were at our age". I don't have statistics that back it up, but I suspect that over the past couple centuries, those towards the end of their lives always did more charitable giving than those towards the beginning.

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09:51 / 12.04.08

I worry, because it points to a situation where people in countries with less economic wealth adopt a more religious frame of reference, while people with more economic security become more secular, this possibly making it harder and harder for both groups to have any sort of understanding.

Why do you assume that convertees weren't religious before they become Xtian? I think secularism or atheism is pretty rare outside industrialised countries, so your point doesn't quite ring true. Anyway, in a strange kinda way, the fact that Christian evangelising continues with some success outside of Europe and North America could, almost perversely, ease cross-cultural communication. After all, the newly converted could then possibly more easily understand some of the Christian civilisations' background assumptions.

Mind you, I'm not saying this is necessarily a good thing.

*****

Of course, if you meant that in general people in less developed countries have a more religious frame of reference, regardless of what religion they belong to, I can kinda see your point. Is that true tho? I mean, has anyone got any stats handy?

But, again, I think Western secularism owes so much of its frame of reference to Xtianity in the first place that it's not like secularists don't understand what religious people mean when they use terms like "god" or "faith", it's mainly that they don't agree on the truth-status of the referents of these terms.

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09:54 / 12.04.08

Oh, and palace politics is spot on. I did mean, were our parents, when they were our age, more or less charitable than us? Of course, this could have to do with lots of other things than Christian charity. Presumably they were poorer in a monetary sense. But was social and cultural capital greater a couple of generations back? And had this anything to do with the relative strength of the Church(es)?

Anna de Logardiere

10:16 / 12.04.08

Back in 2002 we had numerous new age bookstores which have since closed.

I think numerous independent bookstores have closed everywhere since 2002, new age or otherwise.

Anna de Logardiere

10:28 / 12.04.08

I think it's important to be quite focused in talking about the decline of christianity. The decline of charity is a separate subject, there's no evidence that can be provided that definitively links the two concepts together. You could easily argue that charity has seen a reduction since rationing began, or that it increased briefly when people could see that everyone else needed help, you could argue that charity was destroyed by the '80s tory government and the drive towards individual over society. That the elderly give more money may be more to do with the fact that they have more money and think they will die before they spend it... basically you can't connect the two ideas in anything more than the most spurious way.

What is Christianity replaced by, if anything?

Condoms, ibuprofen, a trip to the supermarket on a Sunday morning, a trip to a town 100 miles away, cognitive behavioural therapy? Christianity in less developed countries serves as all kinds of things, not simply religion but a news and communication device, someone to tell your troubles too, a substitute for contraception.

20:38 / 14.04.08

All the statistics they tell us in psych classes still say that the majority of counseling is done by clergy, rather than secular psychologists. I think this is a USA statistic, but I would expect it to be even more so in South America.

--Ember--

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

23:00 / 14.04.08

That might have something to do with the cost of secular therapists, Ember. Speaking to the clergy is still, presumably, free? Depending on where you are and who you work for, access to counselling services is limited financially.

23:58 / 14.04.08

Well, it probably also comes out of feeling more free to talk about things with someone who's of your own general faith. Deals and dinner parties involving angels or dead folk may not to go over well with psychoanalysts, but if your within your faith's general boundaries and habits, you can be that little bit more candid with the local church representative.

And I tried good and hard to wrap my head around what my parents' goodwill or charity had to do with Christianity's possible decline, before I realized I was approaching the question wrong. About five different angles of wrong.

That said, a good portion of the world, and history, has managed to not go whole hog for the Holy Ghost and lamb and the wine, without turning cannibal rapist and ending themselves in blood and misery. I think charity attached itself or worked through Christianity more than Christianity ever generated the charity.

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08:44 / 15.04.08

Yeah, it might be that that's one question that is nigh impossible to resolve in any meaningful way. That said, I think that Christianity as a force for greater societal integration and cohesiveness might, at times, have fostered a sense of solidarity specifically through teachings and dogmas that can easily be interpreted as promoting charitable acts. You can start with the 10th commandment - You shall not covet your neighbour's house. You shall not covet your neighbour's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour. Then go on to the virtue of agape or caritas, charitable unselfless love for God and your fellows, which is the greatest of the three theological virtues. Wikipedia tells me that Pauls first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13, is the prime NT text on this virtue.

To the extent that agape/caritas has come to the fore in any Christian majority society, I think there's at least the possibility that we could begin to talk of a causal effect of Christian faith as a predictor of charity. Now, I'm not trying to make as if charity is a specifically Christian value. Far from it. My only point in bringing this up is to respond to Quantum's initial question - what do you think about the decline of Christianity in the Western world? I do believe that certain Christian groups and societies have consciously fostered a greater than average sense of solidarity, and concomitantly a lesser sense of individualism and to a certain extent values associated with industrialised societies, like competitiveness and greed. Quakers, for example.

09:58 / 15.04.08

a causal effect of Christian faith as a predictor of charity

Well, many brands of Christianity explicitly encourage or demand tithing as standard. Like Islam, caring for the needy is a part of the faith, and many (most?) charities started out as church based organisations.
Now though, charities are mostly distancing themselves from any particular faith in order to broaden their supporter base. Just another example of the increasing secularisation in our society, which neatly brings me back ontopic to say that my concern is although church attendance is on the decline nothing similarly supportive is replacing it. Church leaders are concerned that more and more people are using sex, drugs and consumerism to fill the 'spiritual void' and I'm inclined to agree it's a problem- what I'd like to see is a rise of alternative faiths and their acceptance, do you think that's a)possible and b)likely?

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10:33 / 15.04.08

Do you mean over and above already extant rises in "new religions"?

All Acting Regiment

11:05 / 15.04.08

Church leaders are concerned that more and more people are using sex, drugs and consumerism to fill the 'spiritual void' and I'm inclined to agree it's a problem- what I'd like to see is a rise of alternative faiths and their acceptance, do you think that's a)possible and b)likely?

What is this 'spiritual void'? And did people not take drugs and engage in consumerism before now?

All Acting Regiment

11:06 / 15.04.08

On the other hand, I agree people need something shared that they can communicate with other people through, not just communicating within increasingly smaller groups. That could be straight religion, on the other hand it could be an accepted cultural icon such as Shakespeare or Dante. Not everything that brings people together is good, of course.

12:39 / 15.04.08

What is this 'spiritual void'? And did people not take drugs and engage in consumerism before now? Regiment

Well, whatever it is that religion used to provide- succour as it were, a sense of purpose, meaning, belonging, value, a higher truth- that it now doesn't so much.
People did do drugs and consume of course but not as much as they do now-

The number of alcohol-related deaths more than doubled from 4,144 in 1991 to 8,758 in 2006.

Rates of HIV and chlymidia have risen 300 percent over the past 12 years in the U.K., while the gonorrhea rate has risen 200 percent and the syphilis rate has increased 2,000 percent.

Steep rise in credit card debt

The number of young people battling depression has doubled in 12 years (not sure this one has any relation to religion but it might)

Do you mean over and above already extant rises in "new religions"? Nolte

Kinda, but more that secular fundamental atheism shouldn't be the default view. Maybe it's just me but the communities around new age beliefs tend to be less stable and supportive than a traditional Christian church, and I don't see why that should be. In my humble based-on-anecdotal-evidence opinion, many new age believers tend to change their minds more and are less determined or committed. (A big exception being committed magicians IMO)
I agree a community based around Dante *could* be as useful as a religious community but I don't think it is likely to be. A book club isn't a congregation if you know what I mean.

All Acting Regiment

15:39 / 15.04.08

Well, whatever it is that religion used to provide- succour as it were, a sense of purpose, meaning, belonging, value, a higher truth- that it now doesn't so much.

Are we sure that this was always provided by straight-up religion - church attendance, collective worship, that sort of thing?

Both in terms of 'Did these things actually fill a spiritual void, and how would one know' - given that a lot of people at the time when Christianity was prominent seemed to have quite a big problem with it - and in terms of 'What about the opera, the theatre, paintings, literature?'

All Acting Regiment

15:41 / 15.04.08

I agree a community based around Dante *could* be as useful as a religious community but I don't think it is likely to be.

I'd want Hausal authority on this, but the Greeks were based largely around Homer.

15:55 / 15.04.08

Huh? Homer? What about Hermes and Aphrodite and the gang? Results 1 - 10 of about 1,050,000 for greek gods. (0.15 seconds)

ONLY NICE THINGS

16:06 / 15.04.08

Homer isn't a god, though, and the gods don't have holy books, exactly, which tell you what to do - although they have almanacs determining what you should sacrifice when, which is a bit of a different thing, and they have specialisms which help to define what they assist or prevent.

However, the answer to AAR's assertion and Quantum's response is quite complex.

All Acting Regiment

16:14 / 15.04.08

I meant that your average Greek - here, Haus, again, knows far more than me - had a shared set of myths and references in Homer that the whole culture understood.

These were of course religious or semi-religious in nature, large chunks of the Illiad and Odyssey and no doubt the lost Homeric works being comprised of intercourse between mortals and gods. As far as I know, though, Greek religion comprised lots of different cult centres and wasn't uniform, with the country people being more interested in Bacchus and the nobles being more interested in Appollo and so on. The point was that they shared a literature in the same way that Quantum was suggesting Christianity was shared in our culture until fairly recently.

What I'm trying to intercept, even though I don't think anyone's claimed it yet, is the idea that churches and priests and faith - or even worse, particular kinds of churches and priests and faiths - are neccesary for a group of people to feel 'whole', 'purposeful', 'connected', and so on. That churches, priests and faith can produce these basically agreeable sensations is attested to by testimony, and that's great, but they can also fail, or produce the opposite.

All Acting Regiment

16:18 / 15.04.08

Also, without wanting to be cute, is it really the decline of Christianity that's creating the 'spiritual void' or is it rather the rise of industrial capitalism? Or a mixture of both? And isn't it rather in church leader's interests to claim that there's a 'spiritual void'?

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18:46 / 15.04.08

I don't see that churches or priests would be necessary for any one of the attributes you mention, AAR, but I do believe that some degree of shared representations, meanings, stories and myths (all of which I later subsume under the label "narratives") are necessary. This doesn't have to be anything resembling Christianity.

For me religion, in social terms, boils down to narratives, recreated and maintained via institutions, that create emotionally bonding and locally rational orientational frames that seem to be both ends in themselves (perhaps for hedonistic or esthetic reasons) as well as serving social functions such as coordination and cooperation inside the groups of believers.

08:27 / 16.04.08

But by that definition, the compelling shared narratives of religion can be replaced by the compelling shared narratives of Eastenders, or the celebrity culture, or WoW.
I think there is a sacred quality that's missing from those examples, which (obvs.) is present in the Christian or Islamic or Buddhist narratives. It's that sacred element that I worry is not being replaced- all the trappings of church can be found elsewhere, but the heart of the religious experience isn't being provided by whatever is replacing religion.

09:14 / 16.04.08

That reminds me of what Neil Postman said - religions provide enchantment, which deepens our relationship to the universe, while spectacle provides entertainment, which cheapens that relationship and trivializes it.

The decline in charitable activity seems to be part of that decline in collective activity described by Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone - all forms of collective activity have declined recently: charity groups, faith groups, but also sports teams, trade union membership etc. This leads me to think the factor behind this isn't just a lack of a sense of the sacred, but is probably, as alluded to by, I think, AAR above, some problem in the structure of modern capitalism. Maybe even something as simple as the fact that these days people work much longer hours, leaving less time for activities like these?

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09:19 / 16.04.08

Ok. Now you've supplied two concepts that seem pretty crucial to your worries (you do worry, don't you?); one is the spiritual void created by the dissolution of the grand Christian narratives and institutions; the second is the heart of the religious experience.

Not to get all sciencey on y'all, but this debate has been going on in academia for ages - is experience of the sacred always at core the the same, universal and perennial? Or is it inescapably constructed via language, text, ritual and institutions, and so local, contextual and ultimately not unitary? If one believes the first is the case, we (presuming we worry about a spiritual void) should be looking for ways to create and promote stable communities of practice that will allow us to reach the eternally sacred in whatever manner we as a society deem the best. If there is a universal sacred domain of experience, surely there are absolutely better and worse ways of reaching it?

But if the latter is the case I don't see that any particular way, faith, grouping, text or ritual is any better than any other, apart from its potential to (re-)create whatever brain-body states cause the experience of sacredness - so the onus is not there to mourn the loss of the sacred, because it can be created anew from any experience, from watching Eastenders while drinking tea, to watching a leaf swoop past some brickies in the street, making institutions irrelevant as manifestations or essential expressions of the sacred. Granted, they could still serve auxiliary functions, supporting diverse ways of maximising the degree of sacredness in our ways, but they would not in themselves be sacred.

Am I making sense here?

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09:22 / 16.04.08

Velvet: Putnam's argument is still pretty contentious, not the least because he chose as his baseline the years immediately post-WW2, when volunteerism etc. in the US was at a peak. And I really don't believe we work longer hours than our ancestors or even our parents did. At least in industrialised countries.

12:56 / 16.04.08

its potential to (re-)create whatever brain-body states cause the experience of sacredness

Well, that's sort of the nub for me- a church is a really good place to evoke the experience of the divine (cf. 'Heaven & Hell' Aldous Huxley) where a TV in your front room is not so much a godphone as an electronic opiate*.
That state is hard to reach, playing WoW just isn't the same and is a lot less likely to induce religious ecstasy. Not to say getting a +10 axe or whatever isn't a thrill, but it doesn't fulfil the same need as (e.g.) congregational prayer.

*you burn more calories watching a blank white wall than watching TV

13:00 / 16.04.08

I should be clearer where I'm coming from- I'm not and never have been christian and don't rate it over any other faith, and would be glad if it were replaced as the dominant faith by, say, Freya worship or Jainism. My concern is the *absence* of a religious framework, as I feel religion has an important place in life.
Shit, I am Dawkins' evil twin!

18:55 / 16.04.08

Maybe you'll get a part in Doctor Who too!

I've been thinking - isn't it the case that, in most religions, it's always assumed that things were more sacred now than they were in the past? It seems to be a recurring meme, closely allied, I guess, to the idea that 'kids these days have no respect' and 'you could leave your door open back then'.

Nolte - didn't know about the contentiousness of Putnam's data, thanks.

08:12 / 17.04.08

it's always assumed that things were more sacred now than they were in the past?

I'm assuming you meant to type 'less sacred'?

19:28 / 17.04.08

Yes. Either that or 'more secular'.

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