Religion's Decline

One of the worrying trends that I have previously touched on but have not been able to give adequate time to is that of our society becoming more and more disenchanted with religion, particularly organized religion and the consequences of such an important paradigm shift.

To be clear, this decline has been going on for the last several decades; however, the rate of people leaving religion has been accelerating over the last several years.

Some quick numbers to put this in perspective:

In 1972 90% of people identified as Christian.

In 2020 only 64% of people polled identify as Christian.

In 1999 70% of people belonged to an actual congregation.

In 2020 that number dropped to 47%.

Importantly, it should also be noted that the number of people who identified as having no religious belief rose from 5% in 1972 to 30% in 2020, showing that most people aren’t leaving Christianity for other traditional religions (i.e. islam or judiasm) but are just leaving religion altogether.

There have been several news articles over the last couple of years documenting this abrupt departure from traditional religions and most of them are written with the viewpoint that this shift is long overdue and that this shift away from religion is a positive thing that reflects the “progress” we are making.

Not only is the untrue, but it is also inacurate to think that these people aren’t leaving for another religion. Religion is such a fundamental part of the human pyche and it can’t be discarded in the same way that you would discard burnt toast. They are just finding a new type of religion - the relgion of academia and social justice.

And make no mistake, this is a religion - with original sin (white guilt), sacred texts (How To Be An Anti-Racist, White Fragility, etc.) and proper paths of discipleship (anti-racism/activism).

However, it’s not all doom and gloom.

Despite these worrying trends, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has continued to grow. In 2020, I enthusiastically observed that President Nelson “cracked the nut” during 2019, reversing the Church’s declining rate of growth.

Then COVID hit, crashing the Church’s rate of growth stats. I hoped, after recovering from COVID, there would be an uptick on the rate of growth once again, proving that indeed President Nelson’s administration had figured out the secret sauce.
This most recent conference confirmed that my hopes have been realized. With a growth rate of 1.17% in 2022 we’re not quite back at pre-pandemic levels where we had a 1.54% rate of growth in 2019, but it did exceed 2021 and 2020 which had declined under 1%.

We still have a long ways to go, however, if we ever want to get back to the 5% growth rate that we would often see in the second half of the last century. Luckily, we need not worry, this is the Lord’s work and He has told us “I am able to do mine own work.” All we need to do is trust and have faith in Him. 

Best,

Greg.