Is religion dying --or reinventing?

[cbayer]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/is-religion-dying---or-reinventing/2012/03/07/gIQApziWxR_blog.html

By Diana Butler Bass

For decades, Americans have been turning toward spirituality as a protest vote against conventional religion. In the last dozen years, American religious institutions have undergone a myriad of crises--abuse scandals, conflicts, schism, and partisan political entanglement, to name a few--resulting in a great religious recession. Poll after poll reveals that organized religions --mainline Protestant, evangelical, Roman Catholic, and Jewish --are in varying states of disarray and decline. Sadness, even doom, has gripped many congregations, as the formerly faithful disaffiliate, and those who remain struggle to pay clergy and fix leaky roofs.

The bored and wounded have fled religion seeking new spiritual connections. Some 30 percent of American now identify as “spiritual but not religious,” around 9 percent are atheists and post-theists. But the growth of these two groups is not news. Their numbers have been rising for thirty years.

What is new? In my research, it’s the “ands.” Those who say they are “spiritual and religious.” In 1999, 54 percent of Americans said they were “religious but not spiritual,” while six percent said “spiritual and religious.” By 2009, the percentages had reversed: “religious but not spiritual” fell from 54 percent to nine percent as the “spiritual and religious” rose from a mere six percent of the population to nearly half, an astonishing 42 point change.

“Ands” want religion revolutionized by spirituality; they want spirituality grounded upon (but not guarded by) ancient wisdom, theologies, and practices. They demand more authenticity, meaning, justice, and community from religious institutions, not less. In these longings, the “ands” voice an older way of understanding religion, where faith should and must be an experience of God that transforms one’s life for the sake of the world. If the “ands” are the vanguard of change, then the great religious recession is about to give way to a great spiritual awakening. Is this the end of religion or only the beginning of a new, and better, form of faith?



more at link

[HockeyMom]

1. Organized religion is dying

People are seeking other alternatives.

[NAO]

2. Religion is antithetical to spirituality

Religion - any form of belief based on "faith" rather than reason and evidence, and specifically beliefs rigidly held in defiance of reason and evidence - is antithetical to intellectual honesty. The intellectual dishonesty implicit in holding any belief as "untouchable" retards the human spirit and inevitably leads to repression. This includes some types of Marxism, where dissent is suppressed.

Sam Harris - under much criticism from the atheist community - has written and spoken extensively on modes of spirituality that do not require us to believe things without evidence.

[white_wolf]

14. I posted this in the Buddhism forum, but thought you might like it since you mentioned Harris.

"The ninth-century Buddhist master Lin Chi is supposed to have said, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” Like much of Zen teaching, this seems too cute by half, but it makes a valuable point: to turn the Buddha into a religious fetish is to miss the essence of what he taught. In considering what Buddhism can offer the world in the twenty-first century, I propose that we take Lin Chi’s admonishment rather seriously. As students of the Buddha, we should dispense with Buddhism.
This is not to say that Buddhism has nothing to offer the world. One could surely argue that the Buddhist tradition, taken as a whole, represents the richest source of contemplative wisdom that any civilization has produced. In a world that has long been terrorized by fratricidal Sky-God religions, the ascendance of Buddhism would surely be a welcome development. But this will not happen. There is no reason whatsoever to think that Buddhism can successfully compete with the relentless evangelizing of Christianity and Islam. Nor should it try to.
The wisdom of the Buddha is currently trapped within the religion of Buddhism. Even in the West, where scientists and Buddhist contemplatives now collaborate in studying the effects of meditation on the brain, Buddhism remains an utterly parochial concern. While it may be true enough to say (as many Buddhist practitioners allege) that “Buddhism is not a religion,” most Buddhists worldwide practice it as such, in many of the naive, petitionary, and superstitious ways in which all religions are practiced. Needless to say, all non-Buddhists believe Buddhism to be a religion—and, what is more, they are quite certain that it is the wrong religion."

More at link:

http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/killing-the-buddha

[NAO]

15. thanks. I hadn't seen that. -nt

[lob1]

3. Google killed religion. It's too easy to fact check now.

[digonswine]

4. Interesting-

fodder for an original post-

[rug]

5. Only in a parochial, national context.

"According to the World Values Survey, the vast majority of the world’s people belief in God and say that religion plays an important role in their lives. World Values Survey data prove two distinct and seemingly contradictory theses: one, religion declines as societies become more successful; and two, that the role and importance of religion is increasing worldwide. In other words, in a global context, religion cannot simply be dismissed when searching out paths of human happiness and meaning. No matter how fractious, wounded, irksome, hypocritical, or potentially destructive it can be, religion makes a difference, especially in the lives of the disadvantaged, oppressed, and the poor."

[Skittles]

6. most people are religious because their parents passed it on to them

it's a lot easier to think for yourself these days; also, the less stigma there is to not believing in religion, the more people will feel free to not participate

[Warpy]

7. It's going to have to reinvent itself

because as the economy remains hostile to working people, the prosperity theology that got the butts in the pews and the tithes rolling in to mega churches is ringing hollow. The only one who ever prospered was the preacher.

In addition, the overreaching by the Catholics and Mormons are turning a lot of people off to the type of religious organization that meddles in politics to try to force its dogma onto non members.

If it is successful in reinventing itself away from these two things, religion could remain a very strong force in the life of this country. If they stay on the present track, they're going to find themselves just another lobbying organization without any grasroots support, at all.

[kwassa]

8. Religion has been re-inventing, and will re-invent for a long time.

The re-invention has happened throughout the history of this country, with endless new denominations and new spiritual practices.

The greatest influence in the last 50 years has probably been the interest in Eastern religious influences, which have brought many Christians back towards older contemplative traditions in Christianity. There is much more emphasis on personal spiritual journeys, and some very eclectic paths mixing and matching from different spiritual traditions. People are much less bound by theological definitions.

There will always be a need for worship communities, though how they will look remains to be seen.

[Odin2005]

9. Unfortunately, Religion will never disappear because of personality differences...

...between people. As long as their are people that think of the world in mentalistic terms of intention and purpose, projecting human social reality on the rest of the universe, there will be religion

[Viva_Daddy]

10. I agree with kwassa and Odin2005.

Humans have been inventing and reinventing religion (of, if you prefer, spirituality) throughout recorded history (and probably long before). This is because it speaks to what Paul Tillich called peoples' "ultimate questions/concerns" about life (Why am I here? What is the purpose of life? Is birth and death the beginning/end all of existence or is there more to it? Is this all there is? Where's the beef? etc. etc. etc.). And people will continue to invent and reinvent religion as long as this very human need continues to exist. I think that's a good thing. The last thing I would want humans to do is to stop questioning.

In spite of organized religion's propensity to want to claim that they have all the answers, most people (I believe) know that religion itself is a "never ending quest".

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. So the author defines 'spirituality' as 'justice' and 'community'

Weird. I'd have said that was liberal democracy.

Is that how DUers who call themselves spiritual define it? Being in favour of 'community spirit', and nothing to do with themselves?

[cleanhippie]

12. I think that is nothing more than believers trying to administer CPR to their religion.

Its an attempt to redefine it so as to keep it somewhat relevant. Some are succeeding better than others, but in the end, it all boils down to a belief in something supernatural. And belief in the supernatural is dying a slow, painful death.

[cbayer]

13. I don't read it that way.

The way I read is is that the growing group of "ands" are demanding more from the institutions that call themselves religious, and that some of those demands are an increase in their roles regarding justice and community.

As the article states: "...faith should and must be an experience of God that transforms one’s life for the sake of the world." I think that is where the emphasis on community comes from, not a belief in "community spirit".