The Triumph of Faith
Why the World is More Religious Than Ever
Wilmington, Delaware
1
A GLOBAL PORTRAIT OF FAITH
We live in a very religious world. Surveys of more than a million people living in 163 nations show that:
• |
81 percent claim to belong to an organized religious faith, and many of the rest report attending worship services or taking part in other religious activities. |
• |
74 percent say that religion is an important part of their daily lives. |
• |
50 percent report that they have attended a place of worship or religious service in the past seven days. |
• |
56 percent believe that “God is directly involved in things that happen in the world.” |
• |
In very few nations do as many as 5 percent claim to be atheists, and only in Vietnam, China, and South Korea do atheists exceed 20 percent. |
These statistics alone are enough to upend the common narrative that faith is on the wane. But the data go far deeper than that, and they allow us to examine religion around the world from many different angles. These statistics, previously unavailable, paint a fascinating portrait of worldwide faith. The deeper one digs into the data, the clearer it becomes: the popular notion of an increasingly secularizing world is not merely wrong but actually the opposite of what has been taking place.
COUNTING WORLD RELIGIONS
Until now, worldwide religious statistics have been based on substantial guesswork.1 Many nations do not have reliable counts of their religious makeup, and therefore all previously available statistics on worldwide religious affiliation have been rough estimates, which accounts for the huge differences among them. Thus, the CIA World Factbook reports that there are 2.1 billion Christians on earth, whereas the World Christian Database places the Christian total at 3.2 billion.
Far more reliable statistics on religious affiliation now can be calculated based on data from the Gallup Organization’s remarkable World Poll. In 2005 Gallup began conducting annual national surveys in 119 nations; now 163 nations are included, making up about 97 percent of the world’s population. In each nation, a sample of 1,000 respondents or larger is drawn, and weights are assigned so the data properly reflect the population in terms of gender, age, education, household size, and socioeconomic status. The statistics reported in this chapter are based on merging the samples for all years, which yields very large numbers of cases, thus greatly increasing the accuracy of results—the average number of cases for all 163 nations now equals 7,567.
There are, however, several unavoidable shortcomings even to these statistics. In many nations, respondents were given the choice of affirming that they were Roman Catholics, Protestants, or Orthodox Christians. But in other nations it was necessary to settle for “Christian,” without further specification. Hence, to create worldwide statistics, even those who reported being Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox must be placed in the undifferentiated category “Christian.” The same applies to Muslim respondents. For many nations there is no breakdown for Sunnis and Shi‘a, and hence everyone is simply identified as a “Muslim.”
A second deficiency is that even though by now there are about a million respondents to the World Polls, there still are too few cases to allow reliable statistics to be computed for some smaller religions, including Shinto, Zoroastrianism, Taoism, and Confucianism. This made it necessary to combine these, and all other small religions, into a hodgepodge category called “Other.” (Jews could be treated separately because they are so highly concentrated in Israel and the United States that an accurate estimate is possible.) In the next several years, as the size of the world sample increases, it will be possible to break down the “Other” category.
In addition, some people said that they had no religion, or that they were secular, or atheists, or agnostics. All these respondents were collapsed into the category “Secular.” This category is quite falsely inflated, however: millions of these “secular” people said they had attended religious services in the past week!
A final difficulty arises because the Chinese government does not allow Gallup, or any other foreign polling agency, to ask questions about religious membership. Consequently, the statistics for China are based on a national sample of 7,021 respondents interviewed in their homes in 2007 by Horizon Ltd., China’s largest and most respected polling firm. The data were purchased from Horizon by the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor (where I serve as codirector) with a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.
As we will see in chapter 7, the Chinese data needed to be corrected because of a severe bias introduced by the greater unwillingness of Chinese Christians to take part in a survey and an additional tendency for those who did take part to deny that they were Christians. Even with this correction, adding the Chinese data results in a serious distortion because 75 percent of Chinese claimed to have no religion and must, therefore, be placed in the “Secular” category. But the fact is that most of them frequently visit temples where they pray to various statues of gods and offer them gifts of food, and 72 percent of those who said they had no religion said they had engaged in ancestor worship during the past year. This muddle stems from the fact that the Chinese have a rather narrow definition of religion—that it only involves participation in an organized religious body. Keep in mind that adding the Chinese doubled the size of the “Secular” category.
NOMINAL MEMBERS
Table 1–1 shows the membership of the major religions. Clearly, the CIA estimate is very close, and the Christian Database estimate is far too high. Around the world, a total of 2.2 billion people (33 percent) give their religion as Christian, far outnumbering Muslims, who total 1.5 billion (22 percent). Hindus are the third-largest religious group, with 1 billion affiliates (16 percent), followed by Buddhists with 500 million (8 percent). Jews make up only 13 million (less than 0.2 percent), and the Other faiths number 127 million (2 percent). Secularists make up 1.3 billion (19 percent).
Table 1–1: Worldwide Nominal Religious Affiliations
Number |
Percentage | |
Christians |
2,243,570,000 |
33 |
Muslims |
1,480,575,000 |
22 |
Hindus |
1,046,389,000 |
16 |
Buddhists |
507,132,000 |
8 |
Jews |
13,106,000 |
0.2 |
Others |
127,351,000 |
2 |
Secular |
1,278,657,000 |
19 |
Total |
6,696,780,000 |
100.2* |
* Total percentage more than 100 due to rounding error
Of course, some who claim a religious label are inactive. For example, some European “Christians” have never been inside a church and many others have only been there once, when they were baptized as infants, and some who say they are Muslims never visit a mosque. As will be seen, inactivity does not necessarily equate with irreligiousness. Still, it is quite enlightening to examine the worldwide distribution of just active members of the various faiths—reported here for the first time. As we will explore in this book, active membership provides a more meaningful view of world religions than that based on nominal members.
ACTIVE MEMBERS
The only available measure of active membership is stringent—“Have you attended a place of worship or religious service within the past 7 days?” Table 1–2 is limited to those who attended in the past week. Comparable data on attendance are not available for China, so the table eliminates Chinese Christians; this has only a minor effect on Christians but greatly reduces the number of Buddhists.
Table 1–2: Worldwide Active Religious Affiliations (China excluded)
Number |
Percentage | |
Christians |
1,166,751,000 |
39 |
Muslims |
941,394,000 |
31 |
Hindus |
686,351,000 |
23 |
Buddhists |
143,042,000 |
5 |
Jews |
3,153,000 |
<0.1 |
Others |
63,799,000 |
2 |
Secular |
29,188,000 |
1 |
Total |
3,033,678,000 |
101* |
* Total percentage more than 100 due to rounding error
Contrary to stereotypes of Muslims as ardent worshippers, their numbers have been reduced almost as greatly as those for Christians when the data are limited to weekly attenders. The table also reveals that more than 29 million of those classified as Secular have attended a religious service in the past seven days!
Overall, nothing much changes when only active members are examined: Christianity is still by far the largest religion (39 percent), followed by Islam (31 percent).
But as we will see, to gain a full understanding of religion in the world today, we must examine active membership even more closely than nominal membership.
REGIONALISM
Christianity is not only the largest religion in the world; it also is the least regionalized, as can be seen in Table 1–3. There are only trivial numbers of Muslims in the Western Hemisphere and in East Asia, but there is no region without significant numbers of Christians. Even in the Arab region of the Middle East and North Africa, Christians account for 2 percent of the population—although this is probably only half as many as lived there a decade ago.2
Table 1–3: Nominal Religious Affiliations by Regions
Christians |
Muslims |
Hindus |
Buddhists |
Jews |
Other |
Secular | |
North America |
81% |
* |
* |
* |
2% |
6% |
10% |
Latin America |
93% |
* |
* |
* |
* |
2% |
4% |
Europe |
82% |
5% |
* |
* |
* |
1% |
12% |
Middle East and North Africa |
2% |
96% |
* |
* |
1% |
* |
* |
Sub-Saharan Africa |
66% |
30% |
* |
* |
* |
3% |
1% |
South Central Asia |
9% |
31% |
57% |
2% |
* |
2% |
1% |
Southeast Asia |
21% |
40% |
1% |
30% |
* |
2% |
6% |
East Asia |
6% |
* |
* |
20% |
* |
2% |
72% |
Oceania |
71% |
2% |
1% |
1% |
* |
2% |
21% |
* Less than 0.5 percent
CHRISTIAN REGIONALISM
A more interesting way to examine Christian regionalism can be seen in Table 1–4, which underscores how widely distributed Christianity is, and shows how the picture changes when active membership is considered.
Christians are concentrated in Latin America (23 percent), Sub-Saharan Africa (23 percent), and Europe (22 percent). But when the statistics are based on weekly church attenders, Europe (16 percent) falls to a distant third and Sub-Saharan Africa rises to the top (33 percent), with Latin America second (25 percent). Despite the prominence of African bishops in the squabbles going on within the Anglican Communion, few know how highly Christianized is Africa, south of the Sahara. This is further disguised by the common tendency to treat Africa as a whole rather than to divide it into the overwhelmingly Arab North and the black South. When treated as a united continent, Africa has a Muslim majority. But that is very misleading, since Christians make up 66 percent of Sub-Saharan Africans, compared with 30 percent who are Muslims. We shall examine Sub-Saharan Christianity at length in chapter 5.
Table 1–4: The Regional Distribution of Christians
Nominal |
Active | |
North America |
13% |
12% |
Latin America |
25% |
25% |
Europe |
23% |
16% |
Middle East and North Africa |
* |
* |
Sub-Saharan Africa |
24% |
33% |
South Central Asia |
7% |
4% |
Southeast Asia |
6% |
7% |
East Asia |
1% |
2% |
Oceania |
1% |
* |
Total |
100% |
99%** |
* Less than 0.5 percent
** Total percentage less than 100 due to rounding error
ISLAMIC REGIONALISM
Muslims are bitterly opposed to Christian growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, and where Muslim and Christian areas abut, as in Nigeria, anti-Christian terrorism is rife. Thus, it may be fortunate that Muslims are more geographically concentrated than are Christians, as Table 1–5 shows.
Interestingly enough, the Arab nations of the Middle East and North Africa do not sustain the largest share of the Muslim population. More than a third of the world’s Muslims live in the nations of South Central Asia, among them Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India (more than 150 million Muslims live in India). The substantial proportion of Muslims living in Southeast Asia mainly reflects that Indonesia is the largest Islamic nation in the world. There are trivial numbers of Muslims in the Western Hemisphere, and not many in Europe, despite the conflicts that have arisen there from recent Muslim immigration.
Table 1–5: The Regional Distribution of Muslims
Nominal |
Active | |
North America |
* |
* |
Latin America |
* |
* |
Europe |
2% |
1% |
Middle East and North Africa |
28% |
24% |
Sub-Saharan Africa |
16% |
19% |
South Central Asia |
38% |
36% |
Southeast Asia |
16% |
20% |
East Asia |
* |
* |
Oceania |
* |
* |
Total |
100% |
100% |
* Less than 0.5 percent
GROWTH
Beginning in the late twentieth century, many experts predicted that Islam would soon pass Christianity to become the largest religious group in the world.3 These projections were based on the fact that Muslims had much higher fertility rates than did Christians, and this was not expected to change. But then Muslim fertility began to decline rapidly. It already is well below replacement levels in Iran, Syria, and Jordan, and the fertility rate for the world’s Muslim population in general is expected to fall to replacement level or below within the next several years.4 Yet “this sea change remains curiously unrecognized,” as the scholars Nicholas Eberstadt and Apoorva Shah point out in their important analysis of the Muslim world’s fertility decline.5 As recently as April 2015, the Pew Research Center declared that Muslims will soon overtake Christians by way of superior fertility.6 They won’t.
Moreover, Islam generates very little growth through conversions, while Christianity enjoys a substantial conversion rate, especially in nations located in what my colleague Philip Jenkins describes as the “global south”—Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America.7 And these conversions do not include the millions of converts being gained in China. Thus, current growth trends project an increasingly Christian world.
RELIGIOUSNESS
Thus far, the Gallup World Poll has asked only three questions about religiousness in addition to one’s denominational preference. One question, as noted, asks about religious attendance in the past seven days; the second asks, “Is religion an important part of your daily life?”; and the third asks, “Do you believe God is directly involved in things that happen in the world, or not?”
I would much prefer that Gallup had asked the standard religious attendance item, which offers six answer categories ranging from “more than once a week” to “never.” When we compare Gallup’s results with standard survey results in nations where both are available, it becomes clear that the Gallup respondents didn’t stick to the seven-day limit. Instead, it appears that respondents sensibly interpreted the “past seven days” question to really be asking whether they were regular attenders; they said yes if they did go regularly, even if they hadn’t actually attended that particular week. Of course, this is merely a matter of how best to interpret these responses and does not in any way reduce the accuracy of nation-to-nation comparisons. Indeed, because the Gallup data are based on such large numbers of cases, they are more reliable than other international attendance figures, such as those reported by the World Values Surveys or the International Social Survey Program, because they are subject to far less random variation.
Table 1–6 (beginning on the next page) shows worldwide response to the questions on attendance and on the importance placed on religion in one’s daily life.
Despite constant references to the high levels of religiousness in the United States, that is true only by comparison with most European nations and the five nations classified as “Other.” Church attendance is far higher in many Latin American nations than in the United States, and much higher in most Muslim and Sub-Saharan nations.
Few will be surprised at the very high levels of religiousness in the Islamic nations. But many will find it surprising that people in Sub-Saharan Africa, most of them Christians, attend worship services even more often than do Muslims, and are equally likely to say that religion is important in their daily lives. Most Latin American nations also have high rates of church attendance, the only marked exceptions being Uruguay, which is, in many ways, more of a European than a Latin American nation in that most of its population is of direct European descent, and Cuba, where religion has long been persecuted, and where the Communist state was officially atheistic until 1992 and remains officially secular today. Within Islam, the “stans” are noticeably less religious (with the exception of Pakistan). This is probably due to the fact that in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, the majority of the population consists of formerly nomadic, Turkic peoples.
Although it is certainly no surprise, perhaps the major feature of Table 1–6 is the low level of religiousness in Europe, especially in western Europe. Religiousness is especially low in Scandinavian nations, where Lutheran state churches prevail. Notice, too, a clear Catholic effect in western Europe. Roman Catholics make up 70 percent or more of the populations of Austria, Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Portugal, and Spain. With the exception of France, these nations display substantially higher levels of religiousness than do the other western European nations. Chapter 2 will be devoted to exploring religion in Europe.
Table 1–6: Worldwide Religiousness
Percentage Who Attended in Past Week |
Percentage Who Say Religion Important in My Daily Life | |
United States |
46 |
66 |
Western Europe |
||
Austria |
35 |
51 |
Belgium |
23 |
37 |
Cyprus |
48 |
75 |
Denmark |
16 |
18 |
Finland |
13 |
29 |
France |
19 |
27 |
Germany |
30 |
40 |
Great Britain |
20 |
29 |
Greece |
33 |
72 |
Ireland |
56 |
54 |
Italy |
48 |
70 |
Luxembourg |
27 |
35 |
Malta |
75 |
88 |
Netherlands |
23 |
32 |
Norway |
15 |
23 |
Portugal |
39 |
67 |
Spain |
31 |
44 |
Sweden |
13 |
16 |
Switzerland |
28 |
41 |
Average |
31 |
45 |
Eastern Europe |
||
Albania |
22 |
42 |
Armenia |
32 |
72 |
Belarus |
18 |
37 |
Bosnia-Herzegovina |
43 |
72 |
Bulgaria |
16 |
41 |
Croatia |
35 |
66 |
Czech Republic |
14 |
25 |
Estonia |
11 |
18 |
Georgia |
28 |
81 |
Hungary |
20 |
39 |
Latvia |
17 |
36 |
Lithuania |
24 |
43 |
Macedonia |
45 |
79 |
Montenegro |
29 |
62 |
Poland |
64 |
73 |
Romania |
35 |
83 |
Serbia |
27 |
55 |
Slovakia |
44 |
50 |
Slovenia |
35 |
43 |
Ukraine |
24 |
47 |
Average |
29 |
53 |
Latin America |
||
Argentina |
29 |
63 |
Belize |
62 |
65 |
Bolivia |
57 |
88 |
Brazil |
49 |
89 |
Chile |
33 |
69 |
Colombia |
63 |
86 |
Costa Rica |
59 |
84 |
Cuba |
20 |
35 |
Dominican Republic |
51 |
88 |
Ecuador |
59 |
84 |
El Salvador |
65 |
88 |
Guatemala |
70 |
89 |
Guyana |
56 |
89 |
Haiti |
75 |
83 |
Honduras |
64 |
86 |
Jamaica |
37 |
79 |
Mexico |
58 |
66 |
Nicaragua |
59 |
85 |
Panama |
52 |
84 |
Paraguay |
57 |
92 |
Peru |
52 |
84 |
Puerto Rico |
48 |
86 |
Trinidad & Tobago |
48 |
87 |
Uruguay |
16 |
40 |
Venezuela |
41 |
78 |
Average |
51 |
79 |
Islamic Nations* |
* Nations in which the population is more than 50 percent Muslim |
|
Afghanistan |
70 |
97 |
Algeria |
59 |
93 |
Azerbaijan |
22 |
50 |
Bahrain |
71 |
97 |
Bangladesh |
82 |
99 |
Burkina Faso |
72 |
92 |
Chad |
82 |
93 |
Comoros |
68 |
98 |
Djibouti |
84 |
97 |
Egypt |
63 |
95 |
Guinea |
76 |
97 |
Indonesia |
80 |
99 |
Iran |
47 |
83 |
Iraq |
51 |
86 |
Jordan |
46 |
95 |
Kazakhstan |
22 |
51 |
Kosovo |
33 |
83 |
Kuwait |
81 |
93 |
Kyrgyzstan |
20 |
69 |
Lebanon |
48 |
88 |
Libya |
69 |
85 |
Malaysia |
67 |
92 |
Mali |
63 |
95 |
Mauritania |
55 |
98 |
Morocco |
55 |
95 |
Niger |
74 |
98 |
Pakistan |
56 |
96 |
Palestinian Terr. |
52 |
93 |
Qatar |
75 |
96 |
Saudi Arabia |
70 |
97 |
Senegal |
66 |
97 |
Sierra Leone |
88 |
97 |
Somalia |
89 |
99 |
Sudan |
67 |
95 |
Syria |
59 |
87 |
Tajikistan |
27 |
84 |
Tunisia |
36 |
95 |
Turkey |
49 |
85 |
Turkmenistan |
21 |
82 |
United Arab Emirates |
72 |
95 |
Uzbekistan |
14 |
62 |
Yemen |
54 |
97 |
Average |
58 |
90 |
Sub-Saharan Africa |
||
Angola |
72 |
89 |
Benin |
64 |
87 |
Botswana |
49 |
82 |
Burundi |
88 |
95 |
Cameroon |
69 |
95 |
Central African Republic |
75 |
98 |
Congo (Kinshasa) |
73 |
96 |
Congo Brazzaville |
76 |
91 |
Ghana |
78 |
94 |
Ivory Coast |
67 |
88 |
Kenya |
74 |
94 |
Liberia |
82 |
93 |
Madagascar |
60 |
91 |
Malawi |
73 |
98 |
Mozambique |
65 |
88 |
Nambia |
62 |
92 |
Nigeria |
90 |
97 |
Rwanda |
76 |
93 |
South Africa |
58 |
85 |
Swaziland |
— |
94 |
Tanzania |
76 |
95 |
Togo |
65 |
87 |
Uganda |
75 |
94 |
Zambia |
75 |
95 |
Zimbabwe |
61 |
86 |
Average |
71 |
92 |
Asia |
||
Cambodia |
41 |
93 |
Hong Kong |
19 |
25 |
India |
67 |
85 |
Japan |
29 |
26 |
Laos |
55 |
98 |
Mongolia |
11 |
46 |
Myanmar (Burma) |
65 |
97 |
Nepal |
46 |
94 |
Philippines |
65 |
95 |
Singapore |
44 |
59 |
South Korea |
35 |
43 |
Sri Lanka |
75 |
99 |
Taiwan |
24 |
48 |
Thailand |
69 |
97 |
Vietnam |
21 |
35 |
Average |
44 |
69 |
Other |
||
Australia |
21 |
32 |
Canada |
27 |
43 |
Iceland |
20 |
37 |
Israel |
35 |
48 |
New Zealand |
26 |
33 |
Average |
26 |
37 |
AN ACTIVE GOD
The Gallup poll’s item about God is subject to some ambiguity. Although it does not ask whether God is involved in all things that happen in the world, I suspect that many respondents understood it that way and therefore as a statement of belief in fatalism—that God makes our history. If the item was meant to ask whether God ever is involved in things that happen in this world—and thus to gauge belief in the possibility of miracles—it should have been worded that way. Even so, belief runs relatively high, even in many western European nations. Moreover, orthodox Muslims accept the idea that God is very active in this world—the traditional Muslim objection to science is that scientific “laws” presume to limit Allah’s power.
In any event, Gallup asked the question in 105 nations, and the results are shown in Table 1–7.
Keep in mind that to respond no to this question is not necessarily to reject the idea of an active God. Were that the case, there ought to be a lot of atheists around the world.
Table 1–7: “Do you believe God is directly involved in things that happen in the world, or not?”
Percentage Who Say Yes | |
United States |
|
Western Europe |
|
Austria |
29 |
Cyprus |
56 |
Denmark |
17 |
France |
12 |
Germany |
34 |
Great Britain |
35 |
Greece |
49 |
Ireland |
54 |
Italy |
43 |
Portugal |
58 |
Spain |
19 |
Sweden |
14 |
Switzerland |
28 |
Average |
35 |
Eastern Europe |
|
Albania |
38 |
Armenia |
78 |
Belarus |
48 |
Bosnia-Herzegovina |
45 |
Bulgaria |
36 |
Croatia |
41 |
Czech Republic |
18 |
Estonia |
27 |
Georgia |
66 |
Latvia |
40 |
Lithuania |
41 |
Macedonia |
62 |
Montenegro |
41 |
Poland |
54 |
Romania |
64 |
Russia |
41 |
Serbia |
28 |
Slovenia |
26 |
Ukraine |
51 |
Average |
45 |
Latin America |
|
Argentina |
31 |
Bolivia |
46 |
Brazil |
61 |
Chile |
39 |
Colombia |
39 |
Costa Rica |
48 |
Dominican Republic |
45 |
Ecuador |
40 |
El Salvador |
67 |
Guatemala |
42 |
Honduras |
44 |
Mexico |
32 |
Nicaragua |
47 |
Panama |
47 |
Paraguay |
46 |
Peru |
42 |
Uruguay |
37 |
Venezuela |
33 |
Average |
44 |
Islamic Nations* |
* Nations in which the population is more than 50 percent Muslim |
Afghanistan |
94 |
Algeria |
79 |
Azerbaijan |
86 |
Bangladesh |
95 |
Chad |
36 |
Djibouti |
66 |
Indonesia |
96 |
Iraq |
87 |
Kazakhstan |
52 |
Kosovo |
69 |
Kyrgyzstan |
73 |
Lebanon |
76 |
Malaysia |
84 |
Mali |
54 |
Mauritania |
75 |
Niger |
82 |
Pakistan |
71 |
Palestinian Terr. |
90 |
Qatar |
91 |
Senegal |
61 |
Somalia |
98 |
Sudan |
90 |
Syria |
78 |
Tajikistan |
92 |
Tunisia |
94 |
Turkey |
73 |
Uzbekistan |
83 |
Average |
79 |
Sub-Saharan Africa |
|
Burundi |
90 |
Cameroon |
54 |
Congo (Kinshasa) |
63 |
Ghana |
78 |
Ivory Coast |
56 |
Kenya |
85 |
Malawi |
90 |
Nigeria |
74 |
Rwanda |
89 |
South Africa |
76 |
Tanzania |
89 |
Uganda |
79 |
Zambia |
59 |
Zimbabwe |
86 |
Average |
76 |
Asia |
|
Cambodia |
46 |
Hong Kong |
30 |
India |
65 |
Japan |
14 |
Nepal |
77 |
Philippines |
82 |
Singapore |
64 |
South Korea |
32 |
Sri Lanka |
38 |
Thailand |
67 |
Vietnam |
17 |
Average |
48 |
Other |
|
Canada |
47 |
Israel |
71 |
ATHEISM
If one were to believe many popular writers, one would conclude that a rising tide of atheism is sweeping over the “modern” nations, as the long-predicted secularization finally comes to pass. Several years ago the sociologist Phil Zuckerman won a prize for his book Society without God, in which he reports how happy the Swedes and the Danes are even though they don’t worship any gods. Zuckerman based his book on interviews with 150 Danes and Swedes. He might better have consulted the World Values Surveys, which are based on large, properly drawn samples and are the basis for Table 1–8, shown on the next page. Had he done so, he would have discovered that in “godless” Denmark, only 5 percent say they are atheists. In “godless” Sweden, only 16.8 percent claim to be atheists.
In most of the world, atheists make up only tiny percentages of the population. In only eleven nations do atheists account for more than 10 percent of the population, and in no nation do they exceed 30 percent. Meanwhile, atheists are extremely scarce in the Islamic nations, in Sub-Saharan Africa, and in Latin America. Even in the United States, which has made massive bestsellers of books by “New Atheists” like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens, only 4.4 percent of the population identifies as atheist.
The only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from Table 1–8 is that the vast majority of people all around the world believe in God.
Table 1–8: Percentage Who Say They Are Atheists
United States |
4.4 |
Latin America |
|
Argentina |
2.3 |
Brazil |
1.2 |
Chile |
4.2 |
Colombia |
1.1 |
Ecuador |
1.1 |
Guatemala |
0.8 |
Mexico |
2.4 |
Peru |
1.8 |
Trinidad |
0.3 |
Uruguay |
11.3 |
Venezuela |
1.2 |
Average |
2.5 |
Western Europe |
|
Austria |
1.8 |
Belgium |
7.2 |
Cyprus |
1.2 |
Finland |
3.1 |
France |
17.1 |
Germany |
9.6 |
Great Britain |
9.4 |
Greece |
4.6 |
Iceland |
3.5 |
Ireland |
1.7 |
Italy |
2.7 |
Netherlands |
10.3 |
Norway |
6.8 |
Portugal |
3.0 |
Spain |
7.4 |
Sweden |
16.8 |
Switzerland |
7.9 |
Average |
6.7 |
Eastern Europe |
|
Albania |
5.5 |
Armenia |
1.4 |
Belarus |
5.1 |
Bulgaria |
5.3 |
Croatia |
3.1 |
Czech Republic |
8.3 |
Estonia |
7.4 |
Georgia |
0.3 |
Hungary |
5.5 |
Latvia |
2.8 |
Lithuania |
1.5 |
Moldova |
1.0 |
Poland |
4.7 |
Romania |
1.1 |
Russia |
7.0 |
Serbia |
4.0 |
Slovenia |
13.4 |
Ukraine |
4.8 |
Average |
4.6 |
Islamic Nations* |
* Nations in which the population is more than 50 percent Muslim |
Algeria |
0.7 |
Azerbaijan |
0.1 |
Bangladesh |
0.0 |
Burkina Faso |
1.6 |
Egypt |
0.0 |
Indonesia |
0.3 |
Iran |
1.5 |
Iraq |
0.3 |
Jordan |
0.1 |
Kazakhstan |
6.7 |
Kuwait |
4.9 |
Kyrgyzstan |
2.0 |
Lebanon |
3.3 |
Libya |
0.6 |
Malaysia |
0.8 |
Mali |
0.4 |
Morocco |
0.0 |
Pakistan |
0.0 |
Palestinian Terr. |
1.2 |
Qatar |
1.0 |
Saudi Arabia |
0.0 |
Tunisia |
0.7 |
Turkey |
0.8 |
Uzbekistan |
0.3 |
Yemen |
0.0 |
Average |
1.1 |
Sub-Saharan Africa |
|
Ethiopia |
0.4 |
Ghana |
0.3 |
Nigeria |
0.2 |
Rwanda |
0.7 |
South Africa |
1.2 |
Zambia |
0.5 |
Zimbabwe |
1.3 |
Average |
0.7 |
Asia |
|
China |
27.0 |
Hong Kong |
5.48 |
India |
2.5 |
Japan |
11.3 |
Nepal |
7.7 |
Philippines |
0.0 |
Singapore |
0.0 |
South Korea |
29.5 |
Taiwan |
17.2 |
Thailand |
0.2 |
Vietnam |
23.6 |
Average |
11.3 |
Other |
|
Australia |
16.3 |
Canada |
6.6 |
Iceland |
3.5 |
New Zealand |
7.0 |
Average |
8.4 |
A GREAT AWAKENING
Too bad that the World Polls and the World Values Surveys were not conducted in 1950. What they would show is that the world today is far more religious than it was back then. In 1950 there were about five million Christians in China. Today there are about 100 million, and millions more are converted every year. In 1950 mass attendance in Latin America was low, probably not higher than 20 percent a week anywhere. Today it is more than 50 percent in many Latin nations. Even in Islam, mosque attendance was far lower in the 1950s, and many Muslim laws were far less carefully observed.
In short, a great religious awakening has taken place around the world. Why and how this has occurred is the fascinating story to be told in the next nine chapters.
2
EUROPE: THE GRAND ILLUSIONS
In the same interview during which he recanted his support for the secularization theory, Peter Berger noted that the world is very religious but made an additional point: “The one exception to this is Western Europe. One of the most interesting questions in the sociology of religion today is not, How do you explain fundamentalism in Iran? but, Why is Western Europe different?”1
This chapter answers Berger’s question. In doing so, it challenges a number of the most sacred illusions of the secularization faithful.
WELCOME TO THE FUTURE?
The most frequent explanation offered for lower levels of religiousness in Europe is the so-called secularization thesis: that modernity is incompatible with religion. Therefore, because the process of modernization is further ahead in Europe than in the rest of the world, European religious institutions are fading away. As the historian of religion Jeffrey Cox has put it, “Despite the efforts of doubters, sceptics and adversaries, the most influential general account of religion in modern Europe, and in the modern world, remains the theory of secularization.”2 This theory offers a clear and parsimonious explanation of Europe’s supposed lack of religion. Moreover, it lends itself to a rather elegant statistical “proof.”
The political scientists Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart have provided the best example of the statistical proof that modernization causes secularization.3 In their 2004 book Sacred and Secular: Politics and Religion Worldwide, they assembled data on church attendance and prayer from recent World Values Surveys and correlated these measures of religiousness with standard measures of modernization, including Gross Domestic Product per capita and the Human Development Index created by the United Nations. The latter combines average life expectancy, mean years of schooling, and average income. Looking at about seventy nations, Norris and Inglehart found strong negative correlations between these measures of modernization and both average church attendance and frequency of prayer. Thus they “proved” that modernization causes secularization.
There is much less here than has been assumed, however. All that Norris and Inglehart demonstrated was what we knew all along, that Europe is the most modernized continent (aside from North America) and the least religious. But is this really a causal relationship?
The best way to find out is not to compare European nations with countries in less modernized parts of the world but to compare European nations with one another. European nations differ substantially in their degree of modernization as well as in their religiousness. Are the differences correlated?
I have used the same two measures of religiousness that Norris and Inglehart used; indeed, the data on prayer come from the same sources they used. The results are shown in Table 2–1.
What the data show is that within Europe, modernization is not correlated with religiousness at all. For a correlation to be statistically significant, the odds must be at least twenty to one that it is not merely a random result. In this case, all four correlations fall short—far short—of statistical significance. In fact, the small correlations relating to prayer go in the wrong direction: they actually suggest a positive (albeit statistically insignificant) correlation between frequent prayer and modernization.
Table 2–1: Correlations between Modernization and Religiousness in Europe
Church Attendance* |
Frequency of Prayer** | |
GDP per Capita |
–0.093 |
0.168 |
Human Development Index |
–0.094 |
0.202 |
* The church-attendance correlation is based on surveys in thirty-six countries.
** The frequency-of-prayer correlation is based on surveys in twenty-two countries.
There are many things about Europe that may cause its relatively low levels of religiousness, but modernization is not one of them. We must look elsewhere for an explanation. In fact, we must ask whether religiousness in Europe really is as low as is commonly understood.
HISTORY RECONSIDERED
For several generations, most historians embraced the secularization thesis, and by now there is a long shelf of books demonstrating (and often celebrating) the decline of religion in Christian Europe. Recently, however, a consensus has developed among historians that the secularization thesis is untenable.4 Oxford’s David Nash subtitled a 2004 article “Secularization’s Failure as a Master Narrative.”
Why has it failed? First, because many statistical studies showing a decline in religious practice beginning in the nineteenth century were incorrect; no significant decline set in until the 1960s, long after modernization was well established.5 Second, because the definition of religion used to support the secularization thesis was too narrowly “churchly” and failed to consider popular and unchurched forms of religious expression, counting them instead as irreligion.6 Margaret Loane made this point forcefully more than a century ago in her brilliant observations of working-class families:
To count up the churchgoers and chapel-goers, compare the resulting number with the population, and then, if there should be a great disparity, argue that the neighborhood is without religion; or to estimate the proportion of children and young persons in places of worship and then say, “religion has no hold on them …” is a most serious error. It is a confusion of formal outward signs and inward spiritual graces. Many of the poor rarely attend church, not because they are irreligious, but because they have long since received and absorbed the truths by which they live.7
As Loane noted, even in the nineteenth century English churchmen and scholars were explaining a lack of church attendance as a result of a general decline in religiousness—soon to be identified as the secularization thesis. This explanation appealed especially to the churchmen because it got them off the hook—if modernization was the cause, then they were not at fault. Thus, for nearly all of the twentieth century the thesis prevailed that a decline in church attendance proved that secularization was occurring—even if nonchurchly forms of spirituality saw no decline or even increased. As the British scholar Sarah Williams noted:
The simplistic identification of religion with institutional church practice [continued]… in much of the work done in the 1960s and 1970s.… Today few historians would commit the “serious error” of confusing “inward spiritual graces” with “formal outward signs” in an unqualified manner. Most would nod in assent at Loane’s emphasis and agree that the sum total of church- and chapel-goers is an inadequate gauge of religious fervour and even point to the importance of popular religion in the daily lives of working-class people.8
Thus far, this remarkable dismissal of the secularization thesis has been limited mainly to British historians who specialize in religion over the past several centuries. But the points they raise are equally valid when applied to medieval European religious history. For it is the presumed universal piety of this era, when the grand cathedrals were built and all the great masters pursued religious subjects and themes, that serves as the benchmark against which the European “decline” into secularism is calculated. This is another grand illusion.
THE MYTH OF MEDIEVAL PIETY
It has long been assumed that during the “Dark Ages” everyone flocked to church.9 But, of course, there were no Dark Ages—that was actually an era of remarkable progress and innovation—and informed historians now know that few attended church during medieval times.10 Consider this fact alone: through most of this era, when more than 90 percent of Europe’s population lived in rural areas, churches were to be found only in towns and cities; therefore hardly anyone could have attended church. Moreover, even after most Europeans had access to a church, whether Catholic or Protestant, most people still didn’t attend, and when forced to do so, they often misbehaved.
There are few statistics on medieval religious life but a surprising number of trustworthy reports from many times and places. These reports are in amazing agreement that the great majority of ordinary people seldom if ever went to church. As the political philosopher Michael Walzer put it, “Medieval society was largely composed of non-participants [in the churches].”11
The historian Alexander Murray’s assessment of medieval Italian religious life is confirmed again and again: “Substantial sections of thirteenth-century society hardly attended church at all.”12 The Dominican prior Humbert of Romans (1200–1277) admitted that people in Italy “rarely go to church.”13 When the Blessed Giordano of Rivalto (1260–1311) arrived in Florence to preach, he suggested to a local woman that she take her daughter to church at least on feast days, only to be informed: “It is not the custom.”14 In about 1430 Saint Antonio noted that Tuscan peasants seldom attended Mass and that “very many of them do not confess once a year, and far fewer are those who take communion.”15 Saint Bernardino of Siena (1380–1444) reported that the few parishioners who came to Mass usually were late and hastened out at the elevation of the Host, “as though they had seen not Christ, but the Devil.”16
Meanwhile, in England the anonymous authors of Dives and Pauper (ca. 1410) complained that “the people these days … are loath to hear God’s Service. [And when they are forced to attend] they come late and leave early.”17 The English cleric Edward Topsell (1572–1625) reported that “not one young person in a thousand enjoyed prayer or preaching.”18 According to the Cambridge historian G. G. Coulton, medieval church attendance was “still more irregular in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland than in England.”19
Extraordinary reports on the lack of popular religious participation are available for Lutheran Germany because higher church officials regularly visited local communities beginning in 1525. The distinguished American historian Gerald Strauss extracted these reports, noting, “I have selected only such instances as could be multiplied a hundredfold.”20
In Saxony (1574): “You’ll find more of them out fishing than at service.… Those who do come walk out as soon as the pastor begins his sermon.”21 In Seegrehna (1577): “A pastor testified that he often quits his church without preaching … because not a soul has turned up to hear him.”22 In Barum (1572): “It is the greatest and most widespread complaint of all pastors hereabouts that people do not go to church on Sundays.… Nothing helps; they will not come … so that pastors face near-empty churches.”23 In Braunschweig-Grubenhagen (1580s): “Many churches are empty on Sundays.”24 In Weilburg (1604): “Absenteeism from church on Sundays was so widespread that the synod debated whether the city gates should be barred on Sunday mornings to lock everyone inside. Evidence from elsewhere suggests that this expedient would not have helped.”25
Nevertheless, it is not clear that having a large turnout at Sunday services would have been desirable. That’s because when people did come to church, so many of them misbehaved. The eminent historian Keith Thomas combed the reports of English church courts and clerical diaries, finding constant complaints not only that so few came to church but also that “the conduct of many church-goers left so much to be desired as to turn the service into a travesty of what was intended.… Members of the congregation jostled for pews, nudged their neighbors, hawked and spat, knitted, made coarse remarks, told jokes, fell asleep, and even let off guns.… A Cambridgeshire man was charged with indecent behaviour in church in 1598 after his ‘most loathsome farting, striking, and scoffing speeches’ had occasioned ‘the great offence of the good and the great rejoicing of the bad.’”26
Visitation reports from Lutheran Germany abound in accounts of misbehavior. In Nassau (1594): “Those who come to service are usually drunk … and sleep through the whole sermon, except sometimes they fall off the benches, making a great clatter, or women drop their babies on the floor.”27 In Wiesbaden (1619): “[During church] there is such snoring that I could not believe my ears when I heard it. The moment these people sit down, they put their heads on their arms and straight away they go to sleep.”28 In addition, dogs accompanied many parishioners inside the church, “barking and snarling so loudly that no one can hear the preacher.”29 In Hamburg (1581): “[People make] indecent gestures at members of the congregation who wish to join in singing the hymns, even bringing dogs to church so that due to the loud barking the service is disturbed.”30 In Leipzig (1579–1580): “They play cards while the pastor preaches, and often mock or mimic him cruelly to his face; … cursing and blaspheming, hooliganism, and fighting are common.… They enter church when the service is half over, go at once to sleep, and run out again before the blessing is given.… Nobody joins in singing the hymn; it made my heart ache to hear the pastor and the sexton singing all by themselves.”31
In addition, the locals often misused the church. In 1367 John Thoresby, Archbishop of York, fulminated against holding markets in churches, especially on Sunday. According to G. G. Coulton, between “1229 and 1367 there are eleven such episcopal injunctions recorded.… Bishop after bishop thundered in vain … against those who ‘turned the house of prayer into a den of thieves.’”32 The same thing occurred again and again across the continent, as higher Church officials complained against using churches, even cathedrals, for storing crops, sheltering livestock, and indoor market days.33
Given their attitudes and their lack of church attendance, it is hardly surprising that most medieval Europeans were completely ignorant of the most basic Christian teachings.34 One English bishop lamented that not only did the people know nothing from the Scriptures but also “they know not that there are any Scriptures.”35
Clearly, then, it is impossible to claim that there has been a sharp decline into secularization from these “pious” bygone days. Nevertheless, these low levels of attendance and knowledge did not reflect irreligion. Nearly everyone was religious! But theirs was an unchurched religion—one lacking a congregational base and existing as a relatively free-floating body of supernatural culture.36 As the influential historian Gerald Strauss put it, they “practiced their own brand of religion, which was a rich compound of ancient rituals, time-bound customs, a sort of unreconstructable folk Catholicism, and a large portion of magic to help them in their daily struggle for survival.”37 Although the people’s religion did often call on God, Jesus, Mary, and various saints, as well as some pagan gods and goddesses and minor spirits such as fairies, elves, and demons, it did so only to invoke their aid. This religion concerned itself little with matters such as the meaning of life or the basis for salvation. Instead, the emphasis was on pressing, mundane matters such as health, fertility, weather, sex, and good crops.
Many Europeans today adopt an unchurched faith as well. Because so many more Europeans embrace Christian doctrines than attend church, the distinguished British sociologist Grace Davie refers to them as “believing non-belongers.”38 Moreover, unchurched and unconventional supernaturalisms and groups are widely accepted in Europe.
UNCHURCHED AND UNCONVENTIONAL RELIGIOUS AND MYSTICAL ALTERNATIVES
In 2008 the International Social Survey Project asked people in a number of European nations whether they agreed with these three statements:
• |
Some fortune tellers really can foresee the future. (Fortune tellers) |
• |
A person’s star sign at birth can affect the course of his or her future. (Astrology) |
• |
Good luck charms do bring good luck. (Lucky charms) |
The responses for each nation are shown in Table 2–2.
Table 2–2: Unconventional Supernatural Beliefs Percentage Who Agree
Western Europe |
Fortune Tellers |
Astrology |
Lucky Charms |
Austria |
28 |
32 |
33 |
France |
37 |
38 |
23 |
Germany |
25 |
32 |
37 |
Ireland |
31 |
17 |
24 |
Netherlands |
26 |
21 |
19 |
Portugal |
27 |
29 |
45 |
Switzerland |
35 |
42 |
36 |
Eastern Europe |
Fortune Tellers |
Astrology |
Lucky Charms |
Bulgaria |
59 |
53 |
64 |
Czech Republic |
68 |
48 |
45 |
Hungary |
42 |
37 |
31 |
Latvia |
73 |
58 |
— |
Russia |
57 |
42 |
44 |
Slovakia |
65 |
43 |
49 |
Source: International Social Survey Project, 2008
Church attendance may be low in Europe, but unconventional supernaturalism is thriving. This is especially true in eastern Europe, but fortune tellers, astrologers and those selling lucky charms can earn a good living in western Europe as well.
In previous work, I often argued that in those places where conventional religious organizations are weak, they provide an attractive opportunity for new or unconventional religious movements to thrive,39 as well as for unchurched religions and mysticisms to fill the void, just as they did in medieval times. This argument was in opposition to the conventional view that when people drop out of church, they are immune to all forms of supernaturalism, and that therefore unconventional religions and mysticisms can thrive only where people still believe—in places where conventional religions also remain strong.
Initial quantitative studies supported the proposition that unconventional and unchurched religions thrive where the conventional, churched religions are weakest. These studies were based on data for the fifty states and larger American cities in various eras,40 as well as on Canadian data.41 For example, during the 1920s, theosophy, Christian Science, and Baha’i flourished in those American states and cities with the lowest rates of membership in conventional religious bodies. Christian Science was founded in Massachusetts and maintained its headquarters in Boston, but it was far more successful along the West Coast, where conventional church membership was lowest. In Canada, too, unconventional religions did best in provinces with the lowest levels of conventional church membership.
42extreme undercountseven hundred43