Yesterday the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a survey saying that more Americans are mixing multiple "faiths" these days. In particular, Pew says that Asian and New Age beliefs are becoming more common, even among people who are nominally Christian.
About 22 percent of Christians believe in reincarnation, Pew says. About 25 percent of Americans believe in astrology and think that there is spiritual energy in objects like mountains, trees and crystals. Increasing numbers of Americans say they have had mystical experiences. Americans also are more likely these days to attend worship services in multiple religious traditions, and not just for weddings and funerals.
If you read the survey announcement carefully, I suspect what's really being reflected is increasing racial and cultural diversity in the U.S. I suspect also that Americans are more likely to marry people from other religions than used to be the case and raise their children to have a foot planted in both traditions. It's also likely that Americans are absorbing religious ideas more from pop culture than from churches and temples these days.
Last year the Pew Forum called the American religious landscape "fluid," and the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) found that the percentage of Americans who identify themselves as Christian is shrinking. At the same time, the percentage of Americans with no religion is growing.
But the people who refuse to identify with a religion are not necessarily unreligious. Some of them appear to have religious inclinations but don't feel they fit into any established religious institution. See some of my earlier blog posts on this topic -- "Thoughts on Shifting Demographics and Religion in America," "Syncretic Religion," and "Religion in Flux."
What we don't know yet is whether this plasticity is the beginning of a general decline of religiosity in America (not necessarily a bad thing) or a great re-alignment of affiliations. Interesting times.
As someone who performs interfaith marriages, this topic is of personal interest to me. Another reason for the Pew results may simply be the dissolving of the social glue that causes people to adhere (pardon the pun) to a given religious tradition. In the old days, a person might say “I’m a Presbyterian” because that was the affiliation of their family or their neighborhood. But in our increasingly atomized society, the “neighborhood” church down the block can be an Internet site, or a forty mile drive up the turnpike. This is both good and bad. On the one hand, people have to think more about they actually believe, and feel free to consider Buddhism or other religions that a short time ago seemed too exotic. On the other, they don’t have a ready-made community to rely on that exists just past their front door. I never quite trust these religion surveys because, so far as I can see, they don’t differentiate between social affiliation and affiliation based on belief. Nevertheless, it comes as no surprise that there is now a major realignment underway. Especially given that North America will have more and more ties with East Asia in the coming decades, I would expect that Buddhism will be on the rise here.
You wrote, “What we don’t know yet is whether this plasticity is the beginning of a general decline of religiosity in America (not necessarily a bad thing) or a great re-alignment of affiliations. Interesting times.”
I don’t think we are likely to experience a decline of religiosity (or, spirituality) in America in general. What’s happening, I think, is the usual case of the mainstream cultural ethos following the lead of what is being taught in Universities. Religious pluralism is on the lips of professors these days, and has been for a while. The general public is becoming ever more convinced that no single tradition has a monopoly on the truth, or even on spirituality and happiness or whatever.
I think that the existence of spiritually inclined individuals isn’t going to die down any time soon. It just sort of shifts around a bit as each generation passes. There are many factors. I’m curious to discover whether or not the current trend toward no fixed beliefs is going to work out for the better. It’s not anything could be done to change or re-direct the force of cultural inertia, so we just have to wait and see.
Thanks to the modern communication and information technology. The world is shrinking into a global village. It is not America alone where religious mixing is evident but the same is applicable across the world in the near future. All major and mainstream religions/faiths following will decline as the choice for an individual to choose his/her personal faith will be as per their decision only.
jackson — for the record, to me religiosity and spirituality are very, very different things, but I think what you say about spirituality is true. Religiosity (to me) is more about religious affectation as a cultural phenomenon.
Jackson, you said
…”usual case of the mainstream cultural ethos following the lead of what is being taught in Universities. Religious pluralism is on the lips of professors these days, and has been for a while.”
Many of the people being polled have never attended a university and many of those that have never took more than one course where the subject might have come up.
This seems to be taking place at a time when the classical ‘Liberal Arts’ education is dying or dead and the influence of ‘academe’ with it, aside from the occasional professor the gov’t will exhalt for its’ own ends.
A sticky subject. We could probably argue about this for a while.
I do think that the Abrahimic mainstream religious institutions are on much shakier ground than they have ever been. Many Christian churches have little to do with Jesus and his mission (read my article on the Jehovas Witnesses) and more to do with political power, just like the Catholic church has been for centuries, Islam is burdened with radical elements and Judaism, a religion more that any other based on basic doubt about itself, has been in a state of suspended animation since the holocaust and the formation of the state of Israel.
All of this contributes to an examination of basic tenets and their basic tenets tend to be ‘revelations of truth’ that are supposed to be swallowed whole by their membership. This all leaves the ‘pilgrim’ buffeted about a bit.
TFitz comments:
“Judaism, a religion more that any other based on basic doubt about itself, has been in a state of suspended animation since the holocaust and the formation of the state of Israel.”
This may be true for the non-Orthodox denominations, but Orthodox Jews have no doubt about their beliefs whatsoever, in particular whose who have embraced political messianic beliefs and are populating the West Bank settlements. However, those outside of Orthodoxy do indeed sometimes take a look at Buddhism, because Buddhisim is not theistic and commandment-based–the aspects of the traditional Jewish faith may leave them feeling baffled and alienated. Some Jewish congregations have also incorporated aspects of Eastern mindfulness into their worship with guided meditations and so forth. And some spend Saturday at the synagogue and Sunday at the zendo, such as my friend who directs a campus Hillel organization and, at the same time, is a pillar of his Zen community.
TFitz, you’re right. Most people don’t go to college. However, teachers are college educated, as are most (if not all) career politicians.
Teachers go on to University and learn the ideas of the day, and it undoubtedly makes it way to their students.
The policy proposals and campaign rhetoric coming from the lips of politicians are heavily influenced by their education.
All of this has a bigger impact on society at large than you might think.
“The policy proposals and campain rhetoric coming from the lips of politicans are heavily influenced by their education.” Are you serious? Have you heard some of these politicans? I doubt any of them paid any attention in college.(especially Republicans.) I’m convinced that Bush was borderline retarded. His policies were based on faith in a book of Bronze Age mythology. Almost all of the politicans from both parties, pretend to pay homage to god and Jesus. This is just to win over the vocal minority of supposed “Church-goers”. Nothing more than a grab for votes. Their only gods are the Corprate Overloads who finance them. As for Universities being a breeding ground for religious pluralism, I’ld beg to differ. To listen to the Evangelical Snake-oil Salesmen, the universities are producing secular humanist and godless liberals. Just to ruin this country for all us god fearing folk.
David, I think we have to remember that Hasidim and Orthodox Jewry in general took the brunt of the holocaust with 80% of eastern European Jews being killed. That their remnants might have some odd ideas these days is disheartening but expected. There was a time when ‘Orthodox’ was not synonymous with ‘radical’. Point taken though.
jackson says:
“TFitz, you’re right. Most people don’t go to college. However, teachers are college educated, as are most (if not all) career politicians.”
Perhaps elementary school teachers and mainstream protestant clergy are the last recipients of anything resembling a classical ‘Liberal Arts’ education. Looking back at my own (admittedly truncated) education and what I found with my sons teachers is that they are either highly motivated by a personal viewpoint or just not motivated by much of anything. There is an imposed ‘political correctness’ which leaves teachers on a constant state of alertness for any controversy, also.
You may be right though.