Faith increasing throughout World, Part I

You often hear that churches are emptying and faith is falling on hard times.  It has been attributed to urbanization, modernism, and increased secularization/organized religion burnout.  That’s not quite a fair picture.  Gallup polling has now run an in-depth interviewing of 1000-10,000 people in almost every country of the world (exceptions like N. Korea!).  The basic finding is that the world is grasping for more, not less faith, though it sometimes takes the form of odd spirituality.  Christianity is not losing to Islam.  Atheism remains an exception.  Results of Gallup and several other surveys or looked at by Rodney Stark in The Triumph of Faith, published a year ago.

            How Gallup approached their interviews was to ask more than “are you a member?”.  They asked if the respondent belonged to an organized religious group, have they attended some part of that organization this past week, is God directly involved in things that happen, is religion an important part of their life?  Some astounding things resulted. 

Then Stark looks at results from the historic record and compares with other findings such as the Pew surveys which are simpler. 

            Europe (45% say religion is important part of my life, 31% say attended this week) the original home of Christianity’s explosion, shows that modernity is not part of the reason for less faith.  Per Capita GDP and Human Development index anti-correlates with church attendance and but correlates with prayer activity.  In other words, the wealthier parts of Europe don’t go to church as much, but pray more. Stark points out that reports of a decline in attendance in the 19^th century have been shown to be false and actual declines took place after 1960.  But replacing this is unchurched forms of religious expression.  This fits an old tradition.  When Europe went savage over religious wars from 1520-1648, people went underground in the Pietist movement.  In fact the great majority of people seldom attended in Europe.  In Medieval times only 10% attendance was considered good.  Bishops in the 1500s wrote that far more people were fishing than praying.  Moreover peasant behavior was atrocious in church.  Dogs, drunkenness, card-playing, loud talk was common during the service. Many churches had zero attendance on Sunday, so the priest could save his sermon.  Elsewhere people left after mass. This continued in the Protestant era. 
             What Gallup found stunning, was the belief among modern Europeans in Unconventional Supernatural beliefs—fortune tellers,fairies and trolls, astrology,a nd lucky charms. (30-40% Western Europe and 40-70% Eastern Europe)  So much for the modernism theory of church demise.  And these beliefs are most prevalent in countries with low church attendance like Sweden. As Will Durant observed, "Religions are born and may die, but superstition is immortal. Only the fortunate can take life without mythology."  Among urban Europeans, church attendance is higher so the idea of urban agnosticism is a falsehood.  Why the generally low attendance?  Stark says it has to do with a long history of lazy, obstructionist state churches that won’t allow competiton from other denominations, yet provide little inspiration.  States block other denominations with all sorts of restraints.  There has not been a religious revival in Europe since the Reformation.  And if you'll remember, the Thirty Years War so devastated Europe that people became cynical of Christianity everafter. USA contrasts in having numerous revivals and religious movements and competition among groups.  Another interesting fact—anti-semitism is strong (except in Sweden, Netherlands and UK) at 33% of population.  There is also a very strong correlation in fertility rate and church attendance (2.74 children from women with weekly attendance vs. 1.79, never attend).  What’s interesting about this, is that in about 4 generations, religious Christians and Muslims will outnumber those of little religiousness.  

            Muslims may never have been as religious as they are today.  90% say religion is important and 58% attend weekly.  And it thrives among the well-educated and affluent. It appears to be a reaction to modernization and urban life.  Culture in backwards areas was often more tolerant of sin and rarely spoke of jihad half a century ago.  The desire for governments aligned with Sharia (Islamic law that punishes blasphemies and those that leave the faith with death) is very  universal (70%).  So is anti-Semitism and hatred of other faiths.  This religious revival is reflected in pilgrims to Mecca (Hajj). In the 1950s Hajj was about 100,000.  In 2012 it topped 3 million.  Turkey and other Middle Eastern states seem to have experimented in Western ways and rejected them.  This can be understood as a disgust that Muslim nations are weak and therefore, the fear that Muslims have not been faithful enough to Allah.  The West is resented. A good indicator of religiousness among Muslims is the difficult belief that all go to hell upon death.  Belief in hell is from 91% to 100% across the Mideast whereas it was 50-70% in the 50s.  Asked, “When science and religion conflict, is religion always right?” has agreement above 84% in all countries except Lebanon and Turkey.  Religious intolerance is considered a virtue (compared with the 17^th century when more Christian eastern Europeans preferred living under Turks than Austrians, Italians, or Poles.).  And this is reflected in the flight of Christians and Jews from Muslim countries.  Egypt was 18% Christian in 1975 and is 5% today.  Lebanon was 67%; 37%, today.  Turkey was 0.6%; 0.2%, today. Jordan 5%; 1.7%, today.  Libya and Algeria, once home to hundreds of thousands of Jews have exactly none today. 63% of Muslims believe the Holocaust was a myth.  Veil wearing, supported by over 70%, is virtually as high among women as men.  Honor killing is endorsed by a high of 60% in Iraq and a low of 11% in Morocco (Egypt and Pakistan are in the middle at 40%).  Yet this intensification of Islam is not a regression into a pious past.  Whatever else it may be, it is “modern” Islam.

            More on faith in Asia, Africa, and the Americas in next two parts.