This Just In: Traditional Religion In The US Now ‘Obsolete’
(ANALYSIS) “Americans have lost faith in traditional religion,” announces the sweeping first sentence of a contentious book published during Holy Week: “Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America.”
That may seem overwrought, but author Christian Smith of the University of Notre Dame is a distinguished sociologist of American religion, and so is James Davison Hunter, who proclaims this book to be “an era-defining work.”
Religion Unplugged readers are well aware of U.S. churches’ recent statistical slides alongside the rise of “nones” without religious identity (though they’ve slipped to 24% of Americans in the latest Cooperative Election Study).
In his book, Smith seeks to objectively explain the why of this through a broad perspective on how American culture has changed in ways inhospitable to belief, even while other analysts cling to positive signs.
Before examining Smith’s tour de force, a comment about the subtitle’s “demise,” his or “expiration date” or “terminal decline.” He is talking about only “traditional” religions as known across American history, even as unconventional “spirituality” gains followers. Most important, his “obsolescence” is not “total extinction or abandonment.” Rather, a perfect storm of factors makes traditional religions no longer widely valued, culturally relevant or “useful,” especially among younger Americans who will inevitably determine the future.
Smith focuses on two age cohorts, Generation X (born between the years 1965-1980) and Millennials (born between 1981-1996). He says long-developing problems started hitting with full force around 1991 and in the 2000s dominated younger Americans.
The case builds from Smith’s late-in-career observations, his team’s interviews from which quotes are sprinkled throughout, lavish survey data (especially the General Social Survey) and influential cultural attitudes displayed in mass media fixations, celebrities’ quotes, word counts in Internet searches, book themes, movies and even fashionable slogans and pop music.
Four corrosive factors have been widely discussed:
Religions’ self-inflicted wounds from repellent scandals of sexual and spiritual abuse, financial shenanigans and other misconduct, with damaging media coverage (though “the vast majority” are innocent).
“Religious Right” political activism that soured feelings about religion in general among moderates and liberals. (Smith’s book mostly covers the pre-Trump era).
Similarly, after Sept. 11 the violence of Muslim extremists worsened attitudes toward religion.
For most youths, religious teachings against abortion and especially LGBT+ and “non-binary” sexuality are offensive intrusions into personal choices.
Smith pursues less publicized trends: The customary pattern of young adults becoming more religious as they grow older has disappeared, and some Americans now become even less engaged as they mature.
Less than half of Millennials express a certain belief in the existence of God any longer, with percentages falling steadily since 2008.
As of 2021, a “staggering” 43.4% of those ages 18 to 29 identified as “not religious.”
Since 1973, Americans with a “great deal of confidence” in organized religion dropped from 44% to 19% (as for all U.S. institutions). Since 1985, the percentage seeing “high” or “very high” ethical standards among clergy fell from 67% to 32%.
Just before COVID hit, annual closings of local Protestant churches reached an estimated 4,500 and outnumbered the 3,000 new church “plants,” a reversal of the previous pattern.
For most youths, religion is no longer “primarily about divine worship, timeless truths, sacred historical traditions, eternal salvation, theological doctrines or the like,” but “essentially about making people morally good.” This, he argues, is “monumentally important in religion’s obsolescence.”
Religion then becomes worthwhile if it helps people “sustain a positive outlook and feel calm, happy, affirmed, and encouraged.” If religion creates conflict or makes you feel guilty of sin, “goodbye.”
With strong religious support, Americans were long unified by the patriotic conflict with atheistic Communism. Since Europe’s Cold War ended, “Americans have become polarized about how to define what is good and true.”
For reasons unrelated to religion itself, faith is, Smith argues, simply “crowded out of many people’s lives by other demands and interests,” especially for harried young adults trying to build careers in an unstable economy.
Nearly 40% of Americans have four years of college study, a steady and large increase over the decades. Higher learning as such does not necessarily undercut faith, but it’s a “necessary precondition” for the spread of cultural changes that did so.
Volunteer labor by women, formerly a huge free resource in operating religious congregations, is reduced as more women enter the work force and have less free time.
As the traditional family goes, Smith writes that “so goes traditional religion.” The benefits of faith communities “primarily target and resonate best with married mothers and fathers raising kids” — more than “non-traditional, single-parent, and alternative family and non-family forms” or cohabitation, which have grown exponentially. At the same time, the percentage of never-married Americans has increased by roughly 50% since 1940. And delay of marriage until older ages inhibits religious ties.
Younger Americans increasingly shun groups centered on face-to-face interaction, an essential aspect of traditional religion. In the three decades ending in 2004, participants plummeted 38% or more with fraternities, labor unions and farmers’ and veterans’ organizations, with church-related groups down by 25%.
The good life has been redefined into “the goods life,” as materialism and accumulation of money and non-essential products become central to Americans’ agendas.
The digital revolution and social media inflict damage in “at least 10 distinct ways.” Among them: The “time and attention suck,” loss of in-person communities, networking that unites scattered non-believers, and erosion of trust in authority figures of all types.
Due to a successful struggle for “institutional control” by secular activists, religion has been weakened by misleading claims that it is at “war” with modern science, a perception that certain religious groups reinforce.
Compared with older generations, powerful individualism means that, for example, two-thirds of Millennials believe “individual freedom and emotional fulfillment are life’s most important values.”
Smith formulates a remarkable list of 35 “cultural assumptions” in “postmodern” thinking that determine younger Americans’ outlook.
Here’s a sampling:
— Claims to possess reliable truth are “indefensible and unacceptable.”
— Moral relativism is regnant. It’s “nearly inconceivable” that historical tradition can offer good guidance. Long-term commitments are unusual.
— All social institutions are corrupted and deserve distrust. “Hope can be hard to come by.”
— Sacredness is found only in “here and now” experiences.
— Beliefs are personal opinions, as opposed to “true or false.” Believe anything you wish, so long as it “works” for you. And so forth.
The conclusion: “Religion is obsolete – redundant and unnecessary at best, outdated, discredited, and damaging at worst.”
Smith offers specific comments on Christianity’s big four and minority religions.
“Mainline” Protestantism was once culturally dominant, but these relatively liberal denominations are losing their youths and seem to face “terminal decline.” They promoted widespread values that undercut traditional religion, such as, “individualism, pluralism, emancipation, tolerance, free critical inquiry and the authority of human experience.” Thus the mainline “made itself superfluous through success.”
Evangelical Protestantism (after World War Ii these groups drew a line against hard-shell fundamentalism, with ongoing zeal for evangelism combined with engagement with secular culture) become U.S. religion’s “primary public face.” Among eventual woes, Smith says, “mission drift” starting in the late 1970s emphasized secularist threats, culture wars and political activism. That sparked an ongoing backlash and evangelicalism turned defensive and pessimistic.
Catholicism — in well-known challenges in recent decades — has lost many priests and nuns and is not recruiting enough successors. Older solidarity is eroded by alienation from molestation scandals and by individualism after legions of laity dissented from the pope’s 1968 encyclical against modern birth control methods.
Black Protestants, despite warm respect for churches’ sustenance during past oppression, have found that this communal advantage “may be starting to slip” and, as with all groups, numbers are heading downward.
Latter-day Saints — although famed for success in retaining teens and young adults — has also suffered decline during the past two decades after older members have been exiting “in dramatic, unprecedented numbers.”
This mere summary of some Smith scenarios depicts not just religion but society overall. Pervasive and well-rooted religious concepts were intertwined with the morale of a “blessed” America that was stable, coherent, hopeful, self-confident and — beyond momentary disputes — broadly unified in values, purposes and perceptions of reality. Thus the obvious question: If religion now struggles so severely, and with worse to come, can America escape similar disintegration?
Richard N. Ostling was a longtime religion writer with The Associated Press and with Time magazine, where he produced 23 cover stories, as well as a Time senior correspondent providing field reportage for dozens of major articles. He has interviewed such personalities as Billy Graham, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI); ranking rabbis and Muslim leaders; and authorities on other faiths; as well as numerous ordinary believers. He writes a bi-weekly column for Religion Unplugged.