By Diana Butler Bass
Washington Post<\/p>\n
For decades, Americans have been turning toward spirituality as a protest vote against conventional religion. In the last dozen years, American religious institutions have undergone a myriad of crises\u2013abuse scandals, conflicts, schism, and partisan political entanglement, to name a few\u2013resulting in a great religious recession. Poll after poll reveals that organized religions \u2013mainline Protestant, evangelical, Roman Catholic, and Jewish \u2013are in varying states of disarray and decline. Sadness, even doom, has gripped many congregations, as the formerly faithful disaffiliate, and those who remain struggle to pay clergy and fix leaky roofs.
The bored and wounded have fled religion seeking new spiritual connections. Some 30 percent of Americans now identify as \u201cspiritual but not religious,\u201d around 9 percent are atheists and post-theists. But the growth of these two groups is not news. Their numbers have been rising for thirty years.<\/p>\n