Why Religion Went Obsolete, page 42
Exclusivity: Overly narrow, strict, demanding, superior 46 65 60 41
Leaders: Clergy misuse of power, corruption, priest sex abuse 33 29 10 18
Money: All about money, greed, like a business, swindling people 23 15 – 12
Politicized: Right-wing politics, violates separation of church and state 17 18 – 18
Coercion: Forced, especially on children, aggression, proselytizing 17 – 15 12
Outdated: Old doctrines and ethics not keeping with the times 17 3 – –
Hypocrisy: Religious people don’t live what they preach 14 24 5 –
Ritualism: Role, formal, mindless, boring, flat 8 14 15 12
Rigidity: Organizational inflexibility, too structured, hierarchy, buildings 8 3 25 –
Weirdness: Just being weird, following dumb ideas 8 – – 24
Hell: Preaching threats of damnation, fire, and brimstone 5 3 – 6
Founding falsehoods: Religious base is all myth, lies, errors 4 – – –
Fashion show: Church about looks, comparing appearances 5 9 – –
Irrational: Disregards science, proof, facts, logic 4 – – 18
Devalues good works: Grace and forgiveness demotivate being good 3 – – –
Cliquish: Unfriendly groups in churches 2 – – –
Diversity: Too much disagreement, divisions between religious 0.8 – 10 12
Demanding: Expects too much commitment, time, energy, involvement 0.8 6
Eco-blind: Ignores environmental problems, sustainability issues 0.8 – – –
Discomfort: Individuals can feel awkward, have bad feelings 0.8 6 – 6
Unanswered prayers: God doesn’t answer – – – 6
Excused bad behavior: In name of forgiveness, grave – 6 – 6
False doctrines: Erroneous teachings, lead people astray – 3 5 6
Too easy: Gets watered down, simplified, commercialized – – 5 6
Religious Decliners—those who became less religious over the course of their lives—have more critical things to say about religion than those who have always been religiously marginal (Nevers). However, those who remained religious (Still Religious) or became more religious (Increasers) have plenty of criticisms of religion, too. Post-Boomers, even religious ones, have a lot to say about what turns them off about religion. One of the most common critiques of religion is the harm it causes people. Whatever good they acknowledge religion may do for humans, the majority of most post-Boomers also say that religion is a source of violence, suffering, oppression, destruction, war, and division. Some of this critique focused on the exclusion of those who are LGBTQ+ or on religion’s mistreatment of women. One, for instance, related,
As a divorced woman living in the South, what place do I really have in the Catholic Church today? I’ve had increasing issue over time with women not having equal opportunity, and, of course, being divorced doesn’t jive. So yes, as of today, my own religion doesn’t make a place I am comfortable. So where do I turn? I’m smart enough to just sit tight and try to be a good person on my own.
Others pointed to religion’s role in propagating and propping up racism, slavery, and colonialism. Most who made this larger criticism, however, just said generally that religion is guilty of harming people through social injustice, oppression, and violence. Sometimes this was expressed in sweeping historical generalizations, like this:
My dad told me early and often that more people have died in the name of religion than any other cause, and it’s just so true. A lot of the evil in the world is because of ideals espoused by people’s interpretation of religion. No religion out there is inherently evil, and a lot of good people are doing good things in the name of religion. But there are a lot of bad people doing bad things in the name of their religion, too.
Another said,
I believe religion has done more to damage the human race than anything else on this planet. The Christian message has been preached for 2,000 years, and we’re no better off because of it. For so many people, religions corrupt their minds. I’m just not a fan.
Others spoke in much more personal terms.
Sunday school made me anxious because when the sermon would come up, I would go with the other kids to children’s church and I’d get bullied. Bullied as a kid in the children’s church. So it makes me anxious. Go figure.
Some turned the ideals of religion against their experience of the realities of traditional religion. One, for instance, recalled, “I remember one of my youth pastors telling me, ‘Sometimes you just need to stop thinking,’ to which I was like, ‘Okay, I don’t think Jesus would tell me that.’ ” Another said,
My daughter used to love going to church. Now I have to convince her to go because she feels like what goes on there is not what God wants. I’ve always taught her Jesus loves everybody and you should love like Jesus does. But at church they teach a lot of “don’t do this or that,” “don’t hang out with the wrong people, gay friends,” whatever, and she doesn’t agree with that. She thinks God wants us to be loving. Plus, they’ve had issues not being able to keep a youth group leader. So a lot of that has turned her off.
Half of the Decliners objected to religion because they see it as a tool of social control, manipulation, and enforced conformity. As one observed, “Organized religion to me is a confined, constrictive institution and completely adverse, the exact opposite of what most young people want. They want to be free, to be open.” Few of the other religious types mentioned this objection. The most common turn-off among the more religious types (Still Religious and Increasers) was religion’s capacity for exclusivity: being too narrow, strict, demanding, and superior in attitude. Large percentages of the less religious types agreed but voiced this critique about 20% less often than the more religious. From there, the criticisms become less common. One-third of Decliners and fewer of the other types mentioned misbehavior by religious leaders. Non-trivial minorities of all but the Increasers said that religion is often too concerned with money, can be greedy, out for profit, and sometimes cheat people. Almost one in five of all but the Increasers objected to religion becoming politicized by getting involved in right-wing politics.
From there, the turn-offs of religion start to vary more widely across religious types. Somewhat lower numbers of three of the types said that religion sometimes distastefully coerces vulnerable people by forcing beliefs on children or too heavy-handedly proselytizing others. Then 17% of Decliners (but almost none of the others) charged religion with being outdated, holding on to beliefs that are out of touch with the times. The Still Religious were the most likely to object to hypocrisy in religion—that people do not practice what they preach. Some even saw this in religious practices per se, as in this report:
I went to a Baptist college, where I got invited to a concert where everybody around me was doing the “raise and praise” performative thing [raising hands in worship]. It’s attention-seeking, they want to put on display how much they’re into it. My feelings were not good, it was fake, false. It’s like the act of going out of your way to do it. It felt competitive.
Minorities of the two more religious types also emphasized the problem of religion being too formal, boring, mindless, rote, and ritualistic. For instance: “I just feel bored with the whole thing because my grandfather is a Southern Baptist minister, so I’ve heard the same sermon over and over. I just remember sitting in the hallways, like, okay, when can I leave?” One in four of the religious Increasers complained about religion’s organizational rigidity, hierarchy, and inflexibility. One in four of the Nevers (but few of the others) said that religion can just get weird and follows what they think are dumb or objectionable ideas. Turning the typical meaning of Jesus’s crucifixion on its head, for example, one voiced this objection:
The Jesus story, why would you want to tell your kids about somebody being murdered to save them, and then showing them pictures or even a movie with that much gore? I mean, I understand that children aren’t always going to be innocent, the world is a dark place. But I don’t want to subject my children to that, it’s super gruesome. I feel sad because I shouldn’t need the image to show me how bad this man was beaten to save me from my sins.
The remaining 15 turn-offs were voiced by much smaller minorities of respondents. One exception is the nearly one in five of the Nevers who noted religion’s irrationality in ignoring science, facts, proof, and logic.
The tone of these answers in interviews differed by religious types. Religious Decliners tended to speak in tones of dismissive condemnation. They were critical and done with it all. The tone of those who had increased religiously exhibited more frustration over religion’s bad features. They were aggravated that the religion they had come to value was self-destructive. The tone of the Maintainer types, by comparison, reflected a more theoretical awareness of how bad religion can be and of problems they had heard or experienced, but this was typically coupled with a stronger appreciation for religion’s good features. Finally, the Nevers generally reflected a more detached spirit overall since religion is not central to their existence. The intensity with which the post-Boomers we interviewed expressed their feelings also varied. For some, it was simply “thanks but no thanks.” Others were positively bitter: “Everything that I’ve been taught and told was a lie.”
What do we learn from these findings? The main feature of religion that younger Americans of all religious types say turns them off concerns its misuse of influence and power to violate people’s autonomy, integrity, and well-being. Religion does people harm physically, materially, socially, and mentally, they say, and damages, coerces, and excludes certain people in ways that negates its legitimacy. For some, these are intrinsic religious propensities, for others, the unfortunate behaviors of a minority. Some of these wrongs are said to be caused by religious leaders, others by religious cultures per se. Some we interviewed added other lesser criticisms: irrationality, weirdness, cliquishness, unanswered prayers. But the core objections to religion that turn off most American post-Boomers center on the multiple kinds of harm it has done or does to people.
Explanations for Leaving Religion
Of the 209 Americans ages 18–54 whom we interviewed for this project, 135 were religious Decliners—people who had grown up highly religious or whose families were highly religious but who, by the time they completed the national survey from which we sampled them, identified as having little or no religion. We spent a good part of our interviews asking them to tell us their life stories. We made sure to find out the occasions when and reasons why they left the religions of their youth. We did not directly ask, “So, why did you drop your religion?” but gleaned reasons from their larger life histories. That approach provided a fuller sense of who these people were, avoided coming off as interrogating, and placed their explanations for leaving religion in an illuminating narrative context.3 We studied their life stories closely and sorted their reasons for distancing from religion into thematic categories (see Table 10.2). Some reasons are clearer and more explanatory than others. As noted above, we need not take these as the “real” or only reasons for religious disaffiliation. Most are part of larger causal processes. Even so, they tell us much of value about the sense that ex-religious people make of religion and the kinds of justifications they have for disaffiliating.
Table 10.2 Reasons Given for Leaving Childhood Religion as Teenagers or Adults
Reasons given Number of cases
Religion is not about institutions but a personal matter 66
Religion is a personal journey, became “spiritual” 58
Just drifted away, apathy 46
Life obligations got in the way 33
Left religion after high school or beginning of college 32
Religious hypocrites 28
No one religion is true, so cannot commit to one 19
Religious institutions are corrupt and greedy 18
Religious institutions are anti-LGBTQ+ 17
Religious institutions seek power and are manipulative 16
Death of a loved one 15
Morality does not need religion 11
Negative interaction with clergy or fellow congregants 11
Sex scandals 11
The problem of evil, explaining bad in the world 10
Alternate philosophies and logic make more sense 9
COVID-19 disrupted attendance 6
Unanswered prayers 6
Religion getting involved in politics 5
Religion is bad for society 5
Total Decliner Interviews 135
Source: LZ interviews of Decliners, 2021, 2022.
The most frequent explanation (66 out of 135 cases, 49%) is that religion is a personal matter, not about social institutions. This is actually not much of a causal explanation since it tells us little about how or why these people came to this view. But it discloses a cultural assumption that is a key part of the zeitgeist driving religion’s obsolescence: whatever religion is, it is not something institutional. In this view, any individual can be as little or much personally religious as they wish without any connection to a religious congregation or denomination. In fact, institutional religion will likely distort religion’s true essence. Genuine religion is properly a personal, individual, perhaps private matter—meaning, by implication, that these people believe religion may have some value but religious institutions do not. So, in whatever way these 66 people think about it specifically, institutional religion compelled them to distance themselves from religion.
The second most common reason (43%) is closely related: that religion is a personal journey, not a matter of organized affiliation or participation. Many people who mentioned this also said they had become “spiritual but not religious.” For many, this is an inverted way to say the same thing as the first reason: that one can subtract the institution and retain the essence of religion by following an individual life journey, which is often understood in terms of personal spirituality. This again gives no information about how and why people came to this belief. But it provides the justifying account for their leaving traditional religion and reveals a cultural assumption seen as legitimate. Between these first two explanations, the vast majority of Decliners shed light on why they left religion: they believe religious institutions are at best superfluous and at worst dangerous. One, for example, expressed, “Just seeing a denominational headquarters makes me feel angry. I feel angry because I didn’t know that church had headquarters, I never realized how much money was involved. I mean, they have headquarters, there has to be a lot of money going on.” So whatever form of (quasi-)religion or spirituality they are practicing, they think it can be a personal matter that does not require being part of a group. Here Americans’ distrust of social institutions and their deployment of the classic evangelical discourse of “personal relationship with God” reveal their influences.
Decliners’ next three most mentioned reasons cluster into the larger experience of just passively drifting away: apathy, life obligations, busyness, life-course transitions, and sidetracking journeys caused them to fade out of religion. There was no decisive or purposeful break, just a gradual wandering off. These kinds of answers sounded like this: “Religion is one of those things for me I have a lot of apathy towards I just don’t care. Like, do you believe if there’s a God or not? I don’t know, I don’t care—I used to think about it a lot when I was younger, but now I just don’t care.” Another told us,
I don’t not believe in God, but I’m not gonna sit here and preach his existence. I wouldn’t be opposed to starting to go to church again, but it’s also not like I’m going to seek out the opportunity to go. I feel like I’m just indifferent toward it. I don’t know, it’s not something super important to me right now.
The next five reasons also group into a larger type offering negative critiques of religion, many of which we saw in Table 10.2: hypocrisy, false claims to truth, corruption, greed, rejection of those who are LGBTQ+, power-grabbing, manipulation, negative interactions with clergy and other laypeople, sex abuse scandals, and religion being bad for society generally.4 Many we interviewed discussed this in very personal terms, including wrongs they observed religion visiting on their parents long ago, for example:
My dad went to a Catholic school, was an altar boy, for him the Catholic Church was a big part of life. Then he was excommunicated because he got divorced. That was a huge deal. After that, he saw religion in a totally different light. He couldn’t believe that suddenly he was basically not seen by the Catholic Church any more, after he had been there for so many years, just because of something like that. Divorce is horrible but it’s not a sin. But religion, not moving or adapting with the times, gets set in stone like, “This is right, this is wrong, no matter what.” It doesn’t need to. Nothing is black and white.
And another recounted,
My church growing up, there was too many contradictions for me. My dad was trying to be a deacon for like 70 years, and they were like, “Okay, brother we’ll get back to you,” you know what I mean? It was just very misleading. And visiting church leaders asking for money, we have to pay them for being here? Like, no, it’s not okay.
That people do not need religion to be moral—a reason stated by 11 Decliners—is also a form of criticism of religion, although it overlaps with the anti-institutional sentiment above, too. Last, smaller number of Decliners cite existential and intellectual reasons for leaving religion. These include the death of a loved one, evil and suffering in the world, various philosophical problems, logical or scientific disproof, and unanswered prayers. One, for instance, said,
Another reason Christianity makes me angry is all the bad stuff that goes on in the world, why can’t that be stopped? If Jesus died on cross to stop sin, then why are little babies being murdered? If God’s that powerful and all knowing, why are you letting this happen? It’s just not understanding why he would let that happen if he’s the way I’ve always understood, loving and caring. If he is, why are people dying such horrible deaths, you know, you have all the power in the world, why can’t you stop it from happening?
