22AR27-30

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AR 27:30 - Global South, an unfolding "social, spiritual explosion"

In this issue:

AMERICAN RELIGION - are the celebrate "nones" being mis-classified and over-counted?

GLOBAL CHRISTIANITY - Anglican conflicts illustrate an even wider "social and spiritual explosion"

Apologia Report 27:30 (1,583)
August 24, 2022

AMERICAN RELIGION

"Religion Is Dying? Don't Believe It" -- Byron R. Johnson and Jeff Levin report (Wall Street Journal, Jul 28 '22) that "Many of the 'Nones' aren't secular; they belong to minority faiths. The problem is how to count them."

As it turns out, there really is quite a problem here. The mainstream media's conclusions "are based on analyses that are so flawed as to be close to worthless. In a new study with our colleagues Matt Bradshaw and Rodney Stark [all of whom teach at Baylor], we seek to set the record straight."

Johnson (a professor of social sciences) and Levin (professor of epidemiology and population health) find that "Data from five recent U.S. population surveys point to the vibrancy, ubiquity and growth of religion in the U.S. Americans are becoming more religious, and religious institutions are thriving." (Worth noting: Pew Research was not involved.) In fact, many "who report no religious affiliation - and even many self-identified atheists and agnostics - exhibit substantial levels of religious practice and belief. ...

"Hundreds of new denominations have quietly appeared, as have thousands of church plants (new congregations) and numerous non-Christian religious imports. These more than make up for losses from mainline Protestant denominations, which are indeed in free fall and have been for decades."

Johnson and Levin complain that "large databases on American religion often lump Others in with the Nones. ... The U.S. Religious Census <usreligioncensus.org>, organized by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, tracks the number of congregations and congregants at the county level. But recent research in three U.S. counties confirms that it has missed between 26% and 40% of their congregations." How significant is that? "This means that instead of 344,894 congregations (based on the most recent U.S. Religious Census data), there may be as many as 500,000 houses of worship in the U.S. ...

"All of this helps explain why the proportion of Nones has increased sharply - from 15% in 2007 to 30% in 2021 - even though the proportion of atheists in the U.S. has held steady at 3% to 4% for more than 80 years. And there are reasons to question the assumption that even truly unaffiliated Nones aren't religious. ...

"According to the 2018 General Social Survey, 6.4% of self-described atheists and 27.2% of agnostics attended religious services monthly or more; 12.8% and 58.1%, respectively, prayed at least weekly; 19.2% and 75% believed in life after death; and 7.3% and 23.3% reported having had a religious experience." <www.bit.ly/3AkAv3t>

Warning: Intentional omission ahead. Johnson and Levin conclude: "Social scientists can't count ... unless they know where to look." <www.on.wsj.com/3vXmR5g>

Counterpoint - on August 8, the WSJ published a letter by reader David Spadafora, who argues: "Relevant data in a key study [the authors] cite, the General Social Survey, presents a more complex picture. It has found that across the past half-century, the proportion of people that never attend religious services increased from 10% to 30%. In a question about the strength of religious affiliation, those who report having 'no religion' increased from 8% to 23% during that time.

"Those who say they don't believe in God increased from about 2% in the late 1980s to 8% now. Those who claim strong and certain belief declined from 63% to 50% during the same period. Pew’s Religious Landscape Survey shows a similar increase in disbelief for 2007-2014 and decline among those reporting certain belief.

"As always, the devil is in the details of survey question wording. Therefore, one might say that the larger contours revealed by the data, and by 300 years of Western history, do not inspire faith in the hope for which Profs. Johnson and Levin charitably contend." <www.on.wsj.com/3woDBCm> (paywalled)

POSTSCRIPT, Sep 26 '22: Counterpoint reader response to the above dated Aug 8 -- "False Hope on the Future of American Religion?" by David Spadafora of Pinehurst, N.C. includes: "Relevant data in a key study they cite, the General Social Survey, present a more complex picture. It has found that across the past half-century, the proportion of people that never attend religious services increased from 10% to 30%. In a question about the strength of religious affiliation, those who report having 'no religion' increased from 8% to 23% during that time.

Those who say they don’t believe in God increased from about 2% in the late 1980s to 8% now. Those who claim strong and certain belief declined from 63% to 50% during the same period. Pew’s Religious Landscape Survey shows a similar increase in disbelief for 2007-2014 and decline among those reporting certain belief."

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GLOBAL CHRISTIANITY

How little attention is paid to the great spiritual battle taking place between the earth's northern and southern hemispheres! We get a helpful glimpse with: "Anglicans in liberal West and conservative Global South face broken communion - again" by Terry Mattingly (GetReligion, Jul 29 '22) <www.bit.ly/3PjjWuw> He begins: "The twist in this old, old story is that most of the heroes in the press coverage are White progressives from rich First World nations and the villains are People of Color from the Global South (think Africa and Asia)."

The immediate context is "the unfolding Lambeth 2022 drama." But the core issue's "symbolic moment" came seven years ago, during an Episcopal House of Bishops meeting in Kanuga, N.C., as members met in small groups to discuss graceful ways to settle their differences on the Bible, worship and sex. The question for the day was: 'Why are we dysfunctional?'" To which Bishop C. FitzSimons Allison, "a dignified South Carolinian" with an Oxford doctorate in Anglican history replied: "the answer was simple - apostasy."

Mattingly calls attention to a key issue in how "the rich churches still have a higher ratio of voting bishops than those in the Global South. This affects voting. ...

"The bishops … want the Communion to impose sanctions on Provinces which ordain bishops in same-sex relations, and conduct same sex weddings - something which has led to schism in the Church. ...

"The key word is 'led,' as in 'has led to schism in the church.' That's past tense."

Leaders of the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA) claim that Lambeth 2022 organizers "have failed to recognise the foundations of 'Lambeth 1.10' which, they say, 'is not just about sex and marriage, but fundamentally about the authority of the Bible which Anglicans believe to be central to faith and order'. ...

"Archbishop Justin Badi, Chairman of the GSFA and Archbishop of South Sudan said: ... 'To us in our provinces, this is not primarily about gay sexual practices and unions, but rather that Anglicans look first and foremost to be guided in their faith and order by Scripture, and not by the passing cultural waves of Western society. ...

"For too long the Anglican Communion has been driven by the views of the West. We often feel that our voice is not listened to, or respected."

Mattingly asks: "Does the framework of this 2022 Anglican drama sound familiar? ...

"It's very similar to the divorce that is currently unfolding in the United Methodist Church - where the shrinking churches of North America hold the institutional high ground yet they have been outvoted, in global conferences, by the growing churches of (wait for it) Africa and Asia."

Mattingly recommends "historian Philip Jenkins, author of the truly groundbreaking book The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. <www.bit.ly/3QnIFPF> For a quicker take, see his 2002 essay for the Atlantic - 'The Next Christianity' - which preceded the book." <www.bit.ly/3zUwgvk>

Mattingly gives us a peek at the book to show how Jenkins describes "another Christian revolution," one where: "In the global South (the areas that we often think of primarily as the Third World) huge and growing Christian populations - currently 480 million in Latin America, 360 million in Africa, and 313 million in Asia, compared with 260 million in North America - now make up what the Catholic scholar Walbert Buhlmann has called the Third Church, a form of Christianity as distinct as Protestantism or Orthodoxy, and one that is likely to become dominant in the faith. ... There is increasing tension between what one might call a liberal Northern Reformation and the surging Southern religious revolution, which one might equate with the Counter-Reformation, the internal Catholic reforms that took place at the same time as the Reformation - although in references to the past and the present the term 'Counter-Reformation' misleadingly implies a simple reaction instead of a social and spiritual explosion." (And don't miss <www.bit.ly/3Aowz22> - Mattingly's August 14 update.)

We close with two observations:

First, remember that Jenkins wrote The Next Christendom 20 years ago.

Second, some AR trivia: The Apologia ARchive has grown too big for our database software (Google Sites) to hold anything older than 2006 (originally going back to 1985 - about the time Paul and I first began collaborating, albeit with him in the Global South [Brazil] and me in California). So, with the related link above, we can only give you a fraction of what we've covered in response to Jenkins' historic book. A deficiency we're growing to regret.

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