“This is the end of marriage, capitalism, and God. Finally!” the title of the 2016 salon was proclaimed with glee. Religion is also in decline in the West. But “Christmas looks different this year” (yes, it's still Christmas time), says a New York Times reporter. Its author, Ross Douthat, a man of faith, sees a resurgence of religion, albeit in an unusual atmosphere.
Douthat opens a recent article about his family's trip to Italy in March, during which they visited a community of Benedictine monks. Interestingly and fittingly, he mentions something I did in my last article. Italy, where the Roman Empire once spread Christianity across much of Europe, now no longer even follows the Biblical command to “be fruitful and multiply.” It may seem like some kind of cosmic justice that soaring birth rates mean there are no more Italians. After all, statistics show that the world's religious people are its prolific people. Secularists end their lineage by not having children. So is the message that if you deviate from God, you will disappear?
The impending revival of religion is certainly counterintuitive to many Westerners. This is because they may take for granted that modernity and its “science” exclude and deny religion. (Does “following the science” make you unbeliever?) Moreover, while secularists are not keen on having children of their own, they are rather adept at converting other people's children to secularism. There's more to this story.
A future filled with faith?
Douthat cites only a smattering of statistical evidence that the decline of faith is itself a decline. In other words, he is referring to research on “nothingness,” people who describe their religion as “nothing in particular.” Over the past decade, that number has increased significantly, but in the last four years it has plateaued.
But, of course, a study citing a quadrennial trend could be an anomaly. But in fact, professional demographers have long predicted that religiosity will actually increase around the world over the next 35 years. The Pew Research Center reported in 2017:
In the coming decades, the global proportion of religiously unaffiliated people is actually expected to decline….
To be clear, the total number of religiously independent people (including atheists, agnostics, and especially those who do not belong to any religion) will increase in absolute terms from 1.17 billion in 2015 to 2060. It is expected to increase to 1.2 billion people. This growth is projected to coincide with even more rapid growth in other religious groups and in the world's population as a whole.
These projections predict that by 2060, non-religious people will account for approximately 13% of the world's population, down from approximately 16% in 2015.
The reason is related to what I said earlier. Pugh continued:
This relative decline is largely due to the fact that people are on average older and have fewer children than non-religious people. For example, in 2015, the median age of people affiliated with one of the world's religions was 29 years, while the median age of unaffiliated people was 36 years. And between 2010 and 2015, religious believers are estimated to have had an average of 2.45 children per woman, compared to 1.65 children for non-religious women.
Will the last secularist turn out the lights?
Therefore, a replacement level of 2.1 children per woman means that theists are slightly above that level and secularists are below it. Who will win in the race for the future?
However, that does not mean that the Church of England will rise again. (Indeed, those same bishops just claimed that A Christmas Carol is “problematic” in saying that Jesus is the “true savior.”) As Douthat writes, the established religion claims that it will continue to leak oil.
Catholic Poland, for example, one of Europe's last centers of state religion, appears to be following the same path of de-Christianization as Ireland, Quebec and Italy. Mainline Protestantism in America is not about to jump out of its sickbed, and the Anglican Church is not completely out of date. Similarly, groups such as Southern Baptists and Mormons, which grew rapidly decades ago and are now struggling, will not automatically recover or boom again.
Instead, any growth becomes a non-denominational subculture (think Latin Mass Catholics, Eastern Orthodox converts, or community-oriented Protestants), mystical and unique. The potential is high, and we will see notable flowering in places where traditional beliefs have previously seen little growth (such as the technology industry). , say).
Mr. Douthat's quote about Poland brings us to a point. Having spent a lot of time in the country, I can say that even 25 years ago, a “strong national religion” was not a reality. Rather, compared to Western Europe, they have a strong tradition of church-going.
No, this is not what is popular today. That is, to condemn organized religion. Rather, the point is that Poland lacks what the entire West (and indeed the world) does: faith in truth. Our civilization is steeped in moral relativism/nihilism.
religious reality
Simply put, truth means “God's answers to all of life's questions.” It is absolute, objective, and transcends humanity. And it's no wonder why the Christian faith is in decline in the West. Why do people believe that Jesus is “the way and the truth,” as Jesus said, when they do not believe in the truth in the first place?
The existence of Grasping Truth also brings sophistication to another issue. So is the apparent increase in religiosity around the world over the next 30 years a good thing or a bad thing?Answer: Not enough data.
“Religion,” like “ideology,” is a category, not a creed. Just as there are good and bad ideologies (Marxism, Nazism, etc.), so too are religions qualitatively different. A study of 45,000 young people in Germany published in 2010 seems to confirm this. They found that as religiosity increased, Christian youth became less violent, but Muslim youth became more violent.
In other words, not all faiths support truth to the same degree.
Finally, believing in truth reveals the folly of denying organized religion. After all, truth is not “personal” and there is no such thing as “my truth”, it is for everyone. And it is only natural that once many people recognize the truth, they organize around what it is: the ultimate commonality.
Besides, do you want unorganized families or soccer leagues? Do you want unorganized charities, transport, supermarkets, or postal services?
So why should we want an anarchic religion?
The point is, no, “religion” doesn't seem to be dying. But “believing in God” is not enough. After all, you know who else believes in God?
Satan.
We also need to seek, know, love, and live in truth, the infallible standard of goodness that God has given us. Because if there's anything worth organizing and coming together for, that's it.
