The Church is Declining, but We're Doing Better than Most of Society
While there are many factors involved in society wide religious decline, I think the two biggest factors are not unique to the church. The church is falling victim to the broader trends common to our liquid modern society.
Firstly, the church is declining for the same reasons that marriage and fertility rates are declining. Marriage and kids add complex limitations to people's lives. They reduce one's freedom to do what one wants whenever one wants. In liquid modernity, market society rewards those who are not restrained by commitments. You might have to move to the other side of the world if you want your ideal job, but doing so requires uprooting your whole family and spending a lot of time and stress rearranging your life in a new place. If you suddenly get the chance to take your dream trip to Italy, it's much easier to take advantage of such an opportunity as a single person without obligations. If you meet the love of your life in Italy, it's harder to be with them if you're already married.
The moral restrictions of the church have the same restraining effect as having a spouse and kids. Having values restricts freedom. Morality prevents people from sleeping around, watching pornography, getting drunk with friends, smoking marijuana, or chasing material possessions and status. Christianity compels us to consider others before ourselves and sacrifice for those around us. Religion is also increasingly culturally awkward. If your boss wants you to wear a rainbow flag for LGBT Pride Month then you're forced to either violate your religious commitments or risk offending your boss and coworkers with a lengthy politically incorrect argument defending your decision not to conform. Liquid modernity rewards those who go with the flow and remain open to big new market trends. It's now more costly to be religious, just like it's now more costly to have a spouse and kids in an age of unlimited movement and experiences.
Both marriage and fertility rates have fallen by roughly 25% since 1970. Church membership has declined by almost exactly the same percentage. Over the same time period, belief in God appears to have declined by only about 16%.
The second big factor in church decline is likely the result of the increasing transparency created by the proliferation of flexible information networks. Every institutional scandal and secret can be spread around the world on social media in a few hours. Our society's critical attitude towards everything is now fully developed, and it's been encouraged by post-modernity's non-stop deconstructionist tendencies towards all of our institutions and meta-narratives. Our society now distrusts everything. It's not just the church, it's everything that remains open to criticism.
Americans still trust churches and organized religion more than most other institutions. Today, in 2023, 32% of Americans say they have faith in churches and organized religion, but only 8% say they have faith in congress. The church is more trusted than the Supreme Court (27%), banks (26%), public schools (26%), and big business (14%). Despite non-stop media coverage of catholic sex abuse scandals and congregational corruption, the public still trusts the church more than the banks that hold their money or the schools that educate their kids.
Yes, the church is declining, but it's declining slower than the rest of our society. Atheists celebrate each new piece of news about religious decline, but are they also celebrating the even faster decline of new humans being born? If religion is worthless and outdated because it's in decline, does that mean that babies are worthless and outdated? Is marriage worthless and outdated? Is the United States government worthless and outdated? 80% of Americans believe in God, but only around 57% of Americans believe in the theory of evolution. Does that mean evolution is worthless and outdated? Yes, the statistics are bad, but they're bad for everything, not just the church.
The church shouldn't be discouraged or retreat into existential crisis or low confidence. The church is doing better than the rest of society. The church was strong when society was healthy, and it still helps to sustain what remains of that health. We need to recognize that church decline is really only one part of a much broader general social decline. We need to adjust ourselves to a new mission: serving a declining society and working towards revival and renaissance. We are working in the trenches, we are not seeing big success, but we're still doing good work. Let's continue to work and pray for God's intervention and restoration.