‘RELIGIOUS FEELINGS’
As the Old Faiths Collapse, the Greens, Social Justice Warriors, and Techno-Futurists Aim to Fill the Void
Joel Kotkin,
Alicia Kurimska
Photo Illustration by Lyne Lucien/The Daily Beast
The pews are emptying virtually everywhere in the higher-income world. The Catholic Church is divided and enmeshed in scandal, unable to prevent even historically cleric-dominated Ireland from liberalizing abortion. The once vibrant evangelical movement is losing momentum in the developed world while the more established Protestant and Jewish congregations are shrinking, some at a rapid rate.
Yet rather than an end to faith, this fading of religion may presage the radical re-invention of spiritualism. Just as Christianity replaced paganism at the end of the Roman Empire, rising new faiths—built around notions of social justice, the environment, and technology to extend life or even achieve immortality—may supplant the old ones.
The decline of organized religion is clear. In 24 of 42 traditionally Christian countries, many of them in Europe, the Christian population is already shrinking, deaths among Christians already exceed births—a trend that Pew predicts (PDF) will accelerate. Only in Africa, where faith has tended towards fundamentalism, do Christian births seem likely to continue outnumber births. The Jewish population in Europe, meanwhile, is less than half of what it was in 1960.
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