Secularization and the Problem of Passing Faith on to the Next Generation
A recurring topic of conversation among Christians is the loss of young people who grew up in church. Some want to cast this as a particularly “fundamentalist” or “evangelical” or “[insert-name-of-denomination-here]” problem. A recent headline, for example: “Why some younger evangelicals are leaving the faith.” The article is unsurprising as far as it goes, but its value is in the headline, the body of the article involves responses of the disgruntled who have moved on and falls victim of a very small and very limited sample size.
Despite deficiencies in the first article, we all have a sense that there is some loss as our society seems more and more distant from and unaffected by Bible-believing Christian influence. Research from Barna seems to bear this out. A January 14, 2020 article from Barna offers this headline: “Tracking the Growth and Decline of Religious Segments: The Rise of Atheism.” A chart in this article shows a decline in what Barna calls “Legacy Evangelicals” and a rise in the category, “Atheist/Agnostic/None.”
Cameron Hilditch, a write at National Review, reports on a study that gives an interesting take on the cause behind the declines, “Secularization Caused by Government Control of Education.” The article is behind the NR paywall, so I will offer a few highlights. It is based on a study by Raphaël Franke and Laurence R. Iannaccone, “Religious Decline in the 20th Century West: testing alternative explanations.”
Hilditch says,
Why has the West become less and less religious over recent decades and centuries? The conventional answers given to this question are false, and they are all contained within a controlling 19th-century narrative of modernization.
Simply put, it is widely assumed today that the Western world became less religious because it modernized. For the avoidance of doubt, it’s perhaps best to list here some of the trends that might be grouped under the umbrella term “modernization.” These would include the spread of scientific knowledge and mass education, urbanization, industrialization, capitalism, pluralism, technological advance, increasing prosperity, and better health. The Spanish sociologist José Casanova wrote in 1994 that some version of the theory that these modernizing trends caused the demise of religion was “shared by all the founding fathers” of 19th-century sociology.
Working through these commonly accepted causes, Franke and Iannaccone demonstrate that none of them contribute to secularization and religious decline. For example, a common theory that the rise of cities (urbanization) led to religious decline. On the contrary, it seems that the rise of cities led to much religious activity. The 19th century was called the Great Century of Christian Missions by some. It is also the century of the Industrial Revolution, increasing prosperity, scientific achievement, and urbanization. These dynamic change factors supported the world-wide growth of religion and what some of us look back on as a “Golden Age” of revival and evangelism.
What caused decline?
In fact, the overwhelming cause of secularization in the West has been government control of education.
Hilditch carefully points out that it isn’t simply the fact of education, or educational achievement that leads to the rise of secularization. It is the fact that the government controls the curriculum and most of the educational process. He quotes the study:
Our results fit well with studies that link religious commitment to religious capital accumulated through experience, instruction, and interactions. Where you stand depends largely on where you have been sitting, and with whom. And most youthful sitting occurs in schools. The principal policy lessons should not surprise public choice researchers: schools are instruments of indoctrination, both religious and secular; competing interests battle endlessly over every aspect of education; and no institution wields more power in modern nations than the centralized state.
The current battles over Critical Race Theory, erupting in local school boards, are symptomatic of the dire consequences of government control of education. Parents, even those of less religious persuasions, have growing concern over the indoctrination children receive in their schools.
Hilditch suggests there are really only two alternatives to the current state of affairs. One would be the creation of “separate schools” (my term) like the “charter school” model, where conservative or religious parents could direct government funding in an educational model they can support. This might be a daunting task, though Hilditch thinks it is not unprecedented in America, and, as such, is theoretically possible. The other option is simply home-schooling, though some families might find the costs prohibitive. Perhaps Christians and Christian churches should think about how to supplement these costs in some way to make similar alternatives more affordable to more church people.
There are no easy solutions, but these matters are worth our attention going forward.
Finally, there is more to the National Review article. I recommend it. I also recommend paying to get through the paywall. NR has a variety of writers, some more conservative than others, but I am finding the writing of Cameron Hilditch worth the price of admission.
Don Johnson is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.
Photo by tableatny shared under a Creative Commons 2.0 License.