Over the past decade, I’ve written on this subject more than any other. I included several book reviews on the subject as well as current commentaries of controversial subjects. To take a more historical approach, The Pew Research Center’s data cites Christianity as the world’s largest religion edging out Islam by about 475 million, or about 5 percentage points. Out of the 20 top religions in the world, these two account for about one half of the total. The third category is: Secular/nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist count for about 1.2 billion. The older religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, and Chinese and African Traditional Religions, not only are regional in origin but also in current practice. The Pew Center doesn’t cite historical figures of how those ratios may have changed over time.

Current commentaries have focused on the decline in the past 50 years of the mainline Protestant Denominations. Some people claim to be spiritual but not religious, which defies any type of category. This data also doesn’t consider the loosening of the prohibition against religion in the Communist Countries of Russia and China. The Russian Orthodox Church has revived under Putin, who even claims to be religious.

What’s the point of a numbers game? Regardless of what the doomsayers say, organized religion is not dead. It is just in decline in Europe and the United States. I expect the numbers in the 18th Century also would have seen a decline even though they bounced back in the 19th Century. Finding a definition for “organized religion” is even more difficult to quantify. Are we talking about the number of clergies, budget, buildings, administrators? What constitutes “membership?” Is it a list or a self-declared description?

I guess that I’m saying that those who claim that religion is declining world-wide miss the point. Church attendance may be a more accurate figure. The concept of church changed radically in the past two centuries, and it is still evolving. The passive participation via livestream during the Pandemic certainly impacted in-person attendance at Sunday worship. On the other hand, we’re seeing more small group gatherings that may offset the eventual demise of the “mega-churches.” The TV “show biz” personality cult presentations may slowly grow tiresome as the leaders die out.

The Republican cynical strategy of co-opting the evangelical movement already is getting some push-back. Playing the game of promoting the “culture wars” is getting repressive legislation, but it will fail as a long-term political strategy. Change is happening in our society, and those who stand in its way will get run over. Young people are more interested in social justice than in political posturing. They are building their own traditions of what constitutes a worship service.

For those critics who claim that religion is archaic and a vestige of the past, I would claim that religion is merely our search for God and some meaning beyond ourselves. The world of the Spirit is not a psychic phenomenon. It is a real world that exists throughout the Universe.

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