No longer Give Me that Old Time Religion, now it's Don't Fence Me In.
Newly released data from a major survey finds that most U.S. adults range far from knowing or caring about the distinctive teachings of their professed faith.
They believe overwhelmingly (92%) in God and 58% say they pray at least once a day. But when it comes to specific religions — the teachings of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Roman Catholic Church or scores of other denominations — they're all over the map, finds the latest data from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Pew's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey survey questioned 35,000 Americans, nearly three in 10 of whom profess no religious identity, but sometimes go to church. Most evangelicals, whose denominations teach that Jesus is the sole route to salvation, instead say people who have "led good lives" go to heaven. Only one in three Catholics say their church should preserve its traditional beliefs rather than change with the times or adopt modern practices.
Pew released demographic data in February from the survey, which was conducted in May through August 2007. This new installment focuses on the questions asked about Americans' religious beliefs and practices, spiritual experiences, and views on society and politics.
This analysis, based on a questionnaire that never mentions Jesus, portrays a nation of "free-flowing spirituality," says Pew Forum director Luis Lugo, who finds the declining adherence to dogma "stunning."
"You no longer have an alignment of affiliation, belief and behavior. Instead we find complexity, and diversity not only between religious communities but within them, as well. We find a high level of comfort with this diversity," says political scientist John Green, a senior fellow with the Pew Forum.
When Green and Lugo factor in Pew's February findings that 44% of adults say they've switched to another religion or none at all, Lugo says, "You have to wonder: How do you guarantee the integrity of a religious tradition when so many people are coming or going or following ideas that don't match up?"
You can't, says the Rev. Frank Page, of Taylors, S.C. He adds ruefully, "I'm a pastor in the real world. I see this every day."
Page is immediate past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination. Its growth statistics, he says, "are pitiful."
Page says people don't know their faith because "Gospel, once clearly preached in virtually every Protestant church, is rarely heard in the 21st century. The number who teach a clear doctrinal Christianity are a minority today. How would people know it when they never hear about how to be saved?"
Tradition and politics
Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, sees in the numbers that Catholics, like everyone else, are shaped by an individualistic culture. "People are trained to trust only their own spiritual exprience" rather than in the historic message of the church.
"Religion is about conversion, self-surrender as opposed to self-righteousness. That's hard in any culture but particularly in our own. With the emphasis so much on rights, it's easy to become self-righteous."
The survey "just proves Catholics are as confused as everybody else," says sociologist Mary Gautier of the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, which conducts research for the U.S. Catholic bishops.
The long-standing alignment between a high level of religious commitment and a conservative political outlook is fraying, and that could make this year's presidential election even more unpredictable, Green says.
The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 0.6 percentage points for overall findings. The margin of error is larger for subgroups including evangelicals (26.3% of adults, who share strict ideas on salvation and common historic origins), mainline Protestants (18.1%, who share "a less exclusionary view of salvation and a strong emphasis on social reform,") and historically black churches (6.9%, whose traditions are "shaped by experiences of slavery and segregation)."
Some key findings:
•78% overall say there are "absolute standards of right and wrong," but only 29% rely on their religion to delineate these standards. The majority (52%) turn to "practical experience and common sense," with 9% relying on philosophy and reason, and 5% on scientific information.
•74% say "there is a heaven, where people who have led good lives are eternally rewarded," but far fewer (59%) say there's a "hell, where people who have led bad lives and die without being sorry are eternally punished." Only evangelicals and Muslims are as likely to believe almost to the same degree in both.
•70%, including a majority of all major Christian and non-Christian religious groups except Mormons, agree that "many religions can lead to eternal life."
•68% say "there's more than one true way to interpret the teachings of my religion."
•54% say being devoutly religious isn't a challenge in modern society. Another 42% say they "often feel that my values are threatened by Hollywood and the entertainment industry." • 45% of adults say they seldom or never read their religion's holy texts. This includes 49% of members of mainline Protestant churches, 57% of Catholics and 70% of Jews. Among groups that emphasize reading scripture, the numbers are sharply higher. Those who read scripture at least weekly include: evangelicals (60%); historically black churches (60%); Mormons (76%); Jehovah's Witnesses (83%); and Muslims (43%)
•44% want to preserve their religion's traditional beliefs and practices. But most Catholics (67%), Jews (65%), mainline Christians (56%) and Muslims (51%) say their religion should either "adjust to new circumstances" or "adopt modern beliefs and practices."
•50% say "homosexuality is a way of life that should be accepted by society," but the most consistently traditional religious groups say society should discourage it — 76% of Jehovah's Witnesses, 68% of Mormons, 61% of Muslims and 64% of evangelicals.
•14% overall, including 28% of evangelicals, say religion is the "main influence in their political thinking."
A 'spiritual salad bar'
"Americans believe in everything. It's a spiritual salad bar," says Rice University sociologist Michael Lindsay.
Rather than religious leaders setting the cultural agenda, today, it's Oprah Winfrey, he says.
"After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the national memorial service was at Washington's National Cathedral, conducted by Episcopal clergy. After the 9/11 attack, Oprah organized the official memorial service at Yankee Stadium, and while clergy participated, she was the master of ceremonies.
"The impact of Oprah is seen throughout this survey. She uses the language of Bible and Christian traditions and yet includes other traditions to create a hodgepodge personalized faith. Exclusivism (the idea that one religion has the absolute and exclusive truth) has gotten a bad name in America today," says Lindsay, author of a book on the rise of evangelical social and political clout.
He also noted the political ramifications of findings that "half of evangelicals and half of Catholics say they really don't think about politics all that much."
By measures of "religiosity" — people who attend church at least weekly, pray at least daily and have an absolute belief in a personal God — the survey finds overall that Democrats and Republicans hit the same levels.
The difference is in their behavior, however, says Green. "Those who lean Republican and attend church are likely to vote at a high rate while religious Democrats don't turn out to vote at the same levels."
Lugo predicts "rip-roaring debates" over whether evangelicalism, which has been a driver in the American religious and political marketplace for a decade now, has peaked in its spiritual, social and political clout as its distinctive teachings lose ground.
Neither are people likely to return to the denominational fold, says political science professor Alan Wolfe, director of the Boise Center for American and Public Life at Boston University.
"Overall people say they are religious, but they have no command of theology, doctrine or history so it's an empty religiosity. They don't call themselves spiritual, however, because that word has New Age baggage," says Wolfe, who finds "a very forgiving quality" to this non-sectarian, no-mention-of-sin view.
"Americans are deeply suspicious of institutional religion," says Green. Some see "religion as about money, rules and power and that is not a positive connotation for everyone."
Adults under 30 are further from strict religious adherence than their parents and even though other studies show they cycle back to religion at key moments such as marriage or rearing children, those spirals are smaller and smaller, says Tom Smith, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Society. It is part of the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center, which has measured religion and society for decades through the General Social Survey.
"We may see that unlike the past, people are not going to return to the church they left or to any one at all," says Green.
Indeed, Pew found fewer people starting out in any church.
Among couples (married or living together) with children, 63% say they read the Bible or pray with their children and 60% say they send them for religious education.
But those numbers drop significantly for religiously mixed couples with children — 37% of those surveyed. In mixed marriages, only 48% say they pray or read Scripture with their children and 44% say they send their children for religious education, says Greg Smith, a Pew research fellow.
"Every religious group has a major challenge on its hands from all directions," Lugo says. "It is extremely difficult to maintain the integrity of the tradition and the strength of a community, given all these findings."