Secularism seems to be on the march in America. This week, a new study from the Program on Public Values at Trinity College found that the number of Americans claiming no religion now stands at 15%, up from 8% in 1990 and 2% in 1962.
The secular tide appears to be running strongest among young Americans. Religious attendance among those 21 to 45 years old is at its lowest level in decades, according to Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow. Only 25% of young adults now attend services regularly, compared with about one-third in the early 1970s.
The most powerful force driving religious participation down is the nation’s recent retreat from marriage, Mr. Wuthnow notes. Nothing brings women and especially men into the pews like marriage and parenthood, as they seek out the religious, moral and social support provided by a congregation upon starting a family of their own. But because growing numbers of young adults are now postponing or avoiding marriage and childbearing, they are also much less likely to end up in church on any given Sunday. Mr. Wuthnow estimates that America’s houses of worship would have about six million more regularly attending young adults if today’s young men and women started families at the rate they did three decades ago.
Now, President Barack Obama seems poised to give secularism in America another boost, however inadvertently.
Anyone who watched the Obama campaign through 2008 cannot seriously believe that religion is declining. Some folks just have a new god.
How adversely the expanding role of government affects religious belief depends upon how well the government itself works. European states were able to combine the welfare state with an expanding (more or less) economy. The large future borrowing may couple the expansion of government with a declining economy and level of prosperity, and under these circumstances the result may be entirely different.
[i]Religious attendance among those 21 to 45 years old is at its lowest level in decades, according to Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow. Only 25% of young adults now attend services regularly, compared with about one-third in the early 1970s.[/i]
I recently had my American Religious Survey class read George Marsden’s monumental biography of Jonathan Edwards. It’s interesting to note that in the supposedly more religious environment of 18th Century New England similar concerns were being voiced. Perhaps a new sort of awakening is just around the corner.
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