{"id":22382,"date":"2015-10-15T06:00:41","date_gmt":"2015-10-15T10:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=22382"},"modified":"2015-10-14T12:28:58","modified_gmt":"2015-10-14T16:28:58","slug":"why-do-so-few-europeans-go-to-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/10\/why-do-so-few-europeans-go-to-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Why do so few Europeans go to church?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The distinguished sociologist of religion Peter Berger once promoted \u201cthe secularization thesis,\u201d arguing that as societies become more modern, they become less religious.\u00a0 But he has since said that thesis has been falsified, that the world is getting more religious than ever (and that modernity actually has contributed to the growth of religion).\u00a0 The more interesting question, he says now<\/a>, is why Europe has resisted that trend.<\/p>\n

I am wondering now, though, after my speaking tour of Scandinavia, if Europe is as secular as it appears.<\/p>\n

\n

Nearly 80% of the population of Denmark belongs to the state church.\u00a0 This requires paying a church tax <\/a>of from .4% to 1.5% of one\u2019s income, on top of an already crushing tax burden.\u00a0 These members have been baptized and confirmed and they will be married and buried in the church, but only 3% of them go to church on any given Sunday.<\/p>\n

Here<\/a> are further statistics about the religious climate in Denmark:\u00a0 According to a 2010 poll, 24% are atheists; 47% believe more vaguely in \u201csome sort of spirit or life force\u201d; and 28% believe in God.\u00a0 Another poll<\/a> found that 25% of Danes believe Jesus is the son of God and 18% believe He is the savior of the world.<\/p>\n

So, yes, Denmark is a very secular country, with lots of non-believers (about a fourth) and liberal believers (about a half), but another fourth appears to confess Christ.\u00a0 Perhaps a fifth are Gospel-believing Christians.\u00a0 That\u2019s actually not bad for a supposedly secular country.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s put the statistics together.\u00a0 If 80% of the country belong to the Church of Denmark, that must include lots of people who do not particularly believe in Christ, or even God.\u00a0 And if only 3% of the population attends church regularly, that means that lots of Christians are not attending church either.What do we make of this?\u00a0 Peter Berger offers one answer here, <\/a>but it assumes an animosity against the church (due to its association with the state) that I\u2019m not sure is there, at least in Denmark.\u00a0 This is not mere secularism, since secularists voluntarily belong to the church along with Christians, but neither of them go to church very much.<\/p>\n

I suspect that one factor is the liberalism of the state church.\u00a0 The strategy of conforming to the culture to make the church more appealing almost never works, at least in the long run.\u00a0 The Church of Denmark officially affirms most of what the secularists already believe.\u00a0 So what does it offer the secularist?\u00a0 Why get up on Sunday to attend a service?<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, believing Christians will be alienated from the secularist teachings that they would hear from the pulpit.\u00a0 Better to go to an Inner Mission prayer house than to go to the local parish to which they have been assigned, though the Inner Mission will tell them they need to go to church to receive the Sacrament.\u00a0 (The Wikipedia article<\/a> on Denmark\u2019s Inner Mission cites a decline in the number of prayer houses from 1000 at one time to today\u2019s 400.\u00a0 But there are only 120 cities and towns<\/a> in Denmark, so Inner Mission still has a very strong presence.)<\/p>\n

But here is another possible explanation:\u00a0 the attitude towards church attendance is just different from what it is in American Christianity.\u00a0 We visited the Moravian settlement in Christiansfeld<\/a>.\u00a0 The church is still functioning, and an accompanying museum explained Moravian beliefs, including a pitch for joining the church.\u00a0 These included a statement that there are no rules for how often a person has to attend church.\u00a0 You attend whenever you feel a need to.<\/p>\n

This, coming from a quite conservative and evangelical church, I suspect reflects the attitude throughout Scandinavia.\u00a0 You don\u2019t have to attend services every week and you only go to church when you need to.\u00a0 The 3%-ers do attend sometimes.\u00a0 On Christmas, Easter, and other Christian holidays\u2013of which the Danes seem to celebrate more than most Protestants\u2013they go to church.\u00a0 Also at baptisms, confirmations, marriages, and funerals, those relating to themselves, their families, and their friends.\u00a0 And, presumably, when they \u201cfeel a need,\u201d presumably when they are troubled or struggling or want contact with God.<\/p>\n

This is not up to the standard of Hebrews 10:25 <\/a>and it remains a problem.\u00a0 But I suspect that this view of church attendance is commonplace throughout Europe and that it can also be found in the United States.<\/p>\n

It is not exactly the same, however, as indifference to church.\u00a0 Even though church attendance is one of those behaviors that can be easily measured (something social scientists love), it may not be the best way to determine the degree of a society\u2019s secularity.<\/p>\n

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

The distinguished sociologist of religion Peter Berger once promoted \u201cthe secularization thesis,\u201d arguing that as societies become more modern, they become less religious.\u00a0 But he has since said that thesis has been falsified, that the world is getting more religious than ever (and that modernity actually has contributed to the growth of religion).\u00a0 The more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,12,42],"tags":[479,3396,1289,1707,1984,4097,3043],"class_list":["post-22382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church","category-culture","category-social-science","tag-church-attendance","tag-denmark","tag-liberal-christianity","tag-peter-berger","tag-secularism","tag-secularization-thesis","tag-state-churches"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy do so few Europeans go to church?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The distinguished sociologist of religion Peter Berger once promoted "the secularization thesis," arguing that as societies become more modern, they\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/10\/why-do-so-few-europeans-go-to-church\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why do so few Europeans go to church?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The distinguished sociologist of religion Peter Berger once promoted "the secularization thesis," arguing that as societies become more modern, they\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/10\/why-do-so-few-europeans-go-to-church\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cranach\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cranachblog\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-10-15T10:00:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-10-14T16:28:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/10\/why-do-so-few-europeans-go-to-church\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/10\/why-do-so-few-europeans-go-to-church\/\",\"name\":\"Why do so few Europeans go to church?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-10-15T10:00:41+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-10-14T16:28:58+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\"},\"description\":\"The distinguished sociologist of religion Peter Berger once promoted \\\"the secularization thesis,\\\" arguing that as societies become more modern, they\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/10\/why-do-so-few-europeans-go-to-church\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/10\/why-do-so-few-europeans-go-to-church\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/10\/why-do-so-few-europeans-go-to-church\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Why do so few Europeans go to church?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\",\"name\":\"Cranach\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\",\"name\":\"Gene Veith\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Gene Veith\"},\"description\":\"Gene Edward Veith, Jr. is a writer and retired literature professor, serving as Provost Emeritus at Patrick Henry College. He has authored over 25 books on Christianity and culture, literature, classical education, and theology. Dr. Veith previously held academic and editorial roles at Concordia University Wisconsin and WORLD Magazine. A respected voice in Lutheran and classical education circles, he holds a Ph.D. in English and several honorary doctorates. He and his wife, Jackquelyn, live in St. Louis and have three children and twelve grandchildren.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cranachblog\/\",\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gene_Edward_Veith\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/author\/geneveith\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why do so few Europeans go to church?","description":"The distinguished sociologist of religion Peter Berger once promoted \"the secularization thesis,\" arguing that as societies become more modern, they","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/10\/why-do-so-few-europeans-go-to-church\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why do so few Europeans go to church?","og_description":"The distinguished sociologist of religion Peter Berger once promoted \"the secularization thesis,\" arguing that as societies become more modern, they","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/10\/why-do-so-few-europeans-go-to-church\/","og_site_name":"Cranach","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cranachblog\/","article_published_time":"2015-10-15T10:00:41+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-10-14T16:28:58+00:00","author":"Gene Veith","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Gene Veith","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/10\/why-do-so-few-europeans-go-to-church\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/10\/why-do-so-few-europeans-go-to-church\/","name":"Why do so few Europeans go to church?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-10-15T10:00:41+00:00","dateModified":"2015-10-14T16:28:58+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1"},"description":"The distinguished sociologist of religion Peter Berger once promoted \"the secularization thesis,\" arguing that as societies become more modern, they","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/10\/why-do-so-few-europeans-go-to-church\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/10\/why-do-so-few-europeans-go-to-church\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/10\/why-do-so-few-europeans-go-to-church\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Why do so few Europeans go to church?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/","name":"Cranach","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1","name":"Gene Veith","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Gene Veith"},"description":"Gene Edward Veith, Jr. is a writer and retired literature professor, serving as Provost Emeritus at Patrick Henry College. He has authored over 25 books on Christianity and culture, literature, classical education, and theology. Dr. Veith previously held academic and editorial roles at Concordia University Wisconsin and WORLD Magazine. A respected voice in Lutheran and classical education circles, he holds a Ph.D. in English and several honorary doctorates. He and his wife, Jackquelyn, live in St. Louis and have three children and twelve grandchildren.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cranachblog\/","https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gene_Edward_Veith"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/author\/geneveith\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1281"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}