Who Needs Wisdom When It Becomes Conventional?

When news:

The U.S. is undergoing its fastest religious shift in modern history, marked by a rapid increase in the religiously unaffiliated and numerous church closures nationwide," Contreras explains in a post-Christmas article published on December 26. "Why it matters: The great unchurching of America comes as identity and reality are increasingly shaped by non-institutional spiritual sources — YouTube mystics, TikTok tarot, digital skeptics, folk saints and AI-generated prayer bots. It's a tectonic transformation that has profound implications for race, civic identity, political persuasion and the ability to govern a fracturing moral landscape."

Contreras continues, "By the numbers: Nearly three in 10 American adults today identify as religiously unaffiliated — a 33 percent jump since 2013, according to the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). That's quicker than almost any major religious shift in modern U.S. history, and it's happening across racial groups, an Axios analysis found…. The shift in religious activity also is leaving behind a trail of 'church graveyards,' or empty buildings that are now difficult to sell or have been abandoned."

The Axios reporter notes that according to Gallup, roughly 57 percent of Americans seldom or never attend religious services — an increase from 40 percent in 2000 — and that an "unprecedented 15,000 churches are expected to shut their doors this year" compared to only a "few thousand expected to open."

PRRI CEO Melissa Deckman told Axios that there is no evidence of a widespread religious revival.

"Despite anecdotal and media reports about Gen Z men returning to church," Contreras notes, "there's little evidence it's happening beyond scattered examples to reverse the overall decline, she said. The bottom line: The old religious map is disappearing."

Isn't new.

March, 2023. Belief in God down to 47% of the population.

I kind of arbitrarily jumped back to 2023. I found two posts on the subject in 2022.

And a post in 2021, where I commented on the fact that even the prophets turned against organized religion. And don’t get me started on the decline of church buildings in America, v. the destruction of the Temple in the Exile, and again in 70 C.E.

Then there are the “nones,” a subject upon which I have posts from 2019, 2017, and another three posts from 2015, including this observation from March, 2015:

It seems that, as of 1906, 41% of the population (per the Census Bureau) considered themselves members of a religious organization (I'll presume this is self-reported, rather than derived from an analysis of church records).  92 years later, that percentage was 70%.

Which, IMHO, renders: “That's quicker than almost any major religious shift in modern U.S. history,” ring rather hollow, since the last religious shift in America was the period between 1906 and 1998. What goes up, must come down.

And this “news” has been news for the last decade. 

But it’s Christmastide, and that makes this timely. Sort of. Or maybe on the highway to “conventional wisdom.”