Decline in US religious affiliation - AEI report

[lpetrich]

This Chart Shows How Quickly Americans Are Abandoning Organized Religion | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos by Hemant Mehta
Promise and Peril: A Meta-Report on Christianity’s Decline | Roll to Disbelieve: A Critical Analysis of Promise and Peril by Captain Cassidy
Promise and Peril: Lyman Stone’s Galaxy-Brained Solutions to Decline | Roll to Disbelieve: Power, Peril, and Toxic Christian Fearmongering by Captain Cassidy

all noting
Promise and peril: The history of American religiosity and its recent decline | American Enterprise Institute - AEI
The AEI is a right-wing think tank or ideology mill, one of numerous such organizations. Author Lyman Stone is a hard-line opponent of abortion.

According to CC, LS makes two main points:

• Christianity in general is in deep decline in America, in a way that nobody’s ever seen before and to an extent never before seen in our history, and that is just awful.
• This decline directly results from the increasingly secular nature of America’s public-education system, and that is just the worst thing ever.

CC is very skeptical of evangelicals' research, so she approaches this report in this fashion.

And like look, it’s not like I disagree with Stone’s main point about his religion’s decline. Every single credible study I’ve ever seen in the last ten years agrees: yes, Christianity is indeed in decline. Some of those studies even go so far as to say that this decline is unprecedented. A few even foresee no bottoming-out of this trend anytime soon. It’s not like he’s saying anything markedly different overall from what I’ve seen already.

I just think he’s making the situation look even worse than it is, and he’s probably doing it to scare the pants off his fellow evangelicals so his group can better influence Republican policy-makers.

CC objects to LS making the graph of affiliation 65% to 100% instead of 0% to 100% - to try to make the decline seem bigger than it is. But such magnifications can be helpful in illustrating details. LS also doesn't use round-number years, like 1960, 1980, ... for whatever reason.

The curve itself is interesting. LS superimposed the curves for several different surveys, and for the most part, they overlap very well.

From 1900 to 1964, the curve is very flat, about 98%. Then from 1964 to 1976, it declined to 93%. From 1976 to 1996, it declined more slowly, to 89%. Then the decline speeded up, reaching 75% in 2018.

As to broader society, I'll see where it fits in the Schlesinger liberal-conservative cycle:  Cyclical theory (United States history).

Affiliation was high through the Progressive Era (lib 1901-1919), the Roaring Twenties (con 1919-1931), the New Deal Era (lib 1931-1947), and the Eisenhower Era (con 1947-1962). It started dropping in the Sixties Era (lib 1962-1978), and it slowed down in the beginning of Gilded Age II (con 197. But well into Gilded Age II, it started dropping fast, and it still is, with no sign of slowing down.

What happened with religion and the Progressive Era? The  Social Gospel movement, which portrayed Jesus Christ as a good Progressive activist. It faded in the 1920's, but its legacy continued in the New Deal Era, the civil-rights movement, and the Religious Left more generally.

But in the Sixties Era, something was different, and I can only speculate. But I note that that is roughly when some European countries started their decline. It was a time of social tumult, and many people may have discovered that they could lead good lives without involvement of organized religion. Maybe not many people at first, but it grew.

The US slowed down in the 1980's, likely due to the rise of the Religious Right, but then it restarted in the 1990's.

I like Tom Flynn's theory in Who's Afraid of Faith-Based Charities? | Free Inquiry that it's been due to the broader society offering alternatives to what the churches had offered. I did posts on two recent examples: spirituality and secular celebrants (births, marriages, deaths, etc.). Spirituality - one can experience such things as oneness with reality outside of organized religion. Secular celebrants make religious leaders unnecessary for hatching, matching, and dispatching, as they are sometimes whimsically called. Spirituality - Secular celebrants - births, marriages, deaths, etc.

It also helps when one is less alone in what one is doing.

 

[lpetrich]

CC then analyzed what Lyman Stone means by "promise and peril".

"Promise" - that US religious affiliation may someday bounce back. I find that very unlikely.

"Peril" - that secular education may keep children from growing up to be good fundies.

In her article on LS's "galaxy-brained solutions", CC has a hypothesis. "Now, here’s my assertion: Lyman Stone needs his target audience to be scared enough to buy his product, because ordinarily they’d recognize what a bad idea that’d be."

He talks about what happened to Fort Caroline, Florida, in 1564. It was a colony founded by Huguenots, French Protestants, who fled persecution by the pro-Catholic authorities in France. But that was an area then ruled by Spain, and those rulers sent an army to conquer the colony, destroy it, and kill most of its inhabitants. LS presents that as religious persecution, when it was a territorial dispute.

CC: "For a long time, I wondered and wondered why evangelical “research” (scare quotes) kept predicting that their sky was falling. In most evangelical-created studies, that’s the impression I always got."

“You Protestants sure scare easy,” noted a Catholic Jesuit-type dude to me years ago on a Facebook discussion of evangelical fearmongering. He was right. There’s a lot of money tied up in scaring evangelicals and then soothing them.

And that’s really what all of these groups do. They make up all these wackadoodle reasons why people reject them. Then, they offer up systems and apologetics routines that’ll fer-shur win those folks back. However, none of it even remotely tethers to reality. They conduct this shoddy research purely to support the products they sell.

Oddly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen research out of any of these evangelicals indicating that their products actually work as claimed. As far as they’re concerned, their task concludes when money changes hands.

His solutions:

• The American tax code needs to coax couples into marriage by rewarding it over civil partnerships or shacking up, so they have more children that evangelicals can indoctrinate.
• Evangelicals need to support the expansion of the social safety net so couples can afford to have more kids for them to indoctrinate.
• American legislators at all levels need to support school vouchers that will force American taxpayers to subsidize religious schools that can indoctrinate schoolchildren before they’re too old to know Christianity’s just nonsense.
• If Christians can’t reverse their decline, they might end up actually massacred like the Huguenots in Fort Caroline, Florida.

All that fearmongering and all his studies and graphs build toward that one goal of gaining buy-in and traction for some big plan for some big fundie or Republican (or both) group that super-wants to get government funding for what they want to inflict on children.

Here is LS's last paragraph:

It is not entirely clear why this difference developed in the past, but, today, religiosity in America is in speedy decline, converging to the lower levels observed in Europe. At the same time, the social and legal position of religion is in decline in America. Whether the future will look more like Fort Caroline, Plymouth, or somewhere in between remains to be seen.

CC will be discussing the Barna Group's "megatheme" predictions in an upcoming post.

 

[lpetrich]

Lyman Stone's paper had some interesting research, like of how many religious words in various sorts of documents.

Before the early 19th cy., the statistics were not very good, and it shows. But after around 1830, the proportion declines by a factor of 2 to about 1930, then levels off.

LS also gave some statistics for biblical and religious names since 1770 - also a decline. Fast until around 1900, then slowing down. An odd trend that he found was increased variety in choices of name since then, also with the fast-then-slowdown trend. Since the 1960's was an increase in the number of unusual names, both religious and secular.

 

[lpetrich]

Barna Group Made Some Ten-Year Predictions: Let’s See How Well They Did | Roll to Disbelieve: A Ten-Year Prediction from Barna Group - Captain Cassidy returns to assess its performance.

CC on Barna's literature: "First: OMG y’all, we’re in so much trouble! Second: This product totally fixes the problem!"

Megatheme One: Theological Literacy Plunges.
"The theological free-for-all that is encroaching in Protestant churches nationwide suggests the coming decade will be a time of unparalleled theological diversity and inconsistency."

What actually happened: SORTA. Their leaders definitely fused further together into a party-line and authoritarian cluster-of-ducks. At the same time, the tribe became far less tolerant of what they’ve dubbed “unorthodox” beliefs."

They’re all still theologically illiterate, but then, they were in 2010 too.

Megatheme Two: Christians Are More Insular, Less Interested In Evangelism.
"Despite technological advances that make communications instant and far-reaching, Christians are becoming more spiritually isolated from non-Christians than was true a decade ago."
CC: not willing to seek converts.

"With atheists becoming more strategic in championing their godless worldview, as well as the increased religious plurality driven by education and immigration, the increasing reticence of Christians to engage in faith-oriented conversations assumes heightened significance."

What actually happened: SORTA. Even evangelicals value their social capital too much to waste it by alienating people for no return. Their Dear Leaders experience more and more difficulty by the year in persuading them to do exactly that.

Megatheme Three: People Are More Practical. BOO!
"Among adults the areas of growing importance are lifestyle comfort, success, and personal achievements. Those dimensions have risen at the expense of investment in both faith and family."

CC says about this that "This one’s just hilarious. It’s the most flippy-dippy, self-contradictory pile of horse patties I’ve seen out of Barna lately, and y’all, that’s a damn high bar to clear."

"Because we continue to separate our spirituality from other dimensions of life through compartmentalization, a relatively superficial approach to faith has become a central means of optimizing our life experience."

What actually happened: SORTA, KINDA, MAYBE. People still embrace plenty of woo, just not evangelical woo. As for compartmentalization, they’re projecting bigtime — again. They’re just upset that people accept their woo less often.

Especially as people can seek things like counseling, transitions, and spirituality without going anywhere near evangelicals' houses of worship.

 

[lpetrich]

Megatheme Four: An Increase in Community Action. BOO!
"Largely driven by the passion and energy of young adults, Christians are more open to and more involved in community service activities than has been true in the recent past."

CC concludes that Barna is objecting because such activism doesn't include trying to convert people.

"And the more that churches and believers can be recognized as people doing good deeds out of genuine love and compassion, the more appealing the Christian life will be to those who are on the sidelines watching. Showing that community action as a viable alternative to government programs is another means of introducing the value of the Christian faith in society."

What actually happened: NOPE. As church membership dwindles, churches seem to pull back further and further from community programs. A few churches seem to recognize how important it is to be involved at a community level, to make their churches valuable additions to local culture, but those aren’t usually evangelical churches. As for lifestyle evangelism, it bombed hard; I don’t know many evangelical leaders even talking about it these days — except to criticize the idea.

Megatheme Five: MUH POSTMODERNIST OVER-TOLERANCE!
"Our biblical illiteracy and lack of spiritual confidence has caused Americans to avoid making discerning choices for fear of being labeled judgmental. The result is a Church that has become tolerant of a vast array of morally and spiritually dubious behaviors and philosophies."

"There is a place for tolerance in Christianity; knowing when and where to draw the line appears to perplex a growing proportion of Christians in this age of tolerance."

What actually happened: SORTA. Nowadays, younger evangelicals increasingly reject the party line of hatred and intolerance. Of course, this trend has nothing do with “postmodernism.” I don’t think evangelicals even know what that word means. They just apply it to negate anyone criticizing their claims.

 

[lpetrich]

Megatheme Six: Button, Button, Who’s Got the Jesus Button?
"The influence of Christianity on culture and individual lives is largely invisible. Christianity has arguably added more value to American culture than any other religion, philosophy, ideology or community. Yet, contemporary Americans are hard pressed to identify any specific value added."

CC notes that Barna blames the news media for publicizing unflattering things about the evangelical community. But it makes me think about how many evangelicals seem to act as if white evangelical Protestantism is the US's de facto state religion. Looking at history, the US started off with various mainline Protestant sects as its dominant ones. Do evangelicals consider their churches the true heirs of the mainline ones of earlier in the US's history?

"In a society in which choice is king, there are no absolutes, every individual is a free agent, we are taught to be self-reliant and independent, and Christianity is no longer the automatic, default faith of young adults, new ways of relating to Americans and exposing the heart and soul of the Christian faith are required."

What actually happened: HAHA, NO. Ten years later, evangelicals still struggle hard to demonstrate what, if anything, their religion provides that anyone actually needs. They struggle even harder to demonstrate any value that their religion adds to their own lives. Really, they’ve gone for broke on fearmongering since 2010. Meanwhile, the tribe is marked more by hypocrisy than by anything they could call “Christian virtues.”

Alas for Barna, I’d say most people are quite sufficiently familiar with evangelicalism’s “heart and soul” — and we don’t want it.

CC continues by saying "Reading between the lines, I perceive great frustration in Barna’s post." That more and more people are treating their churches as irrelevant -- or worse.

Barna’s concerns may come down to their leaders enjoying less and less automatic deference and unwarranted power. There was a time when Billy Graham screeching about Communism was enough to mobilize countless evangelicals to slam down hard on anything that earned that label from him — whether it was or not. When evangelicals latched onto the idea of “postmodernism” as their enemy, countless evangelicals began screeching about it and accusing every single person refuting their claims of being postmodern — whether they were or not.

Things are different now.

When evangelicals clutch their pearls and throw their tantrums over same-sex couples getting married, other people are likely to laugh at them instead of taking them seriously. When they endanger other people’s lives by not taking quarantine orders seriously and shilling snake-oil cures, we’re way more likely to criticize them than admire them.

CC got a distinct impression that the Barna people did not feel very optimistic back in 2010. Although she states that "Barna belongs to that never-never-land of evangelical pseudo-intellectualism", it seems to me that they were being realistic. Looking back, their more pessimistic assessments seem to have come true.