Why Christianity Is Getting Smaller and Less Important


There was a widely used book about culture and economics back when I was teaching economics. It talked about the constant churning in the economy which happens for many reasons, technology, tastes, culture and the other things we talk about here. He had a sentence that fits the state of Christianity and most religion today around the world. He said change is so powerful efforts to stop it are like toothpicks stuck in front of a bulldozer. The decline of religion is like that. Revival gatherings, charismatic preachers, politicians and fear of hell are but toothpicks. 

I've finally finished the book Why Religion Went Obsolete; The Demise of Traditional Faith in America. Of the many dozens of articles and books I've read and videos I've watched, none provided the clear explanation of author, Professor of Sociology at Notre Dame Christian Smith, provided. The culture that brought Christianity to be popular is gone. The culture that replaced it does not accommodate, in fact is hostile to, Christianity.

Professor Smith writes in a contemporary style that gets to the point. In the final chapter he has two pages of characteristics that are strong in our current culture. I'll list just a few of them and each reader can judge for her/him self. People in our society today have deep in their hearts and souls deep cultural beliefs like these:

Individualism: People make up their own minds. Society is made up of individuals making their own choices.

Anti institutional: Social groups that have control of others are to be avoided.

Relativist: Knowledge, truth and ethics depend on perspectives.

Multicultural: Comfortable with diversity, suspicious of forced conformity.

Transgressive: Breaking down boundaries passed down or passed along from others.

Jaded: Bored by hype and defeated by disappointment, scandal and dim futures.

Entertained: Expect to find things to amuse them nearly all the time.

There are some others. All work to place barriers to believing in orthodox religion. 



 

 

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