America’s Religious Future: Dechristianization (Not Secularization)

What is this country coming to? Anyone who pays attention to religion in America can see monumental changes and conflicts affecting the present and looming in the future. And anyone with a smidgen of historical awareness knows that religion has always been at the core of American society.

Americans are divided over the theological meanings bound up in the recent not guilty verdict in the Trayvon Martin trial… Americans can’t decide if gay marriage is a sacred vow or a heinous sin… Americans are increasingly following the path of SBNR (“spiritual but not religious”) in their pursuit of the sacred…. Americans still believe in God but they surely do not agree about how to define and understand God…

What does all this turmoil and contestation, argumentation and confusion say about the state of religion and its place in American society?

For some social scientists and armchair philosophers, the increasing fragmentation of religion is a sign of secularization. All religions are losing their influence and a more secular frame of mind, anchored by natural sciences, economics, political science, and self-interest, rules the day in American culture. With the loss of social power and cultural authority, however, come forms of religious extremism and more public contestations — the dangerous mixture of religion and politics that we see so frequently today.

For some religious folks and true believers, America is a battlefield and the future of its very soul will depend on the outcome of a war. More conservative to orthodox leaning Jews, Catholics, and Protestants are on one side, “liberals” are on the other, an enemy that includes nonbelievers, secular humanists, pagans, “nones” with no affiliation, individual’s who claim to be Jews, Catholics, and Protestants, and all the other “others.” Religious conflicts are so pervasive because the stakes are so high — do we uphold American ideals about justice, democracy, freedom, or let them rot because we fail to fulfill our sacred national obligations?

For some pluralists and other humanists, we must let a hundred flowers bloom — religious diversity is a good thing and enriches society, so Americans should be transparent about their sacred commitments and religious identities. But the old saying only goes so far, as many of you already know — let a hundred flowers bloom but no flower can haul off and kill another flower. A primary value here is no tolerance for intolerance. The fact that Americans can’t agree on the right religious values for any particular issue is a good thing, a signal of greater social and cultural diversity.

Read the rest here