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Does America still defy the classic 'secularization theory' favored by sociologists?

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Does America still defy the classic 'secularization theory' favored by sociologists?

Journalists should be aware that 2023 turns out to be big for the much-discussed “secularization theory” framed by the 19th Century founders of sociology.

The nub of theory claims that economically advancing societies with improved education inevitably become more secular, largely because modern science explains matters formerly left to the religious realm.

The NYU Press states that its 2023 release “Beyond Doubt: The Secularization of Society” demonstrates “definitively that the secularization thesis is correct, and religion is losing its grip on societies worldwide.” Steve Bruce of the University of Aberdeen, author of the classic “Secularization: In Defence of an Unfashionable Theory” (Oxford, 2011), blurbs that this new title “will be the defining text on the undeniable proof” that supports the concept.

The three co-authors of “Beyond Doubt,” all experts, are Ryan Cragun (University of Tampa), Isabella Kasselstrand (also at Aberdeen), and Phil Zuckerman (founder of Pitzer College’s Secular Studies program). They take on such noted U.S. critics of the theory as Christian Smith, Rodney Stark, and the late Peter Berger. Though such theorizing has focused on the West, this book (which The Guy has yet to read) is distinctive in drawing together elaborate data from several dozen varied countries.

The United States, however, has long been a serious problem for the theory. It’s an educationally, economically and scientifically advanced culture that has persisted with a far more devout population than in, say, Western Europe or Canada.

Yes, but now, as the news media frequently remind us, 21st Century America has experienced a rapid and substantial increase in “nones” who tell pollsters they have no religious identity and are either atheist, agnostic, or — by far the largest category — “nothing in particular.” Their ranks have nearly doubled since 2007. And there other signs of sagging religious vitality.

It seems secularization has finally triumphed even in the United States.


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Here we go again: Hollywood doesn't 'get' America, so maybe religion is part of that?

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Here we go again: Hollywood doesn't 'get' America, so maybe religion is part of that?

Every decade or so, power players in Hollywood discover that there are millions of Americans who do not mind buying tickets to see movies that contain overtly religious symbols, themes and even characters.

I’ve been covering this story since the 1980s. It’s fascinating how new generations of reporters manage to work up a sense of culture shock about this.

For example, consider that much-discussed Atlantic feature back in 2005 that ran with this headline: “Can Jesus Save Hollywood?”

Another five or six years later, the discussion of niche-Christian entertainment was still creating buzz. The conservative interfaith journal First Things ran a provocative piece with this headline: “Is ‘Christian’ the new ‘Gay’?” Sociologist D. Michael Lindsay, at that time the president of Gordon College, responded to a question about that equation:

This comes from a quote that one woman who I interviewed in Hollywood recounted to me a story that she had where the conversation basically was a Hollywood producer telling her that it had become new and interesting for committed Christians to “come out” in Hollywood. And they actually used that language of “coming out” where one publicly identifies in this way. I think what it really reflects is although historically Christianity has been a very powerful force in this country, within the pockets of elite cultural life — in Hollywood, at universities like Harvard and Yale and the rarefied heights of arts and entertainment — being a deeply committed person of faith, whatever that faith tradition may be, is seen as unusual or odd. There’s pressure when you’re in those high positions not to be too public about your faith and certainly not a faith that is evangelistic in approach because that’s seen as overbearing or narrow-minded.

Like I said, this is “old” news. This trend will go on and on — because America is basically a red v. blue puzzle these days and it’s hard to ignore the evidence that “pew gap” statistics play some role in that.

That David French guy — much hated by Trumpian conservatives and lots of illiberal progressives — had a provocative summary of the situation in his must-read book “Divided We Fall: America's Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.” Here is a summary of that French thesis from a new essay I wrote for the journal Religion & Liberty about the death of the old-school American Model of the Press:

The bottom line: Americans are divided by their choices in news and popular culture, choosing to live in protective silos of digital content. America remains the developing world’s most religious nation, yet its secularized elites occupy one set of zip codes, while most religious believers live in another. These armies share no common standards about "facts," "accuracy" or "fairness." 

 “It's time for Americans to wake up to a fundamental reality: the continued unity of the United States cannot be guaranteed,” wrote French. At this moment, “there is not a single important cultural, religious, political, or social force that is pulling Americans together more than it is pulling us apart.”

This brings me to a new City Journal piece with this headline: “Can Capitalism Save Hollywood? The gulf between elites and audiences is eroding profits throughout entertainment and news media — but signs of correction are emerging.”


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Black church leaders working to promote COVID-19 vaccines to their skeptical flocks

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Black church leaders working to promote COVID-19 vaccines to their skeptical flocks

Some religious people see the COVID-19 vaccines as an answer to prayer.

Others are skeptical.

To encourage wary African Americans to roll up their sleeves, many Black churches are working extra hard.

The Tampa Bay Times’ Margo Snipe notes:

As COVID-19 continues to push health disparities to the forefront, Black churches have become advocates for mask-wearing, hand sanitizing and vaccine distribution.

In a Religion News Service interview with Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, the Rev. Jacques Andre DeGraff of Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem, New York, “talks about how Black communities are overcoming distrust of the medical community.”

This week, Dr. Anthony Fauci joined Bishop T.D. Jakes of The Potter’s House church in Dallas in a discussion aimed at quelling distrust about the vaccines, report the Dallas Morning News’ Jesus Jimenez and Religion Unplugged’s own Jillian Cheney.

“You have to respect the skepticism in the African American community,” said Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases official. “You can’t just ignore that.”

Here in my home state of Oklahoma, the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Oklahoma City partnered with state and county health departments to organize a “vaccine pod.”

The Rev. Derrick Scobey discusses the outreach effort with The Oklahoman’s faith editor, Carla Hinton:

He said some Blacks recall the infamous "Tuskegee Experiment," a medical study in which hundreds of Black men in Alabama from the 1930s to the 1970s were misled into thinking they were being treated for disease.

"Because of that you still have African Americans that are very hesitant about taking this vaccine," Scobey said.


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Plug-In: Investigation into Amish, Mennonite sexual abuse honored as Pulitzer finalist

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It’s a heavenly time for the Godbeat.

For the second year in a row, journalism’s most prestigious awards have recognized the transcendent work of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette religion editor Peter Smith.

Smith and two colleagues — Stephanie Strasburg and Shelly Bradbury — were honored this week as Pulitzer Prize finalists for “an unprecedented investigation of child sexual abuse and cover-ups in the insular Amish and Mennonite communities.”

Just last year, Smith was a key part of the Post-Gazette team that received a Pulitzer for its “immersive, compassionate coverage of the massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue that captured the anguish and resilience of a community thrust into grief.”

I asked Smith, who is president of the Religion News Association, for his takeaway on what the latest Pulitzer nod means for the Godbeat.

Here’s what he told me:

Religion journalism is vital, just as local journalism is vital, and both are central here. Our newspaper recognized the importance of this story and committed to investing our time and resources into understanding the problem in its unique cultural context, then reporting and telling the story through word and image.

I think that having a background in covering the Plain churches helped me as I got to know and understand the sources in our stories. More than one reader has expressed appreciation that we maintained a respect for the Plain culture even while addressing how aspects of the culture itself can be factors in the abuse. (For example, the Amish and Mennonites are widely admired for their magnanimous forgiveness, but that same virtue has been used to pressure a victim into reconciling with a predator, and to spare the latter from the legal consequences of criminal acts.)

There can also be a multiplier effect when a news organization commits to religion journalism. A religion reporter can team up with other journalists on other beats, and they can build on each other’s expertise.


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Do Catholics have one -- singular -- sexual-abuse crisis? No, the reality is worse than that

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Do Catholics have one -- singular -- sexual-abuse crisis? No, the reality is worse than that

We have now — at the Vatican’s clergy sexual abuse meeting — reached a stage in the proceedings that will be familiar to reporters who frequent ecclesiastical meetings of this kind.

After a few headline-friendly opening remarks, there will usually be a long parade of semi-academic speakers who offer complex, nuanced and ultimately unquotable remarks about the topic of the day. As a rule, these papers are written in deep-church code that can only be understood — maybe — by insiders.

Long ago, I covered a U.S. Catholic bishops meeting that included pronouncements on the moral status of nuclear weapons. During one address, the speaker veered into Latin when stating his thesis. At a press conference, I asked the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin if that passage in Latin had been (in my words) a “preemptive strike on American headline writers.” The cardinal smiled and said one word — “yes.”

Try to quote that in a hard-news story.

At the end of things, reporters can expect a formal statement prepared by the powers that be that organized the event. We can also expect some kind of television-friendly rite of repentance.

At this point, it’s probably easier to focus on what is not being said, rather than what the Vatican’s chosen speakers are carefully saying. Also, we can look back into the history of this crisis, in order to anticipate what will end up happening. We did a little of both during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

Pope Francis stated that the goal of this event was to take concrete steps to stop the abuse of “children,” the “little ones.” The church has been rocked by a “pedophilia” crisis, he said.

That’s what was said. Journalist Sandro Magister offered this commentary on what was not said:

… The big no-show was the word “homosexuality.” And this in spite of the fact that the great bulk of the abuse tabulated so far has taken place with young or very young males, past the threshold of puberty.

The word “homosexuality” did not appear in the pope’s inaugural discourse, nor in the 21 “points of reflection” that he had distributed in the hall, nor in the introductory talks by Cardinal Luis Antonio G. Tagle, Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna, and, in the afternoon, Cardinal Rubén Salazar Gómez

Scicluna on the contrary, when questioned in this regard at the midday press conference, said that “generalizing on a category of persons is never legitimate,” because homosexuality “is not something that predisposes one to sin,” because if anything what causes this inclination is “concupiscence.”

This is consistent with one viewpoint that’s common in the Catholic establishment: This crisis is about pedophilia. Period.


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National Review offers in-depth look at BYU's religious freedom and media conference

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It's summer, which means that your GetReligionistas -- like many other folks -- are spread out all over the place.

One or two are outside of the United States (think rainforests) and others are on the move for family reasons, etc. In a week or so, I head over to Prague for lectures during this summer's European Journalism Institute.

Like I said, it's summer and these things happen, creating occasional gaps in what we publish.

So, instead of a Friday Five collection from Bobby Ross, Jr., let's flash back a bit to his round-up about the religious freedom and journalism event that recently took Ross, and me, out to the law school at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Click here to flash back to Bobby'r Friday Five wrap on that.

In the weeks ahead, speeches and panels from that event will go online. You really, for example, want to see the keynote speech in the media track, by Emma Green of The Atlantic. Watch updated versions of this space and this one, too, as the links go live. Here is a Facebook link for the "Getting It Right" panel shown in the tweet at the top of this post.

Now, if you want to read an extended piece about this conference, click here for the National Review feature -- by Utah-based scribe Betsy VanDenBerghe -- that just ran with this headline: "Religious-Freedom and LGBT Advocates Offer Rare Lessons in Pluralism." Here is the overture:

In late June, as the United States descended into a high-combustion immigration debate marked by a degree of rancor extraordinary even for an era characterized by discord, an alternate universe quietly unfolded in which cultural-political rivals of goodwill came together to discuss an equally contentious issue: the tension between religious freedom and LGBT rights.

Resuscitating such old-school notions as common ground and fairness for all, the fifth Religious Freedom Annual Review, hosted by the Brigham Young University International Center for Law and Religion Studies in Provo, Utah, gathered legal scholars, LGBT advocates, journalists, and concerned Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders to grapple over court cases, questions about higher education and journalistic fairness, and -- surprise! -- common feelings of vulnerability.



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