Orthodox, Traditional Christianity Has Already Lost

Atheists' concerns about the power and influence of irrational religion in America are not unjustified. Such concerns should, however, be matched by a recognition of the degree to which secularization has changed religion and religious conviction. Unless a radical reversal occurs, it's not too far off the mark to say that orthodox, traditional Christianity has already lost — this is because hardly anyone accepts such Christianity anymore. A resurgence isn't impossible, but it also isn't likely. Christianity is on a steep decline, even among Christians.

In his review of Richard Dawkins, book The God Delusion, Steven Weinberg writes:

[A]lthough most Americans may be sure of the value of religion, as far as I can tell they are not very certain about the truth of what their own religion teaches. According to a recent article in the New York Times, American evangelists are in despair over a poll that showed that only 4 per cent of American teenagers will be "Bible-believing Christians" as adults. The spread of religious toleration provides evidence of the weakening of religious certitude.

Most Christian groups have historically taught that there is no salvation without faith in Christ. If you are really sure that anyone without such faith is doomed to an eternity of Hell, then propagating that faith and suppressing disbelief would logically be the most important thing in the world - far more important than any merely secular virtues like religious toleration. Yet religious toleration is rampant in America. No one who publicly expressed disrespect for any particular religion could be elected to a major office.

...Much of the weakening of religious certitude in the Christian West can be laid at the door of science; even people whose religion might incline them to hostility to the pretensions of science generally understand that they have to rely on science rather than religion to get things done.

But this has not happened to anything like the same extent in the world of Islam. One finds in Islamic countries not only religious opposition to specific scientific theories, as occasionally in the West, but a widespread religious hostility to science itself. ...The consequences are hideous. Whatever one thinks of the Muslims who blow themselves up in crowded cities in Europe or Israel or fly planes into buildings in the US, who could dispute that the certainty of their faith had something to do with it?

Given how widespread religious belief continues to be in America, it is probably difficult for most secular atheists to realize just how far they've come. The problem is probably due to how slowly society changes — people are so unfamiliar with how religion used to be that it's difficult to see the extent to which religion has changed. Moreover, because so many secular atheists would like to see irrational religious theism disappear, the continued presence of such religion hardly feels like progress.

Even if irrational religious theism were to disappear (as unlikely as that is), it wouldn't disappear in one fell swoop. It would have to slowly degrade and change, which is arguably something we are seeing right now. So many Christians today have not only abandoned both certainty and traditional, orthodox beliefs, but they appear to be completely unaware of what they have abandoned. They sincerely think that their current beliefs are appropriate and correct, not realizing that not long ago they'd be treated as heretics.

Consider this report of the experiences of Sherry Weddell, Co-Director of the Catherine of Siena Institute:

The woman thought for a moment and then calmly stated that she didn't have a personal relationship with God. I probed gently, realizing that she just might not think of her faith in those terms. Surely she wouldn't be so active as a parish and diocesan leader and really have no lived relationship with God. For the entire hour, she continued to talk about her involvement with the Church in terms that could have been used by the atheist president of a Rotary Club. Although I listened intently, I didn't hear the tiniest shred of spiritual experience or motivation. This is particularly ironic since her parish was run by a charismatic religious order. But even there, the question of her relationship with God had apparently never been asked.

I had another learning experience some months later while interviewing the president of a parish council in another state. By this point, I had started to ask the question whenever someone didn't spontaneously start talking about their relationship with God. "Could you briefly describe your relationship with God to this point in your life."?

Her answer was direct and delivered with fire in her eyes. "I'll tell you what I think. I think that God created the world, gave us intelligence and free will and the moral law, sent the prophets and Jesus to teach us what to do, and then left us alone to keep the moral law and take care of the world. We can choose to do so or not. Those of us who do so pretty well go to heaven. God is pretty distant on a day to-day basis. He doesn't interfere."

I sat stupefied for the moment. The president of the pastoral council was a Deist, a believer in the perverbial "clockmaker" God, and completely Palagian in her understanding of salvation!

This is a description of the experiences of a Catholic woman, by the way — the Catholic Church maintains a much tighter hold on doctrinal orthodoxy than Protestant churches. Even here, though, we have two parish and diocesan leaders without any feelings of having a relationship with the Christian god. They are active, sincere, devout believers who play important roles in their religious communities — they are models, arguably, of living a Christian life in America. How they live, however, is almost indistinguishable from how a secular atheist lives.

The answers and lives of these Catholics would not have been at all acceptable to church authorities in the past — they are completely at odds with traditional, orthodox Christian doctrine. Today, however, so many seem to be treating such positions as entirely natural and normal. Atheists haven't been the immediate cause of all this, obviously, but widespread secularization and secularism have played significant roles in these changes — and it's why atheists, in order to combat religion, must look first and foremost to political, social, and cultural secularization.

Atheists' logical and scientific arguments against religion and theism will have a little direct impact; broader secularization of society will have a much deeper and and longer-lasting impact (and atheists' arguments can go a long way towards encouraging this). This means that the most important political issues for atheists will revolve around defending and expanding church/state separation, scientific education, and secular institutions. In the long run, this will undermine the power and influence of religion far more than any books, interviews, or debates.