Tag Archives: Secularization

Statistics on Religion pt. V- Religion & Same-Sex Marriage

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Hand holding a rising arrow, representing business growth.The religious landscape in America is changing dramatically.  I’ve written on this before, but the results remain surprising: over the past decade, the number of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated has doubled- rising from 8% in 2003 to 21% today.  Something is happening in the tides of public opinion on religion… but what is happening remains open for debate.  Why are these numbers rising so quickly?

A recent survey from the Public Religion Research Institute, a non-profit doing research on religion in American public life, has been tracking how opinions on same-sex marriage have impacted people’s religious affiliation.  From this survey it’d seem that same-sex marriage was a deciding factor for many people’s choice to leave their childhood religion.  But, as always, the relationship isn’t so cut and dry.

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Statistics on Religion- Part III

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Jonathan Morgan

man praying and looking up I began the series on religious statistics by asking the question: is religion disappearing? Okay, I didn’t ask it that explicitly, but it’s the question at the heart of secularization.  And the question keeps intriguing me because it’s so difficult to answer. In America alone there are increasing numbers of religiously unaffiliated, but among those ranks, religion is still described as important to their daily lives.  How do we explain that?  Worldwide, the picture becomes even more complex.

One of the most difficult things to figure out is why most industrial nations show a decline in religious affiliation, but worldwide the number of people holding strong religious beliefs is at an all time high.  How do we juggle these seemingly opposed trends? Continue reading →

Statistics on Religion- Part I

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Jonathan Morgan

Muslim Friday prayer, blue mosque TurkeyBack in the sixties, the American sociologist Peter Berger proposed the Secularization Hypothesis – a fancy term for the theory that as cultures become more modern, they will move out from under the umbrella of religion. This change could be seen in a number of ways. It could show up as a declining importance of religion in organizations; think about hospitals, many of which still bear religious names, but not much else religious. Or secularization could show up as fewer and fewer people professing belief or affiliation.

Berger recanted his theory and now argues that development leads to a diversity of religions, but the secularization debate continues. And the debate persists for a good reason – it’s really difficult to gain a clear picture of how religion is changing among individuals, communities, and cultures. Over the next few weeks I’m going to review some of the research that tries to follow religious change.

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