A recent study discovered a trend toward irreligion in America. The American Religious Identification Survey, conducted by the Program on Public Values at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., found that 15 percent of respondents said they had no religion. A similar survey conducted in 1990 found that 8.2 percent of Americans were irreligious.
A recent study discovered a trend toward irreligion in America. The American Religious Identification Survey, conducted by the Program on Public Values at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., found that 15 percent of respondents said they had no religion. A similar survey conducted in 1990 found that 8.2 percent of Americans were irreligious.
While 15 percent does represent not a huge number of Americans, the figure is significant, especially in light of the fact that it represents an increase of 55 percent over a time frame of 18 years. If the trend continues at this same pace, in 18 years 23 percent of Americans will claim no religion. In 36 years the number will stand at 36 percent and in 54 years the number of irreligious in the United States will grow to 55 percent – a clear majority.
It is interesting to note that the growth of irreligion in America
has occurred at the same time state and federal government has expanded. A recent study conducted by Anthony Gill and Erik Lundsgaarde, political scientists at the University of Washington in Seattle, found that there is a correlation between state spending, especially welfare expenditures, and irreligion.
Simply put, Gill and Lundsgaarde found: “Countries with higher levels of per capita welfare have a proclivity for less religious participation and tend to have higher percentages of non-religious individuals.”
Sweden, for instance, has one of the largest welfare states in the world and is one of the most irreligious as well.
The same can be said of some other Scandinavian and European countries. In sharp contrast, countries with a history of limited government, like the United States, have significantly higher rates of religiosity.
What the Gill and Lundsgaarde’s study seems to indicate is that as a government grows, its citizens reliance on God declines (and vice versa). Gill was quoted in The Wall Street Journal saying,
“[A]s the welfare state has expanded, many people have found that they can get the same services from the government without having to give a time commitment to the local church.”
While American government has grown in recent years, it has been a relatively gradual expansion. However, if Washington has its way, the growth rate of government is about to accelerate at a significant pace.
The prevailing philosophy in Washington right now seems to be that the government is, and must be, the answer to all our problems. Whether it is health care, education, mortgages, financial difficulties, the environment, joblessness and even the BCS Championship, the government is the solution.
If the believers in big government have their way, Americans will not have to trust God for anything because their benevolent Uncle Sam will provide everything. When that happens, according to Gill and Lundsgaarde’s study, irreligion will increase proportionally.
Atheists and secularists should not be too quick to celebrate the rise of irreligion in America. With the decline in religion will come an increase in immorality, crime – especially the white collar variety – and incivility.
We may have already seen an increase in the aforementioned social ills. A recent study found that in 2007 births to unwed mothers in the United States reached an all-time high of approximately 40 percent. Scams and scandals plague the financial sector of our country and civil discourse continues to erode.
While religion does not guarantee a person will be moral, lawful and civil, at the very least there is a moral authority that informs an individual’s conscience. In the case of Christianity, there is not only the authority of the Bible; there is also accountability to an all-knowing God.
Christians obey the government because the Bible instructs them to do so. Followers of Christ pay taxes because Jesus said to “render unto Caesar [the government] that which belongs to Caesar.”
Christians are motivated to be moral, lawful and civil because they understand there is an ultimate accountability to an omniscient God.
To be sure, an irreligious person can be a moral person, but what is it that informs his or her conscience? Why should an atheist or secularist be moral, lawful or civil? Because the government says it is required? What accountability is there other than to the government?
Our sixth president, John Quincy Adams, wrote, “[T]hree points of doctrine, the belief of which forms the foundation of all morality: The first is the existence of a God; the second is the immortality of the human soul; and the third is a future state of reward and punishments.”
Adams continued, “Suppose it possible for a man to disbelieve either of these articles of faith and that man will have not a conscience, he will have no other law than that of the tiger or the shark; the laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy.”
If a person cannot, or will not, be moral lawful and civil of his or her own accord, the government must step in and force proper behavior, otherwise chaos will be the result. A just and peaceful society is simply not possible if everyone does what is “right” in his or her own eyes.
If the rise of irreligion continues, it will result in government justifying the use of surveillance to police citizens in order to keep the peace. The result will be the evaporation of privacy. Can you say Big Brother?
An example of what to expect is already taking place. Because there are not enough police officers to monitor every intersection, the government is increasingly utilizing red-light cameras to monitor and regulate behavior at traffic interchanges. The same is also true for parking lots, office buildings and other public areas.
“Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled by a power within them or by a power without them,” former Speaker of the House Robert Winthrop said, “either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or the bayonet.” Winthrop, a Massachusetts representative who served from 1838-1840, was correct in his assessment.
A person will have his or her behavior regulated by the fear of God, or he or she will be forced to have it regulated by the fear of government.
With the recent trend toward irreligion in America coupled with Washington’s plans to expand the role of government, the latter seems more likely than ever before in our nation’s history. And that is a very disturbing thought.