SPIRITUALITY UP, RELIGION DOWN IN AMERICA
It may come as a shock to many Americans to learn that the number of Christians in our country is steadily declining -- and that evangelical Christians in particular represent only 7% of the populace, with no increase in their numbers over the last decade. Meanwhile, a full third of American adults now say they are 'spiritual but not religious.' What does that mean exactly? And why aren't these numbers making news?
Journalists have largely missed the story of America's turn in recent decades toward a deeply felt, personal spirituality that is pursued independently of religious customs and institutions. One of the earliest significant markers of this trend appeared in the January 1988 issue of BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS, when the magazine published a report on 'Religion, Spirituality, and American Families,' based on a survey it had conducted among its eight million readers a few months before. The survey was returned by 80,000 people -- more than two and a half times the response expected by the editors, and far more people than are usually sampled in public opinion polls -- and provided the following information:
Some results suggest that respondents' spirituality is strongest on a personal level. The largest group (62%) say that in recent years they have begun or intensified personal spiritual study and activities (compared to 23% who say they have become closer to a religious organization). 68% say that when faced with a spiritual dilemma, prayer/meditation guides them most (compared to 14% who say the clergy guides them most during such times) . . . .
While such results were revealing in themselves, it's also worth noting that the title of a major mainstream survey of the late 1980s already drew a distinction between religion and spirituality. The difference would probably have been lost on anyone but theologians just a few decades earlier. A noticeable divergence between the social conventions of religion and the individual pursuit of spirituality most likely took root in the 1960s and has only widened since the late 80s, as evidenced by more recent data from a variety of sources:
* In January 2002, a USA TODAY/Gallup poll showed that almost half of American adults do not consider themselves religious. In 1999, 54% said they considered themselves religious; that number had shrunk to 50% in 2002. A full third (33%) described themselves as 'spiritual but not religious,' an increase of 3% over three years. Ten percent said they regarded themselves as neither spiritual nor religious.
* According to an 'American Religious Identification Survey' conducted by the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in 2001, the most dramatic demographic shift in religious identification is the number of Americans saying they do not follow any organized religion, increasing from 8% (about 14.3 million people) in 1990 to 14.1% (29.4 million) in 2001. During the same period, the number of Americans identifying themselves as Christians shrank from 86.2% to 76.5%, a reduction of nearly 10 percent. If the trend holds, Christians will be outnumbered by non-Christians in America by 2042.
* The Barna Group, a Christian polling and research organization, commented in an April 2005 report that 'Despite the media frenzy surrounding the influence of evangelical Christians during the 2004 presidential election, the new study indicates that evangelicals remain just 7% of the adult population. That number has not changed since the Barna Group began measuring the size of the evangelical public in 1994.'
The fact that evangelical Christians are heavily outnumbered by Americans declaring no religious affiliation may come as a shock, considering the prominence of evangelical activists in the press and their recent influence on society. After the last presidential election, some analysts attributed the winning edge of President Bush's victory to the mobilization of evangelical voters in the so-called 'red states.' (Bush's final popular vote margin over John Kerry was 2.5%.) Their social perspectives and political agenda also get substantial and continuing coverage in the media, particularly in regard to such hot-button issues as abortion, gay rights, stem-cell research, and the teaching of creationism vs. evolution in the public schools. Yet as the data above suggest, the actual number of evangelicals is small and has been constant for over a decade, even as the overall number of Christians steadily declines and a substantial and growing proportion of the population prefers to be identified as 'spiritual but not religious.'
There are at least three major factors contributing to this dramatic disparity between popular perceptions of America's spiritual evolution and what is really going on. First is the media's failure to pay attention to the actual shifts of belief that are occurring quietly behind the more easily reported controversies that involve religion. The second factor is simply that evangelicals have a mission to spread their creed. Over the last decade or so they have done an increasingly effective job of enhancing their media profile and their political clout, even if the effect on the number of people espousing their cause is negligible.
Third, the 'mission' of people who are turning away from organized religion toward a more individual style of spiritual practice could well be described as the polar opposite of evangelism. Instead of trying to convert others to their beliefs, the new spiritualists are questioning their own beliefs, and privately experimenting with new perspectives. Rather than feeling the evangelicals' need to persuade others to endorse a traditional vision of absolute truth, the new spiritualists are bent on experiencing deeper truths by their own direct experience, and then drawing their moral decisions from what they have learned by such experience. Many of these people are interested in so-called 'alternative' religions (some of which actually predate Christianity) and others are fashioning eclectic spiritual practices drawing from many traditions and teachings. But make no mistake about it -- the rise in personal spirituality is the major religion story of our time. And it's long past time for the press to be treating it as such.
D. Patrick Miller is a writer and independent publisher specializing in contemporary spiritual issues. He has written over 100 magazine articles and is the author of A Little Book of Forgiveness and News of a New Human Nature. He is the founder of Fearless Books, online at www.fearlessbooks.com.
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