The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life discovers a trend that is not too surprising in the Age of Globalization:
When it comes to religion, many Americans like the mix-and-match, build-your-own approach.
Large numbers attend services of traditions other than their own and blend Christianity with Eastern and New Age beliefs, a survey finds.
The report Wednesday from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life also shows tremendous growth over the past three decades in the number of Americans who say they have had a religious or mystical experience…
One-third of Americans say they regularly or occasionally attend religious services at more than one place. One-quarter say they sometimes attend services of a faith different from their own.
“It is as much now the norm as it is the exception for Americans to blend multiple religious beliefs and practices,” said Alan Cooperman, associate director for research at the Pew Forum.
I was seeing some friends from Boston (by way of England, Germany, and France) last night who are vacationing in Israel, and I was explaining Israel’s diverse mix of various types of Jews, Arabs, and other ethnic groups. Since the three of them came from countries that are increasingly comprised of different nationalities, it not very surprising for them to hear.
Then, one of my friends mentioned another person of our mutual acquaintance who was from New Zealand. While living in Boston, she had remarked to us that she had never met a person who was not white and Christian. (I do not know if this is common there, or if it was just her.) I had wondered what she would have thought of Israel.
I thought of our friend from New Zealand while I was reading the MSNBC article quoted earlier. Until just a few decades ago, sentiments like hers — except for the “white” part — were probably still common in many parts of the United States, especially rural ones. A person could be born, live, and die without ever meeting many people — if even a single person — who professed a faith other than Christianity.
However, globalization, through immigration and the Internet, has forever changed the religious marketplace. Immigration, obviously, has brought thousands, if not millions, of people who are not Christian to the United States. When I went to visit my family in southern Illinois a year ago, I went to a Halloween event at my brother’s junior-high school. There, I saw a family of Arabs, and the mother was wearing a headscarf. This would have been unthinkable in my hometown, which was primarily a mix of white and black people — all of whom were Christians. Immigration is permeating deeper and deeper into American society, and it is natural that other religions slowly seem less “alien” as a result.
The Internet, however, has had an even-greater effect. Until the 1990s, a person outside of a large city had to go to a library to learn about other faiths. This took a certain amount of effort, and few people probably did so. Now, however, anyone can learn about Islam, Judaism, or Shintoism with just a few clicks of a mouse.
The study also brings to light the increasing individualization of American society:
D. Michael Lindsay, a Rice University sociologist of religion, said the results illustrate what he calls the “playlist effect” in contemporary American religious practice.
“The way we personalize our iPhones, we also personalize our religious lives,” he said.
That so many Christians believe in astrology and reincarnation will trouble Christian leaders already concerned about professed believers who take what they need from the faith and leave the rest.
The build-your-own-religion findings show that “culture and pop culture and the Internet are probably more powerful teachers than Sunday school teachers,” said Scott Thumma, a sociologist at the Hartford Institute of Religion Research.
In business terms, the market for competition between religions has become infinite. Decades ago, for example, Christianity held a monopoly in small-town America. But the Internet does not have geographical limits. Now, every religious idea is fighting every other religious idea. In a sense, this has positive effects. The more that people learn about other religions, the less antagonistic they might become to them. Still, there is a dark side as well.
Historically, monotheistic religions have not reacted well to competition. The ancient Hebrews killed the pagan Canaanites when they arrived from Egypt. Mohammad and his followers killed many Arabs, Christians, and Jews who would not covert to Islam. Christianity launched several Crusades over a few centuries to combat Islam’s growing presence in the Holy Land, and the two religions later fought over Spain until the late 1400s.
While such warfare, hopefully, is unthinkable today, the monotheistic religions are still reacting to the perceived competition as many individuals choose to worship in their own ways or adopt different practices altogether. A common theme is for the middle ground to disappear as one side becomes more conservative and orthodox while the other becomes more liberal and tolerant.
American Judaism, for example, has movements ranging from Orthodox on the right to Reform on the left. Both sides are gaining adherents, but the Conservative movement in the middle is dying (see here and here). The middle is split over issues like homosexuality and the role of women, and individual families are choosing to go to the left or right as they decide upon their own individual preferences and want to join a community that embraces their views wholeheartedly.
In a nutshell, the Reform movement is growing because its core theology — each Jew is free to choose which of the 613 commandments he will follow — caters to the “cafeteria-style” religion which the article describes. The Orthodox movement is growing as well because people are reacting to their fear that this modern view of religion will water-down Judaism.
I am not an expert on contemporary Christianity and Islam, so I invite any comments on whether the same phenomenon is occurring in those religions as well. I presume that increasing competition and a fear of losing “market share” is one reason for the rise in Christian and Islamic fundamentalism as well.
Still, I do not foresee any changes in the overall trend. The Internet is leading the way into a mass-segmentation and individualization of society. One of the first things I learned in business school was that a general audience no longer exists — all marketing and advertising pitches must be tailored to a specific demographic. After all, one does not buy just “toothpaste” — one can purchase toothpaste that fights cavities, freshens breath, whitens teeth, controls tartar, and so on. Whatever you want. General-interest newspapers geared towards a mass-audience are irrelevant. You can create your own daily consumption of specific media through e-mail, RSS feeds, and other tools to let read only what you want.
It is not surprising that the same is occurring in religion — for better and for worse.
Related: Fundamentalism and Modernity.
