{"id":44298,"date":"2017-09-17T15:55:49","date_gmt":"2017-09-17T21:55:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=44298"},"modified":"2017-09-17T15:57:36","modified_gmt":"2017-09-17T21:57:36","slug":"meditation-rise-religious-nones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2017\/09\/meditation-rise-religious-nones.html","title":{"rendered":"A meditation on the rise of the religious “nones”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Near<\/a>
Waikiki Beach at sunset (Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
Imagine there\u2019s no heaven
\nIt\u2019s easy if you try
\nNo hell below us
\nAbove us only sky
\nImagine all the people living for today<\/div>\n
Imagine there\u2019s no countries
\nIt isn\u2019t hard to do
\nNothing to kill or die for
\nAnd no religion too
\nImagine all the people living life in peace<\/div>\n
You may say I\u2019m a dreamer
\nBut I\u2019m not the only one
\nI hope some day you\u2019ll join us
\nAnd the world will be as one<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Imagine no possessions
\nI wonder if you can
\nNo need for greed or hunger
\nA brotherhood of man
\nImagine all the people sharing all the world<\/div>\n
You may say I\u2019m a dreamer
\nBut I\u2019m not the only one
\nI hope some day you\u2019ll join us
\nAnd the world will be as one<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

So wrote John Lennon, in what has become, for some atheists, a kind of anthem.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I argued in a 2012 Deseret News<\/em> column (\u201cJohn Lennon was wrong, but right at the same time\u201d<\/a>) that Imagine<\/em> is\u00a0a silly, intellectually shallow song, and I still think so.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, as many have noted of late \u2014 some with delight and others with alarm \u2014 more and more Americans are \u201cunchurched,\u201d especially among the relatively young. \u00a0More and more list their religious affiliation as \u201cnone.\u201d \u00a0And the trend has been accelerating.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

More than a few \u2014 mostly those who approve of the trend \u2014\u00a0have sought to explain this change as the natural result of greater information, largely driven by the internet. \u00a0I confess to being skeptical about such suggestions, partly because I\u2019m involved with young people on a regular basis and haven\u2019t noticed that the current generation is especially well informed.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, I don\u2019t think that the internet and social media are unrelated to current religious trends. \u00a0I simply suspect that they\u2019re related in a different way. \u00a0(More on that in a later post.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

What we\u2019re seeing, in my judgment, is the rise of a certain kind of individualism \u2014 arguably, it might even be termed\u00a0atomistic<\/em> individualism \u2014 that is good in some ways but, arguably, very, very bad in others:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Real Reason Religion Is Declining In America:\u00a0Why the U.S. will eventually resemble Europe\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The fact is that American social connections are undergoing a seismic shift. \u00a0For example, young people are marrying later, if they marry at all, and are delaying the beginning of families, if they choose to have children at all. \u00a0Venerable voluntary organizations such as the Freemasons, the Rotary Club, and the Elks have been declining in membership, sometimes sharply. \u00a0There has also been a trend of decreasing voter turnout in most established\u00a0democracies\u00a0since the 1980s, which is commonly\u00a0attributed to disillusionment,\u00a0indifference, and\/or a sense that one\u2019s vote won\u2019t make any difference.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a passage from the Wikipedia article on \u201cVoter turnout\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the last 40 years, voter turnout has been steadily declining in the established democracies.\u00a0\u00a0This trend has been significant in the United States, Western Europe, Japan and Latin America. It has been a matter of concern and controversy among political scientists for several decades. During this same period, other forms of political participation have also declined, such as voluntary participation in political parties and the attendance of observers at town meetings. The decline in voting has also accompanied a general decline in civic participation, such as church attendance, membership in professional, fraternal, and student societies, youth groups, and parent-teacher associations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In other words, lack of participation in religious organizations, especially by young people, may well have relatively little to do with theology, or with greater scientific literacy (as some have suggested, rather implausibly, since there is small reason to believe that there is a greater knowledge of science among contemporary young people). \u00a0In fact, it seems unlikely that a decline in religious participation is or can be wholly unrelated to other areas of decreasing social participation.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But is this decline healthy?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I recently read a thought-provoking article titled \u201cAlienation Is Killing Americans and Japanese.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

What the article has to say\u00a0connects, in my mind, with the classic 1985 sociological study\u00a0Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life\u00a0<\/span><\/em>(by Robert N. Bellah,\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>Richard Madsen,\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>William M. Sullivan,\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>Ann Swidler, and\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>Steven M. Tipton) and with the famous and more recent book\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community,<\/em> by Robert D. Putnam.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

These are waters in which I\u2019ve been dipping my toe for some time now, off and on. \u00a0See, for example, my 2013 Deseret News<\/em> column \u201cFaith and family depend upon each other,\u201d<\/a> which treats the work of Mary Eberstadt, as well as my remarks about a month and a half ago at the August 2017 FairMormon conference (\u201cWhat Difference Does It Make?\u201d<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The evidence seems clear that religious participation is a powerful factor for overall psychosocial health.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo,\u201d asks Mary Eberstadt in her book\u00a0How the West Really Lost God<\/em>, \u201cis it in society\u2019s interest to encourage Christian practice?\u201d She then provides her own response. \u201cThe answer is: only so far as it is in society\u2019s interest to encourage quality of life, enhanced health, happiness, coping, less crime, less depression, and other such benefits associated with religious involvement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And the negative consequences of declining religious participation, if the trend in that direction continues, may impact more than merely\u00a0individual flourishing:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yesterday, I posted a link to an article in USA Today<\/em> indicating that \u201cFaith groups provide the bulk of disaster recovery, in coordination with FEMA.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 If such faith groups were to go away or be significantly weakened, that would affect the ability of many to recover from natural disasters.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Imagine there\u2019s no heaven It\u2019s easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people living for today Imagine there\u2019s no countries It isn\u2019t hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people living life in peace You may […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nA meditation on the rise of the religious "nones"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    Imagine there's no heaven It's easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people living for today Imagine there's no\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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