One of the most important stories on faith in the year 2008 was the release of a massive survey of American religious life completed by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Based on interviews with more than 35,000 adults, the “US Religious Landscape Survey” (http://religions.pewforum.org) confirmed that religious believers in the US sit increasingly loose to doctrine and tradition. Justifiably, the survey received considerable press attention upon its release.
A good article on this survey showed up in a December 2008 edition of Christian Century by Amy Frykholm: “In the None Zone: Religion in the Pacific Northwest.” As the title of the piece suggests, the Pacific Northwest represents the area of the country having the highest percentage of respondents indicating they do not to belong to a religious group (63%). Frykholm wonders if the Pacific Northwest provides a preview of overall American religious life in another generation or two.
Frykholm points out that the survey results do NOT indicate that increasing numbers of us are not interested in religion at all. It is simply that more and more Americans prefer religion on their own terms. “I am spiritual but not religious” seems to ring true as a motto for more and more of us. A larger percentage of us embrace spirituality that is more fluid and open to bits and pieces of beliefs, traditions and spiritual practices from a variety of established religions. The term for this trend is syncretism: the amalgamation of different religions or religious beliefs. The Bible has some rather plain-spoken and unflattering things to say about the tendency toward syncretism.
At any rate, Patricia Killen, historian and dean of Pacific Lutheran University, is quoted in Frykholm’s article expressing concern about the difficulty of passing along inherited spiritual truth and practice to future generations when we favor private spirituality over traditional and corporate religious life: "You can't be a grown-up in any tradition until you can endure frustration, negotiate conflict and get to the other side of disillusionment with the capacity to hope. We don't know yet whether the new syncretism will slow down or accelerate this maturation process." (See also Psalm 78)
What does this mean for established religion? Frykholm writes that “the biggest challenge for mainline churches is dealing with the tentative nature of people's commitments.” However, I wonder if these findings suggest a golden opportunity for churches committed to robust Christian living, the faith handed down from the apostles, and the Great Commission.
Lately I have been rereading Rodney Stark’s (www.RodneyStark.com) book, The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries (HarperOne, 1997). According to Stark, among those most open to the gospel during the time of the early church were those with the least defined and deeply-held religious commitments. My suspicion is that future surveys of the fastest growing churches in the US will be found precisely in places like the Pacific Northwest where most people claim not to be interested in corporate expressions of historic faith. We’ll see.