Tag Archives: nonreligious

A Post-Religious Society?

A couple of years ago, an article in The Economist emphasized the decline of religion in Britain. (“This sceptic isle,” August 13, 2016)

Churches are being sold. The percent of those describing themselves as “religious” has declined from 80 percent for those born before 1980 to 40 percent for those born after.

In the United States, the article pointed out, the nonreligious portion of the population rose from 16 percent in 2007 to 23 percent in 2014.

Who, the article asked, is going to take over the functions previously performed by religious institutions? Jobs like feeding the poor and counseling the grief stricken?

Of course, in the two millennia since the birth of Christianity, it has risen and fallen a number of times.

Byzantium, bastion of might and Eastern Orthodoxy, endured for over a thousand years before its military defeat by the Ottoman Empire.

But Ottomans failed twice to conquer Vienna and the rest of Europe. The European Renaissance and then the Reformation unfolded, movements both secular and religious.

After Christendom lost its way and became embroiled in barbarous wars, it declined, and the Age of Reason followed. However, Christianity eventually revived. Missionaries carried it to Africa and Asia. Other Christians were active in social issues, including the movement to abolish slavery. In the twentieth century, Christians took leadership roles in the civil rights movement.

Though the Christian faith now is going through a bad patch in Western countries, it is growing in Asia and Africa.

Somehow, one or way or another, resurrection seems to happen.

Secular and Religious: A Certain Nervousness

 

A secular professional of the Christian persuasion is careful not to push his views on his colleagues. Yet he senses unease about religion in any form, he says.

Many in our society know little about religion, including Christianity. They are not so much antagonistic toward faith as uneasy. They view religious people somewhat like they view a nice salesperson who loves his product but which the nonreligious person could care less about. To others, all religion seems extreme, full of adherents who are angry and judgmental and want to force the uncommitted  to follow their way, as in the days of the Spanish Inquisition.

To the religious, religion seems natural. To the nonreligious, religion seems irrelevant.

Religion to the non-religious isn’t about hope and healing for the hurt and wounded. It’s the hatreds that spawned 9/ll. It isn’t about submission to eternal truths but about women being forced to endure physical abuse because God wills women to be subservient. It isn’t linking to truths about purpose and meaning but ignoring closed minds and name-calling.

A disconnect exists like two ships passing in the night. A suggestion for connection: What happens if those with faith live so that the nonreligious envy what they see?