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Religion's Sudden Decline: What's Causing it, and What Comes Next? 1st Edition

by Ronald F. Inglehart (Author)

4.3 45 ratings

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Mass attachment to religion is rapidly declining in most of the world; Why, and What comes next?

The world is becoming less religious. Since 2007, there has been a pervasive decline in religious belief and most of the world's people now say that God is less important in their lives than they said He was in the quarter century before 2007. The American public showed the most dramatic shift of all. The United States, which for many years stood as a highly religious outlier among the world's high-income countries, now ranks as the 12th least religious country for which data are available. Many factors contributed to this dramatic worldwide shift, but as Inglehart shows, certain ones stand out. For centuries, virtually all major religions encouraged women to stay home and produce as many children as possible; and they sternly discouraged divorce, abortion, homosexuality, contraception, and any other form of sexual behavior not linked with reproduction. These norms were necessary for societies to survive when facing high infant mortality and low life expectancy: societies that didn't instill them tended to die out. Recent technological advances have greatly increased life expectancy and cut infant mortality to a tiny fraction of its historic levels, making these norms no longer necessary for societal survival. These norms require repressing strong natural urges, but, since they present traditional norms as absolute values, most religions strongly resist change. The resulting tension, together with the fact that rising existential security has made people less dependent on religion, opened the way for an exodus from religion. Utilizing a massive global data base, Inglehart analyzes the conditions under which religiosity collapses, and explores its implications for the future.

Editorial Reviews

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"Ingelhart's latest contribution establishes certain facts about religious decline and posits some logical sources for why many citizens in the post-industrial world are losing their religion." -- Paul Froese, Journal of Peace Research

"Overall, Inglehart's book is as thorough and detailed as it is accessible and engaging." -- A. Remillard, CHOICE

"Inglehart has rewritten the story of how modernization affects religion. You might not agree with his theory, but you need to read this book: it will be cited in debates over religious change for years to come." -- David Voas, University College London

"In Religion's Sudden Decline,... Ronald F. Inglehart points specifically to the rise of what he calls "existential security" as the key driver, presenting global survey data that show that countries with high political stability and low socioeconomic inequality are more secular than those with the opposite characteristics." -- Nova Religio

Book Description

Mass attachment to religion is rapidly declining in most of the world; Why, and What comes next?

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; 1st edition (January 2, 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 208 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0197547052
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0197547052
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.1 x 0.6 x 9.1 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,231,722 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #472 in Non-US Legal Systems (Books)
- #652 in Comparative Politics
- #1,410 in Church & State Religious Studies

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4.3 45 ratings

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Ariasrac
Lectura de rigor en tiempos de amenazas autoritarias y populistas en contextos de inseguridad. esta lectura del mundo en clave cultural es esencial para entender los grandes retos de la democracia liberal. lectura obligatoria!
Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2023
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Un texto de necesaria lectura para entender la dimensión cultural (valores) de los retos actuales para la democracia actual que señala las principales dimensiones de un análisis en profundidad.

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Mo Jensen
Great Book
Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2022
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I read this book for my Politics of Religion class. I really liked the perspective Inglehart had on the way that societal norms impact traditional religious views. He heavily emphasizes that more secure societies tend to see a decline in the religious sect and vice versa. I felt he did well to defend this argument, though it is not always applicable to every situation. I did feel that a lot of the chapters felt very repetitive. He repeated the same ideas throughout each chapter introducing a new idea as well. It was like learning something new then falling back into review each chapter. Regardless of that, overall this was one of the more enjoyable books.

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EVIDENCE-BASED SCIENTIST.
Data presenting religions decline and the reasons why.
Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2022
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Thoroughly researched.
Highly readable.
Presents multiple reasons why religion is declining.
Displays countries of the world in graphic form for a comparison of the reasons religion is in decline.

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Aaa
New and Compelling Theory to Explain Secularization
Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2021
Why is religion in rapid decline in the first world (including the United States) but not in the rest of the world? This is the question that this book sets out to answer. The answer is in the form of a new theory of secularization.

Inglehart considers various other theories to explain secularization (including the theory of science and modernization, and the theory of religious markets) but ultimately shows that those theories are unable to account for the changes in religious belief over the last 50 years. The most challenging example to explain is the United States. Until about 2007, the United States stood out as the most religious country in the first world. In the last 13 years, however, religion has declined more in the United States than in any other country.

In short, Inglehart's explanation relies on two succeeding causes: 1. greater security (whether it be material or psychological) results in less need for religion and 2. shifting cultural norms (in particular a move away from pro-fertility norms) drive people away from religion. This book uses data to support its thesis, and most of the data is provided in enlightening visualizations that help in understanding the movements in religious belief over the past 50 years.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the demographics and dynamics of religious belief, and should be of interest to both the religious and irreligious alike.

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Clandestine Library For Further Reading
Chapter By Chapter - Most Of The World Is Still Religious
Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2025
This is Inglehart’s last book since he passed away a few months after publication. It reads more like a draft of his personal thoughts on religious trends since it is not as coherent or well organized as other works he has contributed to. It suffers from unusual amounts of repetition of the same points chapter after chapter. It was written in 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic so it has some outdated views which governments and people now think were overreactions on policies.

This book attempts to explain why religion is in decline. However, Inglehart acknowledges that most of the world is still religious after a few centuries of modernization and also that religion is still growing due to increasingly growing populations in religious countries and shrinking populations in less religious countries. The actual argument of decline comes from a very limited time frame of data and from 2 survey questions that gauge “religiosity”. These self-reported surveys only show limited snapshots, are inherently problematic, and are not the whole story (more below). He used 1981-2020 data from World Values Survey and European Values Survey in 112 counties (xii). He states that from 1981-2007 the world became more religious and that from 2007-2020, it shifted to less (1). I find such shifting dubious since populations do not just flip. His methodology for measuring religiosity is mainly 2 survey questions - how important is god in your life and which do you believe in (God) (52-53). The binary (yes/no) nature of the WVS question on God gives some odd results compared to Pew Research Center’s more open question which allows for “higher power” instead of just “God” and allows for degrees of certainty on belief.

Research verifies that surveys in general have suffered globally from very low and declining response rates for decades and consistently fail to predict important things like political elections worldwide -casting reasonable doubt that they actually capture the real sentiments of any population (Inventing American Religion: Polls, Surveys, and the Tenuous Quest for a Nation’s Faith & Beullens, K et al. 2018. Response Rates in the European Social Survey: Increasing, Decreasing, or a Matter of Fieldwork Efforts?. Survey Methods: Insights from the Field & Zhou, Z. et al. 2021. Why Polls Fail to Predict Elections. Journal of Big Data. 8, 137) There are also translation issues in survey questions since many cultures do not have words or concepts that are equivalent to “religion” or “secular”. “God” is also not a universal concept in languages either. Ancestors or forces can be sources of “religion”, such as in the Confucian societies Inglehart mentions.

Much of his analysis focuses on Western countries, which is a minor part of non-religion globally: 76% of the non-religious in the world are from Asia and the pacific, while Europe (12%), North America (5%), Latin America/Caribbean (4%), sub-Saharan Africa (2%), Middle East/North Africa ( 1%)-Pew Research Center “Global Religious Landscape” report.

His analysis carries a very Western bias too. His view carries the false religion vs secular dichotomy. In doing so, he perpetuates the “religious congruence fallacy” that notable sociologists warn about and ignores the secular nature of religious people. The reality is that religious folk are also secular folk simultaneously by default. They use their time mostly on things of the world - here and now - inevitably.

By the way he writes, you would think that the West has already abandoned religion in the last decade alone. Yet most of the West is still majority religious in some way and atheism is still a minority view overall. Pew Research Center’s “Global Religious Futures Project” notes more nuance and, like other researchers of secularity, predicts decline in irreligion globally due to dropping fertility rates in less religious countries. Indeed, other researchers have fleshed out numerous versions of “secularization” processes and show that most do not lead to irreligion, secularism, or atheism (“What Is Atheism?” Jack Eller in “Atheism and Secularity” Vol 1).

Religion is complex and adapts, like culture. To various degrees, religious people are secular people by default and vice versa. Here are some examples. Using the same databases as this book, others have argued that religious beliefs would remain high even if say religious attendance were to decrease globally (Dhima & Golder. 2021. Secularization Theory and Religion. Politics and Religion. 14(1):37 -53). In the US, secular people exist in a paradox by being not religious and adhering to religion-like secular traditions -The Secular Paradox: On the Religiosity of the Not Religious. Globally, many of those who are “unaffiliated” to religion still have religious belief and practices (Pew Research Center “Global Religious Landscape” report). More than 70% of the “Nones” (atheist, agnostic, nothing in particular) in the US believe in God or a higher power (Pew Research Center). In Scandinavia, 47% of atheists are still members of national churches (“Atheism and Secularity: The Scandinavian Paradox” – Peter Lüchau in “Atheism and Secularity” Vol 2). The reality is that people are more complex and inconsistent with belief, belonging, and behavior (see “Rain Dances in the Dry Season: Overcoming the Religious Congruence Fallacy”-Mark Chaves).

Inglehart does get some things right though. In less religious countries, there is a greater emphasis on individualism, higher control over fertility which results in dropping fertility rates, community and family decreases, less adherence to marriage, and less trust in institutions. Wealth is correlated with less religiosity (but not causal) and less religiosity does not guarantee that people will be liberal politically since Inglehart acknowledges conservatism in power in highly secularized countries. The “existential security” view has some merit in that people may not need religion if the government takes the place of what community and religion provided. When the government caters to people, they become more individualistic, and people feel less committed to others – community and family decreases. Essentially “privileged” or spoiled because they do not need to connect to others to live their lives in comfort and they usually face first world problems, if any.

If one looks at the history of the concepts of “religion” and “secular” one can see that in reality they are recently invented abstractions and configurations. Scholars of the history of religion agree that “religion” is not a historical concept since it is not found in any ancient cultures or religious texts like the Old and New testaments, the Quran, Hindu Vedas etc. It is a modern Western concept that was invented recently in the 16th/17th centuries and the actual concept of religion is pretty much a template of Protestant Christianity -emphasizes belief, sacred texts, attendance at religious buildings, and rituals (Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept). On the other hand, “secular” is an older term and is an intricate part of ancient Roman and earliest Christian culture. For example, the world, the state, the law, and theology were not distinct and separate in the Middle Ages. There is even a long history and tradition of overlap with secularism within religion-The Secular Clergy in England, 1066-1216 & Secularism: The Basics (e.g. secularism has origins in the Bible and biblical thinkers).

So is religion suddenly declining since 2007? I am not convinced. Many cultures do not have the invented Western concept of “religion” or think like Westerners about such matters.

Chapter by chapter synopsis

1 The Shift from Pro-Fertility Norms to Individual-Choice Norms

“Secularization recently accelerated. Not long ago, Norris and Inglehart (2004/ 2011) analyzed religious change in 49 countries from which a substantial time series of survey evidence was available from 1981 to 2007. (These countries contain 60 percent of the world’s population.) They found that the publics of 33 out of 49 countries had become more religious during this period. When these same 49 countries were reexamined in 2020, the trend toward rising religiosity had reversed itself.”(1); “There are several reasons secularization is accelerating. One generally overlooked cause springs from the fact that, for many centuries, a coherent set of pro-fertility norms evolved in most countries that assigns women the role of producing as many children as possible and discourages divorce, abortion, homosexuality, contraception, and any other form of sexual behavior not linked with reproduction. Virtually all major world religions instill pro-fertility norms, which helped societies survive when facing high infant mortality and low life expectancy.”(1-2); “Norris and Inglehart (2004/ 2011) propose an alternative to all three versions of secularization theory, arguing that insecure people need the psychological support and reassuring predictability of traditional religion’s absolute rules-but that as survival becomes more secure, this need is reduced. They present evidence that industrialization, urbanization, growing prosperity, and other aspects of modernization are conducive to secularization. Nevertheless, they point out, the world as a whole now has more people with traditional religious views than it did 50 years ago because, while virtually all major religions encourage high birth rates, secularization has a strong negative impact on them. Today, virtually all high-income societies are relatively secular, and their birth rates have fallen below the population-replacement level-but low-income societies remain religious and are producing large numbers of children. Modernization brings secularization, but contrasting birth rates maintain the number of believers-at least for the time being, since birth rates are falling even in low-income countries.”(4); “Despite differential fertility rates, secularization has persisted, and has recently accelerated in much of the world, largely because of two related cultural shifts: 1. Insecure people need the predictability and absolute rules of traditional religion-and throughout history, survival has usually been insecure…2. A shift from pro-fertility norms to individual-choice norms.”(4); “Instead of attributing secularization to the advance of scientific knowledge or to modernization in general-both of which imply that secularization is a universal and unidirectional process-evolutionary modernization theory argues that secularization reflects rising levels of security. It occurs in countries that have attained high levels of existential security and can move in reverse if societies experience prolonged periods of declining security.”(5); evolution has pushed for pro-fertility norms and thus religion, since both are interlinked(11)

2 Religion Matters

Evolutionary basis of religion; religion helps people deal with uncertainties of life; religion and economic growth

3 The Secularization Debate

“Whether or not secularization is occurring depends on how you define it. The first step is to define religion itself.”(39); debates between different competitive theories (secularization, religious market, religious individualization); “Well into the 21st century, there was no consensus that secularization was taking place. But a growing body of evidence suggested that it was-not everywhere and under all conditions, as the “extinction” definition implied, but under theoretically predictable conditions and in many places.”(43)

4 Evolutionary Modernization Theory and Secularization

Hypothesis to be tested; “We test these hypotheses against data from the WVS and the EVS (collectively, the Values Surveys). These surveys cover the full economic spectrum, including 24 low-income countries, 29 lower-middle-income countries, 20 upper-middle-income countries, and 28 high-income countries, as classified by the World Bank in 2000. These surveys have been carried out in seven successive waves, from 1981 to 2020. They cover all major cultural zones, including the most populous countries in each zone, and include countries containing over 90 percent of the world’s population. Our dependent variable is religiosity, as measured by responses to the following questions: “How important is God in your life? Please use this scale to indicate. 10 means “very important” and 1 means “not at all important.”” This question is a sensitive indicator of overall trends in religiosity, being the highest-loading item on the first principal component in a factor analysis of 41 questions about religion (see Inglehart, 1990, p. 183). Another measure of religiosity is: “Which, if any, of the following do you believe in?. . . God Yes No” These questions have been asked in identical form in successive waves of the Values Surveys since 1981.”(52-53)

5 What's causing it?

Rise of individual choice norms

6 What’s Causing Secularization?

4 theories

7 Secularization Accelerates in High-Income Countries

Older and younger cohorts; US is not an exception; “As hypothesized, the publics of almost all high-income countries have moved toward increasing support for individual-choice norms, and in most cases this shift is quite large and has accelerated. Conversely, religiosity is very strong and shows little change in the Muslim-majority countries. Accordingly, as predicted, these countries show high levels of support for pro-fertility norms and little or no change in their support for these norms. But, as predicted, the publics of most ex-communist countries have shown rising support for religiosity since 1981. And accordingly, a majority of these publics show rising support for pro-fertility norms.”(101-102)

8 What Is Replacing Religion?

“As we will see, the Nordic countries consistently rank high on numerous other indicators of a well-functioning society, from homicide rates and economic equality to environmental protection and democracy. This does not mean that the Nordic peoples are inherently better or wiser than other people. It largely reflects the fact that they have had the good fortune to grow up under a combination of circumstances, including prosperity and high life expectancy, that produce a relatively strong sense of existential security.”(110); multiple tables comparing countries and societal health; declining role of family in more secularized countries (113); a look at China; “But measuring human happiness is further complicated by another fact: there are both traditional and modern routes to happiness, and they have contrasting relationships with religion. The three following statements seem contradictory, but they are empirically true: 1. Within any country, religious people are generally happier than nonreligious people. 2. Highly religious countries are poorer than nonreligious ones. 3. The people of rich countries are happier and more satisfied with their lives than the people of poor countries. This reflects the fact that, for centuries, religion helped people cope with life even when facing starvation, disease, and oppression. But developed countries have found ways to reduce or eliminate starvation, disease, oppression, and xenophobia. This is conducive to happiness and life satisfaction-but it reduces the role of religion.”(136-137)

9 At What Point Does Even Sweden Get a Xenophobic Party?

Even countries that are supposedly secular like Germany not always liberal, but can be xenophobic; Germany xenophobic politics; “Nevertheless, the grim reality is that today, every Nordic country except Iceland (which has very little immigration) has a strong and influential anti-immigrant party. How did this happen? It seems to reflect a deep-rooted emotional response to the threat of invasion, triggered by large-scale immigration in a setting of rapid cultural change and declining economic security.”(145); “This enduring phenomenon continues to be relevant today and helps explain the global surge of support for xenophobic populism that includes Trump, Brexit, and the Alternative for Germany.”(146); “Recent decades have brought the opposite concern—that people are having too few children to replace the population, making the welfare state unsustainable and resulting in inward-looking, less dynamic societies. Figure 9.5 shows that since 1950, the world’s human fertility rates have dropped, from about 5.0 children per woman to slightly more than 2.5 children per woman. Almost half of the world’s population now lives in countries with below-replacement fertility levels, and virtually all high-income countries now have fertility rates that are well below the population-replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. The fertility rate for Europe as a whole fell from 2.66 in 1950 to 1.6 in 2015—a level so far below the population replacement level that it already is starting to bring population declines, and will bring much larger ones as the baby boom generation dies off. East Asia (China, Japan, North and South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mongolia) has experienced an even steeper decline than Europe, from a fertility rate of 5.56 in 1950 to 1.59 in 2015.”(157); “The world as a whole still has more people with traditional religious views than ever before because of higher birth rates in religious countries, but the difference is shrinking.”(158)

10 What Comes Next?

Speculations about the future

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Brian
Enjoyed expanding my thoughts, writing was incredibly repetitive
Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2022
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This was more of an academic research paper than a book. I wish the author made all the stats “appendix items” rather than inline part of the narrative.

On the positive, the theses in the book have really made me think deeply about how the world is connected and bringing some explanation of “why” to our current state of affairs in the US.

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Creekerken
Did not hold m interest
Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2021
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Way too much money for a book that did not hold my interest after many pages read.

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Kenneth R Knight
Great book
Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2022
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Great book

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Ingmar de Boer
Religion's Sudden Decline: What's Causing It, and What Comes Next?
Reviewed in the Netherlands on February 25, 2024
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2021 update to The Sacred and Secular published around the time of Inglehart's death. Paints a picture of causes and possible causes for society's changes in the area of religion since 2007. Data from the World Values Survey are used, offering a broad picture of global developments, in many graphs and tables. Not to be missed.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Religion's Sudden Decline: What's Causing It, and What Comes Next?

Religion's Sudden Decline: What's Causing It, and What Comes Next?