Revealing Numbers

The title of an article by Sarah Pulliam Bailey in Monday's Washington Post put it starkly: "Church membership in the U.S. has fallen below the majority for the first time in nearly a century" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2021/03/29/church-membership-fallen-below-majority/) 

The article is based on a recent Gallup poll, according to which 47% responded that they belong to a church, synagogue, or mosque, while 48% said religion was important. This was the first time since Gallup first asked the church membership question in 1937 that the number has fallen below 50%. (In 1937, it was 73%).

To a large extent, this just confirms a pre-pandemic evolution in American society which many have long been observing. The picture, of course, varies somewhat generationally.  According to Gallup's data cited in the article, 66% of those born before 1946, 58% of baby boomers, 50% of Generation X, and 36% of millennials belong to a church. The article quotes Ryan Burge, who is both a Baptist pastor and a political scientist and also the author of The Nones: Where They Came From. Who They Are, and Where They're Going, who wonders "How do we feed the hungry, clothe the naked when Christians are half what it was. Who picks up the slack, especially if the government isn't going to?"

A good question, which we cannot answer inasmuch as it is about the future. Questions about the present are another matter. The article also cites Tara Isabella Burton, author of Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World, who points to two particular trends among younger Americans. The first "points to broader shifts suggesting a larger distrust of institutions" and disillusionment with religious leaders, for example, white conservative Christians who aligned with Donald Trump. The second refers to "how people are mixing and matching from various religious traditions to create their own." She suggests that already existing trends in American religious life have been exacerbated "in Internet culture that celebrates ownership - the idea that you can re-create a meme or narrative ... curating your own experience."

Bot these tendencies should be very familiar to anyone who has been following the evolution of religious practice in the United States in recent decades. In my experience and observation, the second tendency has been around for a while. We see it increasingly even among churchgoers and especially around occasions which attract more marginal churchgoers such as weddings and funerals. The first tendency, rooted in a dangerously increasing distrust o institutions, has also been around a while, but it has been significantly exacerbated by the politicization of religion in recent decades. This the Post article also cites Shadi Hamid's recent Atlantic article that argued that religion is increasingly being replaced for many by politics. Recent events have, of course, highlighted how, many conservative Christians, for example, "are being less defined by their faith than by s set of more narrow concerns." Recognizing that Americans require "structures of belief and belonging," Hamid also asks what will replace religious affiliation.

At this point, no one can confidently predict what will actually happen once the pandemic is really behind us. We do know, however, that these worrisome trends preceded the pandemic. And we also know, from the way 2020 played out economically socially, and politically, that what was first and foremost a health crisis dramatically revealed existing economic, social, and political inequities and consequent crises. So it seems plausible to expect that this year's unexpected experience in the religious realm is revealing unanticipated - but actually already anticipatable - crises for religion as well.

(Photo: Floor Mosaic at Church of Saint Paul the Apostle, NY, depicting ancient Athens and the opening words of Saint Paul's speech to the Athenians: "I perceive that in every way you are very religious.")