The Wane in the Main(line) without Refrain

October 27, 2011 By

Duke Professor Mark Chaves has been tracking trends in American religion for some long time now, and in his recent study “American Religion: Contemporary Trends” he concludes that over the last generation there has been a ‘softening’ in American commitment to traditional Judaeo-Christian religion.

This ‘softening’ is said to affect everything from whether people feel like they ought to go to worship, to whom they are prepared to marry, to how they identify themselves if asked religious questions. Far more people are prepared to say either that they don’t belong to any religion now than in the past, or that they are not ‘religious’ but sometimes they add ‘just spiritual’. As many as 20% of all Americans now say they don’t belong to any religious group at all compared to 3% in the 1950s. Nonetheless, 92% of all Americans say they still believe in God, but many of them just don’t use ‘religion’ to self-identify much any more.

Oddly, the growth and strengthening of religious conservatives involvement in politics has paralleled both the growth in cynicism about politics ability to change anything, and at the same time the growth of the number of people who want religion to stay out of politics. From 1991 to 2008 the number of persons who want religious leaders to stay out of politics has risen from 20% to an amazing 44%.

The other side of the trend is that those who have remained devout in their religion have tended to become more conservative in their politics over the same span of time. In short, today, church-goers are far more likely to be conservative Republicans than any kind of Democrat. At the same time, the persons who are leaving churches at a rapid rate are liberal Democrats. This is the conclusion of Bradley Wright in his 2010 book ‘Christians are Hate-filled Hypocrites— and Other Lies you’ve Been Told’. Finally, the major growth trends in American religion are in immigrant groups (i.e. Hispanics) more than in other groups.

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  • Alex Oh

    Ben, any ideas on the cause of this “softening?” Is religion declining in the face of technological and scientific progression/innovation just as atheists claimed it would many years back?

    I think the numbers of these “soft” Christians will continue to grow and outright leave the body of Christ someday. Solution? I’m not sure, but how about giving the youth in the church a strong theological education? It has been my experience (in the Korean-American evangelical church) that whenever I or a peer had a difficult question, the answer was always, “Go pray, have faith, don’t doubt.” Luckily for me, I had the curiosity to go looking for answers on my own by taking the time and effort to delve into Christian theology and the variety of views within it (ex. Witherington, N.T. Wright, Peter Enns, John Walton, etc). My faith, or rather, trust, in the loving God is stronger than ever. Unfortunately, not all of my peers have the same curiosity/personality I do and just conclude that religion is a bunch of nonsense and they walk out of the church when they get a nonchalant response of “go pray and have faith.”

  • Byrdman

    So BW3 when are you going to join the “conservative Republican” ranks? For goodness sake you are a strong believer and a life-long theologian!

  • http://www.recycleforce.org/ David

    Measurement of “softening” is crucially dependent on the measure, of course. This could be mixed up with the shift to post-modernism. What are the metrics employed, are all of them relevant to current cultural shifts. Do we measure “circumcisions” when faith commitments would be more accurate? – a metaphor from the first century. This speaks also to how we proclaim the gospel – while not condescending to simple “seeker” appeals – how does the gospel play in the matrix of issues emerging in our culture?

    For example I am engaged in instituting a bible study among participants in an ex-offender employment enterprise. There are believers present – but the bible study is having a hard time gaining momentum. How do I “market” the opportunity? I have had some cachet in the past as the former board president – but I lost some presence when I had to bow out for a period to address illness issues in my family.

  • Dan Miller

    I can’t speak for Ben, but as someone who believes Jesus calls his followers to forsake violence, it’s hard to support a party that in recent years has often pushed for military action.

  • http://theocentrist.wordpress.com/ PB

    The popular culture is so loud and anti-Christianity (explicitly and implicitly), this is not surprising. Maybe it’s just the inundation. Is part of it also the exposure to so many ideas that we’re not sure if we’re right? Or not prepared to say others are THAT wrong? Doubt and uncertainty can really weaken the belief in Christianity’s absolutist claims.
    The church has much to do.