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Transcript
0:00
Translator: Leonardo Silva Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
0:06
Hello.
0:07
My name is David Voas,
0:09
and I'm going to be talking about religion.
0:11
Now, I know some of you are really tempted to dash for the exit at this stage,
0:15
but I should explain that I'm a quantitative social scientist,
0:20
and I'm going to be talking about the decline of religion in the Western World.
0:24
Now, whether measured by belonging, believing, participation in services,
0:30
or how important it's felt to be in life,
0:33
religion is losing ground across the Western world.
0:37
Society is being transformed, and the momentum seems to be unstoppable.
0:43
Well, at this point, you might be asking yourself a couple of questions.
0:46
First, is it actually true?
0:49
And even if religion is losing ground, could things change in the future?
0:55
I'm going to argue that, yes, it really is true,
0:58
and, no, things won't change.
1:01
Modernization has predictable and permanent effects,
1:04
one of which I call the secular transition.
1:09
Well,
1:11
it's not the case that the pattern of decline
1:13
is that people reach the age of 30 or 40 or 50
1:17
and suddenly decide that they're not religious anymore.
1:20
What happens is they enter adulthood being less religious than their parents were.
1:26
So there's a process of generational replacement,
1:29
where older people who are more religious die out,
1:32
and they're replaced in the population by younger people coming up behind.
1:37
And that's a process that's been happening for decades now across the Western world -
1:42
in some cases, for a century or more.
1:47
Let me take as the example whether people say they have a religion.
1:53
And I'll use the example particularly of New Zealand,
1:55
which has a question on the census about this.
1:59
If you look at this graph,
2:00
the horizontal axis at the bottom shows year of birth.
2:05
So we go from the beginning of the 20th century, on the left,
2:08
to late 20th century, on the right.
2:11
And you can see that for the oldest generations,
2:15
those on the left-hand side,
2:16
virtually everybody says that they have a religion.
2:19
And you come down to the right-hand side,
2:22
and roughly two-thirds say they don't.
2:26
So that's a remarkable shift
2:28
to have happened in the course of less than a century.
2:32
Well, this sort of story is found throughout the Western world,
2:37
even in the United States, which is often thought to be an exception.
2:41
Things have started more recently there,
2:44
the process is still only just starting to be noticed,
2:49
but it is happening.
2:50
I'll come back to the US in a moment.
2:53
And it's similar whatever measure we take.
2:55
So it's the same for attendance at services, for example.
2:59
Well, you might be thinking,
3:02
"Okay, the old Christian denominations are struggling,
3:05
people don't identify with them so much, they may not be going to services,
3:08
but surely, they still believe in God,
3:11
or at any rates, they're spiritual in some sense
3:14
even if they're not religious."
3:17
Well, here is the United States,
3:19
and this shows the proportion of the people
3:24
who say they know God really exists and they have no doubts about it,
3:29
again by year of birth -
3:30
older people on the left, younger people on the right.
3:34
And you can see that in the older section of the population,
3:38
something of the order of three-quarters,
3:40
say they know God really exists,
3:42
and that falls to not much better than 2 in 5
3:46
for people born later in the 20th century.
3:50
Or Canada, for example,
3:52
where we have data on the importance in life
3:56
of religious or indeed spiritual beliefs.
4:00
And here again, we see a sharp generational gradient,
4:03
from something like two-thirds of the oldest generation
4:07
saying that these beliefs are very important to them,
4:10
and that drops down to something like 1 in 5
4:13
for the youngest adult generations.
4:18
Well, as you look at those, you may be well wondering
4:21
whether I'm simply comparing the effect of being old
4:25
with the effect of being young.
4:27
Is it the case that people become more religious as they get older?
4:31
Well, we have census and survey data going back quite a number of years -
4:36
decades, in fact -
4:37
across the Western World now,
4:38
and we can answer that question.
4:40
And the answer is no.
4:42
On average, people within a given generation don't change
4:46
across the adult-life course.
4:48
So what we're seeing is not the effect of age,
4:50
but permanent generation gaps.
4:53
Lack of religion isn't just a stage that young people are going through.
5:00
So this idea that there's something about modernization
5:05
that erodes religious commitments,
5:08
that reduces the respect accorded to religion,
5:11
is known as the secularization thesis.
5:14
And there are a couple of objections that are commonly raised nowadays
5:18
to the secularization thesis.
5:20
One is the example of the United States,
5:22
which is modern, and yet religion seems to thrive.
5:26
And if it's an exception, then surely no generalizations are possible.
5:31
The other objection that's commonly raised
5:33
is that we're looking at change, not decline,
5:37
and that while those old, conventional churches may well be struggling,
5:42
there are new churches, new religious movements -
5:44
Mormons and Pentecostals, for example -
5:47
there's alternative spirituality and indeed non-Christian faiths,
5:52
like Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism,
5:55
that are gaining ground across the West.
5:59
Well, as I mentioned a moment ago,
6:01
even in the United States, in fact,
6:05
it seems that decline has set in.
6:08
We only just have the data now to notice,
6:11
but it seems that it started a few decades ago.
6:15
And it's following the same pattern of generational replacement
6:18
that we've observed elsewhere in the West.
6:21
And while it is the case that there have been developments,
6:26
particularly immigration,
6:28
that have brought people from more religious countries
6:30
into the Western world,
6:32
those effects aren't big enough to reverse the main trend.
6:38
So -
6:40
so far so good,
6:42
or so bad, depending on your view of religion.
6:46
Secularization is happening.
6:48
But there's still a big question.
6:51
You may be asking,
6:52
"Isn't it possible that the popularity of religion could be restored,
6:55
even in the Western world?"
6:58
After all, faith promises benefits
7:01
that are difficult or impossible to obtain any other way.
7:06
It offers meaning, purpose, solace,
7:10
ultimate justice, life after death,
7:13
the prospect of being reunited with loved ones,
7:15
and so on.
7:20
Isn't it the case, you might be wondering,
7:22
that nothing is irreversible?
7:29
There's a reluctance nowadays, I think,
7:32
to believe that we're converging towards some determined future.
7:39
This is a notion that was popular in the mid 20th century,
7:42
but that's fallen out of favor.
7:45
It reminds us now a bit of the Victorian idea of progress,
7:49
where the highest form of civilization
7:51
is represented by people who are remarkably just like us.
7:57
And yet, modernization does have effects.
8:01
We can look at, for example, the Human Development Index,
8:04
which is calculated each year by a United Nations agency.
8:09
It's based on life expectancy,
8:12
years of education,
8:14
national income per capita.
8:16
And on that score,
8:19
Norway is currently at the top;
8:21
Niger, in Africa, is at the bottom.
8:24
And as you look down this list of all the different countries in the world,
8:28
it's very apparent
8:29
that the most highly developed countries are the least religious
8:33
and the least developed countries are the most religious.
8:38
Now, there are some exceptions.
8:40
There are the countries on the Arabian Peninsula, for example,
8:44
that produce oil, are off the trend line.
8:47
They're rich, but religious.
8:49
But in the mid 20th century,
8:51
they were underdeveloped and very traditional.
8:56
So it's certainly the case
8:57
that religious decline comes very late in the process of modernization,
9:02
but it does come, at least if societies modernize.
9:10
If we think about
9:15
the very question about whether religion can decline in society,
9:22
it's often objected that most of the world is religious.
9:25
And that's very true,
9:26
but then, most of the world isn't very highly developed.
9:30
So I'm talking specifically about the 40 or 50 countries
9:34
that have gone furthest down the path of modernization,
9:38
places in Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand,
9:42
a few in East Asia, a few in Latin America.
9:46
The 140, 150 countries elsewhere are very different.
9:57
It's not easy to specify the causal mechanisms,
9:59
and indeed, it would take another few talks
10:02
to even try to sketch some of the factors
10:06
that might connect modernizaton with problems for religion.
10:11
But to name just a few:
10:13
prosperity brings choice
10:15
and an unwillingness to defer to traditional authority;
10:20
secular and scientific worldviews start to displace religious worldviews;
10:26
communications and geographical mobility
10:29
bring people into contact with different cultures and beliefs;
10:34
and physical and material security
10:37
seem to reduce the need for the solace provided by spirituality.
10:44
Now, whether any or perhaps all of these factors operate,
10:50
it's clear that there's something about the process of modernization
10:53
that does cause problems for religion.
11:02
Moreover, it's very difficult for religion to bounce back.
11:08
We do know of some places
11:10
where religious involvement has increased in recent decades,
11:14
but those are typically places where national elites had suppressed religion
11:20
or imposed a degree of secularity that was lower
11:24
than the development of the country would find natural.
11:30
So one thinks, for example, of Iran, the former Soviet Union, China,
11:35
even Turkey perhaps -
11:37
but when those regimes fell or restrictions were relaxed,
11:40
religion rebounded to something that was more like an appropriate level,
11:45
given the degree of modernization.
11:50
So the secular transition is underway,
11:54
but why should it be irreversible?
11:58
I think the key reason is that people with no religion
12:01
have great difficulty in acquiring one.
12:04
And if you're wondering why that's the case,
12:07
it might help in understanding this
12:10
to think about a religion that's not your own.
12:13
Now, I'm going to guess that most of you watching aren't Hindu.
12:17
Apologies to those of you who are.
12:19
You can think of a different religion.
12:22
But here, as an example, are some of the Hindu deities.
12:29
And here are some scenes of Hindu worship.
12:34
Now, some of you may decide that Hinduism is the faith that you've been looking for,
12:39
but I suspect that for most of you, it seems a bit exotic, strange,
12:45
maybe even slightly scary.
12:48
And I suggest that that's the position
12:51
that a large proportion of young adults in the West are in
12:54
with respect to any religion.
12:58
They weren't brought up going to church, and they don't feel comfortable attending.
13:04
They didn't grow up with Christian doctrine.
13:06
That's not to say they won't become Christian.
13:09
Some of them will. Many will.
13:12
Some will become Hare Krishna or Muslim or Buddhist.
13:16
But most won't,
13:17
and for most, in fact, it's nearly impossible.
13:22
You have to be raised with a religion to find it natural.
13:27
Now, I'm not suggesting that religious belief is inherently implausible
13:31
or religious practice is inherently odd.
13:37
On the contrary.
13:39
What I want to argue is that it's a matter of custom and culture.
13:43
So in the past, in the West,
13:47
most people had a religion, at least nominally.
13:50
Most people had some sort of religious knowledge.
13:54
Religious involvement was the norm,
13:57
and it was supported by culture and popular sentiment.
14:02
These days, the default is quite the reverse.
14:05
Many people grow up with very little acquaintance with religion
14:09
or religious identity.
14:12
Religion has become almost countercultural,
14:16
indeed to the extent that people who have any contact with religion,
14:20
it's often in news stories about extremism or abuse or intolerance.
14:26
And that's simply not conducive for religious revival.
14:33
I'm not arguing that Westerners are all rationalist,
14:36
with a naturalistic worldview.
14:39
On the contrary.
14:41
A large proportion, at least half, believe in God or something out there,
14:46
a higher power perhaps.
14:49
Another large, perhaps non-overlapping proportion
14:52
believe in some form of life after death.
14:56
But for most people, it's not something they're really interested in,
15:00
it's not something that's very important in their lives;
15:02
they have little interest in becoming religiously active.
15:09
So the secular transition is underway.
15:14
Because it proceeds by generational replacements,
15:18
it works very slowly and will be going on for years to come.
15:23
When it comes to human beings, nothing is certain,
15:28
but I hope that I've shown you that there's a good argument
15:32
there's no way back for religion in the West.
15:35
Thank you.
15:36
(Applause)
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