Giving Up on God: The Global Decline of Religion

Giving Up on God: The Global Decline of Religion (Foreign Affairs)

In the early years of the twenty-first century, religion seemed to be on the rise. The collapse of both communism and the Soviet Union had left an ideological vacuum that was being filled by Orthodox Christianity in Russia and other post-Soviet states. The election in the United States of President George W. Bush, an evangelical Christian who made no secret of his piety, suggested that evangelical Christianity was rising as a political force in the country. And the 9/11 attacks directed international attention to the power of political Islam in the Muslim world.

A dozen years ago, my colleague Pippa Norris and I analyzed data on religious trends in 49 countries, including a few subnational territories such as Northern Ireland, from which survey evidence was available from 1981 to 2007 (these countries contained 60 percent of the world’s population). We did not find a universal resurgence of religion, despite claims to that effect—most high-income countries became less religious—but we did find that in 33 of the 49 countries we studied, people became more religious during those years. This was true in most former communist countries, in most developing countries, and even in a number of high-income countries. Our findings made it clear that industrialization and the spread of scientific knowledge were not causing religion to disappear, as some scholars had once assumed.

But since 2007, things have changed with surprising speed. From about 2007 to 2019, the overwhelming majority of the countries we studied—43 out of 49—became less religious. The decline in belief was not confined to high-income countries and appeared across most of the world...

Since 2007, there has been a remarkably sharp trend away from religion. In virtually every high-income country, religion has continued to decline. At the same time, many poor countries, together with most of the former communist states, have also become less religious. From 2007 to 2019, only five countries became more religious, whereas the vast majority of the countries studied moved in the opposite direction. India is the most important exception to the general pattern of declining religiosity...

Following a link in the third paragraph I notice that only four of the 78 countries in that study were on the African continent, and only two of these were in sub-Saharan Africa. Not a very representative sample considering that Africa makes up more than 25% of the world's nations and 15% of the world's population.

Africa is still the most illiterate continent, in aggregate. I was shocked recently when I looked up this data for a few countries, Mali, Guinea...

I don't have the time to read the article now (plus, Foreign Affairs, American diplomacy shills, eh) and while I'd generally welcome the news that religion is dying with champagne and dancing bunnies, when you think of it, just, what is even meant by "religion"? If it's sincere carefully-considered belief in the umpteen loads of plainly nonsensical twaddle religions peddle, then I don't know, maybe there are 27 religious people in the whole world? But if what is meant actually reduces to "performance of religious faith for the Joneses", then its rise and decline would mean entirely different things.

Then what would happen is that simply, as societies become more liberal, more people feel less pressure to perform religiosity as zealously as before. In short, being super-religious isn't a normal human habit. To get almost 100% of the population conforming and saying yes, sir, they are religious, and in one way only, you need a limb-and head-chopping threat against blasphemy and apostasy or, at best, a threat of social ostracism (which may very well mean an inability to live and thrive in the end too).

Yeah, I'd need to read a lot more of his research to go along with what's quoted. He seems to be measuring observance and calling it religion, and that's a very restrictive sense of the latter.

For what it's worth, here's the table of contents for the book he's recently released, Religion's Sudden Decline : What's Causing It, and What Comes Next?:

1 The Shift from Pro-Fertility Norms to Individual-Choice Norms p. 1
2 Religion Matters p. 17
3 The Secularization Debate p. 37
4 Evolutionary Modernization Theory and Secularization p. 46
5 What's Causing Secularization? The Rise of Individual-Choice Norms p. 56
6 What's Causing Secularization? Insecurity p. 63
7 Secularization Accelerates in High-Income Countries p. 74
8 What Is Replacing Religion? p. 103
9 At What Point Does Even Sweden Get a Xenophobic Party? p. 144
10 What Comes Next? p. 163

And, as John wonders, see how evenly spaced his attention is.

>4 LolaWalser:

He seems to be measuring observance and calling it religion, and that's a very restrictive sense of the latter.

But it's entirely understandable why it's done--because there is no way to measure someone's "faith". The lip service paid to faith is all there is to be valued and becomes the sole thing that is valued.

And here is what makes me especially furious with religionists--admit it, admit that you don't give a damn that all you're interested in is to get people to OBEY and CONFORM!!--to parrot your fucking nonsense in fear and shame and ignorance, because otherwise you expel or kill them. Bums in the pews, by any means necessary!

"Religion" is propagated and maintained through the brainwashing of the young and coercion and blackmail of adults--and nothing proves this better than that the second the chokehold of the church on society gets a little more lax the inmates run away.

ETA: um, general you, not you you

>4 LolaWalser: admit it, admit that you don't give a damn that all you're interested in is to get people to OBEY and CONFORM!!--to parrot your fucking nonsense in fear and shame and ignorance, because otherwise you expel or kill them. Bums in the pews, by any means necessary!

I will not try to deny that there are some religious people who fit that description, and that they are often the very powerful, outspoken and visible ones, but I would humbly suggest that there are a lot of religious people who don't fit that profile.

>3 librorumamans:

Yes, and even of the limited number of countries which he did study, one of the ones which showed the opposite of religious decline was India. In other words around 18% of the world's population (India) is not in religious decline, while another 15% (Africa) has not been studied.

>5 John5918:, >6 John5918:

No John, it's not about a few "powerful" people but the coercive system set in place that keeps populations docile and conforming and oppressive, in their turn, of any signs of rebellion.

>6 John5918:

And again, you don't want to acknowledge how dubious is any sort of religiosity that relies on illiteracy, ignorance and illiberal politics to keep it alive.

So Africans and Muslims are super-religious--big surprise.

>4 LolaWalser: I'm galaxies away from religionist and pretty much at odds with organized religion, but your belligerent stance is really no use whatsoever for actually studying religion as a cultural phenomenon, organized or otherwise. Who are these people who should admit they are interested only in 'obey and confirm'? Catholic Church officials? Any Christian officials? Anyone Christian at all? Religious fundamentalists in general? Dalai Lama? Alan Watts? Your comment clearly indicates any and all who are not devoutly atheist, but that is patently absurd.

More importantly, people adhering to a religion are a sociological fact. Studying those groups has nothing whatsoever to do with anyone's value judgement on any religion as such. Coming from a country where, according to the last census 85 percent are Catholic, I'd find it very insightful if a study was conducted to actually 'measure' the faith among them. Contrary to your claim, it isn't mission impossible. It only requires some knowledge and thought what it is you want to quantify. Some are proclaimed Catholics but never attend any Church events. Basically, they just celebrate Christmas and Easter and get buried with Catholic rituals and that's it. Some never attend, but are devoutly Catholic, as opposed to those who attend masses regularly, but are not particularly concerned with actual teachings. Church attendance for them is a kind of social gathering must, a sort of see and be seen. Some attend regularly and try to adhere to whatever is demanded because they see it as the only way to salvation. Etc, etc, there's infinite variety among those 85 percent, which someone studying that social group would observe and know, and eventually devise a study that would both describe and quantify some cultural and sociological trends.

As for the study in the OP, they are probably limited to observance numbers because of the scope.

>7 LolaWalser: it's not about a few "powerful" people but the coercive system set in place that keeps populations docile and conforming and oppressive, in their turn, of any signs of rebellion

I would agree with you that there are systemic issues involved, as there are in just about any human institution. And just as there are people struggling to overturn racism, sexism and a whole lot of other coercive dynamics in society, there are many religious people struggling to overturn the coercive dynamics within their religions.

any sort of religiosity that relies on illiteracy, ignorance and illiberal politics

One interpretation might indeed be that people in India and Africa are only religious because their countries are not so "developed" as the more modern industrialised nations. Another interpretation would simply be that their cultures and civilisations are different from ours. The former risks suggesting that Indian and African cultures are not as good as modern cultures and one day they will grow up and be like us, which would seem rather neo-colonialist. Who knows?

>8 SandraArdnas:

LOL! The nerve of some people... Just block me! And your patronising me and TONE-POLICING is of no use whatsoever for actually having a conversation so why do you bother if not to exercise some bile of your own? Yeah, I vent. So? If it bothers you, don't engage--or don't pretend you're better than me.

your belligerent stance is really no use whatsoever for actually studying religion as a cultural phenomenon

Who says I'm interested in studying religion? I suffer religion, which gives me more than enough reason and justification to comment on it as I see fit!

Who are these people who should admit they are interested only in 'obey and confirm'?

Everyone and anyone of the religious who see no problem with how their so-called faith is propagated and maintained.

More importantly, people adhering to a religion are a sociological fact. blah blah blah blah

Oh thanks for existing to tell me so! I might have died ignorant of this!

If you paid a smidgen of attention to my argument as you do to my TONE, you might have noticed I'm perfectly well-informed of the trivial tripe you list like it's something novel.

"Devotion" is measurable only as some externalised symbol of it. The more coercive and repressive a system is, the more people feel a fearful obligation to conform and exhibit it. This is how in Croatia--yes, I know very well what it's like since I too "come from there"--my niece was forced into open non-conformism because she would not take catechism, while two of her Muslim classmates did take it. Their father told my brother that he wished he had had the guts to allow them not to. But he felt fear, insecurity, and an obligation to conform stronger than those felt by my brother.

This is how my mother's house got smeared with dirt after she refused to have it "blessed" two years ago, but not those of our equally un-devout yet externally conforming neighbour did not.

In short, don't talk to me of religion, religiosity and what's what in places like Croatia. A country where a physicist boasts to the newspaper of being a member of Opus Dei, where (in my hometown!) in twenty years they built fifteen churches and a SINGLE elementary school!

TL;DR--block me, or stop this nonsense of chiding me like a toddler. I earned my rage and will not stop raging to please you.

>9 John5918:

The former risks suggesting that Indian and African cultures are not as good as modern cultures and one day they will grow up and be like us, which would seem rather neo-colonialist. Who knows?

Well, the trends that show that "religiosity" goes down with increased literacy and liberal mores, might "know".

Let me also point out that your "neocolonial" argument goes both ways. I could just as easily describe your attitude, that deems African societies with all their current problems "just as good" as other, as neocolonial too, since it approves as sufficient a state of things that would be deeply sub-standard elsewhere.

And again, my main point is the falsity of tying religious feeling to performances of religiosity. How does it not disturb you, as a deeply religious person, that so many--I would argue, the vast majority--of people around you have never had a choice BUT to exhibit and perform religiosity most zealously?

>10 LolaWalser: I don't want to block you. Last time I checked, free speech is still on. Besides, even when I respond to your post, it isn't just to you, but anyone reading the thread. It's called a discussion. Now, that was patronizing. You're welcome

>10 LolaWalser: Everyone and anyone of the religious who see no problem with how their so-called faith is propagated and maintained

And those who do see a problem and try to work from within to change it? Or those who maintain their faith but separate themselves from "organised" religion? Or those who've struck a compromise with organised religion whereby they participate in what they find healthy and lifegiving and either ignore or oppose that which they don't?

The experiences of coercive religion in your last two or three paragraphs are all too common and appal many religious people, but they are not the sum total of religion.

>11 LolaWalser: my main point is the falsity of tying religious feeling to performances of religiosity

And I can't disagree with you there. Religious feeling is something deeply personal which does not necessarily correlate with outward religious practice, indeed often quite the opposite.

so many--I would argue, the vast majority--of people around you have never had a choice BUT to exhibit and perform religiosity most zealously

I don't know. It's difficult to quantify. Without denying that there is often systemic coercion, let me just say that I know many many people who have made conscious choices and have not been coerced, or if they have, they have neither succumbed to it nor taken the option of rejecting it all..

>12 SandraArdnas:

Heh, OK. :)

>13 John5918:

but they are not the sum total of religion.

Not in abstract but as ever, it's the practice that is the chief concern. Where there is no choice, how much "real" religion there is is a moot point.

Pew study: Little change in India's religious make-up in 70 years (BBC)

All religious groups in India have shown major declines in fertility rates, a study from Pew Research Center has found. As a result there have been only "modest changes" in the religious make-up of the people since 1951... During this period, every major religion in India saw its numbers rise, the study found. The number of Hindus increased from 304 million to 966 million; Muslims grew from 35 million to 172 million; and the number of Indians who say they are Christian rose from 8 million to 28 million... Only about 30,000 Indians described themselves as atheists... One interesting finding of the study is that only a few Indians don't claim membership of any religious group. Globally, "none" is the third most common religious affiliation - after Christian and Muslim. "So it is interesting to see the unaffiliated are barely represented in such a large country... There's really no country with a similar religious landscape to India..."

Recent surveys indicate strongly that across the Middle East and Iran, almost half the population is loosening their ties to Islam. (Deutsche Welle, Feb 2021)

The conclusion after 25,000 interviews in Lebanon, by one of the largest pollsters in the region, the Arab Barometer, a research network at Princeton University and the University of Michigan, is "Personal piety has declined some 43% over the past decade, indicating less than a quarter of the population now define themselves as religious."

Young more likely to pray than over-55s (BBC)

Young people in the UK are twice as likely as older people to pray regularly, a new survey has found. Some 51% of 18 to 34-year-olds polled by Savanta ComRes said they pray at least once a month, compared with 24% of those aged 55 and over. It also found 49% of the younger age group attend a place of worship every month, compared with 16% of over-55s...

More Americans are shifting away from religious affiliation, new study finds (Guardian)

In 2007, only 16% of American adults surveyed by the Pew Research Center identified themselves as religious “nones” – people who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular” when asked about their religious identity. That figure is now 29%, according to a new Pew research released on Tuesday. “The religiously unaffiliated share of the public is six percentage points higher than it was five years ago and 10 points higher than a decade ago,” the center said.

Despite the growing shift away from religious affiliation, Christianity continues to dominate the American population. Self-identified Christians, including Protestants, Catholics, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Orthodox Christians, constitute 63% of the adult population, outnumbering religious “nones” by a ratio of a little more than two-to-one. In 2007, Christians outnumbered “nones” by nearly five-to-one.

The decline in the Christian population is largely centered among Protestants, a group broadly defined to include nondenominational Christians and people who describe themselves as “just Christian” along with Baptists, Methodists and Lutherans. Currently, 40% of American adults are Protestants. Over the last five years, the Protestant share of the population dropped by four percentage points and has dropped 10 points in the last decade. In contrast, the Catholic share of the population, despite ticking downward between 2007 and 2014, has mostly remained steady in recent years. According to the survey, as of 2021, 21% of American adults identify as Catholic, identical to the Catholic share of the population in 2014...

Millennials lead shift away from organized religion as pandemic tests Americans’ faith
Seema Mody | Dec 29 2021. Updated Fri, Dec 31 2021

A Pew Research Center survey found 29% of U.S. adults said they had no religious affiliation, an increase of 6 percentage points from 2016.

Millennials are leading the shift away from organized religion, according to the survey.

More faith leaders are stepping up their outreach efforts — from social media to revamped sermons — to attract these younger adults.

It’s not uncommon for people to seek God during times of hardship. However, the opposite appears to have happened in the U.S. during the coronavirus pandemic...

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/29/millennials-lead-shift-away-from-organized-relig...

Any organization with a congregational emphasis has had a difficult row to hoe for the last couple of years.

I’m not religious, but I dread a future where our churches are gone and St Paul’s is a Wetherspoons (Telegraph)

Even though I have no faith myself, I am able to see the good that faith can do – and also to see what can go wrong in its absence...

A reminder that there are many for whom not being religious does not necessarily imply being against faith, that atheism is not necessarily anti-theism, that they recognise religious belief as a phenomenon which exists, which they have no part in, but which can do good. This contrasts with some other atheists who see religious belief as something to be opposed and eradicated.

My pocket dictionaries all say atheists deny the existence of God. I feel very sorry for you and your friends.

>23 eschator83: Ah, where would we be without the condescension of the faithful. The fact that you try to feign compassion while doing it makes me want to puke from hypocrisy. I feel very sorry for you, while at the same time thinking you need a slap to get a grip

I thought it was interesting to see the original post, but I agree that there are cultural differences which obscure the issue. I wonder whether the effect would look different if, for example, the personality cult of North Korea or the forced conformism of China were treated as instances of religious conformity.

It was also an interesting coincidence that the date broadly corresponded to my own experience, since it was in 2008 that I moved from regarding myself as a liberal Christian to identifying more definitively with agnosticism. I appreciate the difficulty of compiling statistics on religious attachments, as I keep being confronted with questionnaires that allow only one tickbox: this is not easy when you are an agnostic who attends both a Christian church and a Zen sangha.

>25 MyopicBookworm:

You post pinpoints two of the major weaknesses in the Western mass understanding of"religion."

1) Singularization. You can only "belong to" one religion; it is a matter of exclusive categories of identity.

2) Credalism. Your religious identity is decisively determined by what you believe (or profess to believe) rather than what you do or whom you relate to.

Both of these failings are projections from Christianity, Protestantism in particular. I don't see any difficulty or contradiction in the idea of an agnostic Zen Christian, but articles like the one cited in the OP never make room for such phenomena.

>25 MyopicBookworm: >26 paradoxosalpha:

Agreed. Religion and theology are separate fields with some overlap.

>26 paradoxosalpha:
Certainly the principle of singular credal faith is central to evangelical Protestantism, but (a) many mainstream Protestants actually have a more pragmatic approach to overlapping or fluid church membership, and (b) the harder line is taken also by many traditionalist Catholic and Orthodox Christians. This may sometimes (in the USA) be a reflection of Protestant attitudes, but it has deep roots in the religious conflicts of the middle ages.

Credal exclusivity is also, so far as I can see, central to many forms of Islam: though not all (there are syncretistic elements in some local forms of Islam), and orthopraxy seems more important than orthodoxy in Islam (and perhaps in Hinduism).

>26 paradoxosalpha:

I'm glad you prefaced that with "the Western mass understanding of 'religion'". Within the western world there are many religious people, including many Christians, who don't subscribe to the simplistic "mass understanding".

Singularization. You can only "belong to" one religion

I recall forty-odd years ago being approached by a Sikh missionary in west London. When I told him I'm a Catholic, he replied, "No problem, you can become a Sikh and still continue as a Catholic".

Credalism. Your religious identity is decisively determined by what you believe (or profess to believe) rather than what you do or whom you relate to.

There's a long history of tension within Christianity between "faith" and "works", what you believe and what you do. In some circles faith was reduced merely to concurrence with certain intellectual statements, and had nothing really to do with relationship with God and other people. The middle road seems to be the best choice, to have both faith and works - and relationships.

>29 John5918:

Since I am myself an official of a relatively tiny religion, I am at pains to understand popular misrepresentations of religion and prejudices about it. As I put it in one of my books, our clergy ideally help adherents to come to know the sources of belief, rather than to believe that they know the sources of knowledge. The latter is superstitious "faith" which we oppose, and yet in the US it is a common way to characterize the entire phenomenon of "religion."

Vatican: Number of Catholics Worldwide Rose by 16 Million in 2020 (National Catholic Register)

The number of Catholics worldwide increased by an estimated 16 million in 2020 to 1.36 billion, according to statistics released on Friday by the Vatican. The rise was in line with global population growth in the year that the coronavirus pandemic swept the planet, reported Vatican News, the online news portal of the Holy See. Catholics continued to account for 17.7% of the total world population... As in previous years, the Church grew most rapidly in Asia (1.8%) and Africa (2.1%) and most modestly in Europe (0.3%). Almost half (48%) of the world’s Catholics live in the Americas, with 28% located in South America...

>31 John5918: It will be interesting to check back on this topic in 75 years and see which way the wind is blowing. Neither of us will be around then but I will hazard a prediction that it will not be looking good for catholicism.

>32 JGL53:

Thanks, JGL. Indeed it would. Institutional religion is certainly waning in the Global North, and your prediction there may well be accurate. In the Global South it's still expanding, and I would hesitate to make a prediction for 75 years hence. But for me the most important thing is not the survival of institutions but the promotion of values, values which unfortunately are often overshadowed by the internal dynamics of the very institutes which should be promoting them. I'll be happy as long as there are still people promoting love of one's neighbour, respect for human dignity, solidarity, peace, justice, reconciliation and other similar values which Christians generally would refer to as "Gospel values" (and Catholics as Catholic Social Teaching) but which are found amongst people of all religions and none.

>33 John5918:

I agree, John. Increasingly, however, I feel that it is time to find another framework (?) for organizing and promoting those values, at least in North America.

I am a member of and give substantial support to a Christian church. Given the stated goals, values, and conduct of individuals and organizations that loudly identify themselves as Christian — often as the genuine Christianity — I no longer feel able to identify myself publicly as Christian. For many people, the brand is irretrievably sullied. Broadly, Capital C Christians have become Pharisees in North America.

>34 librorumamans:

Thanks, Bob. I hear you.

Edited to add: So, the title of this thread, "Giving Up on God: The Global Decline of Religion", which is itself the title of an article in a secular periodical, may in fact be conflating two separate phenomena, namely that many people may well be giving up on the current institutions of organised religion but are not necessarily giving up on God?

Religion is here to stay – but it must evolve to meet our needs (Guardian)

Robin Dunbar’s article (The big idea: do we still need religion?, 28 March) outlines the scientifically measurable benefits of religion. After two years of the pandemic, when our collective physical health has been prioritised, it is now time to focus on these benefits to our spiritual health. Though Dunbar states that religion is not going anywhere, most congregations have been shrinking for decades. Most churches in Britain today would be flabbergasted if 150 people turned up on Sundays. In order to offer community that works for most people, churches must evolve. The benefits of religion that Dunbar explains – community cohesion, greater trust, greater happiness – will be vital as we crawl out of the pandemic, and if we are to navigate the climate crisis...

Its declining because the church has been hijacked by secularism