America's Religious Future: Dechristianization (Not Secularization)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-laderman/religion-in-america_b_3632516.html

Gary Laderman
Chair of the Department of Religion, Emory University

Posted: 07/22/2013 6:43 pm

What is this country coming to? Anyone who pays attention to religion in America can see monumental changes and conflicts affecting the present and looming in the future. And anyone with a smidgen of historical awareness knows that religion has always been at the core of American society.

Americans are divided over the theological meanings bound up in the recent not guilty verdict in the Trayvon Martin trial... Americans can't decide if gay marriage is a sacred vow or a heinous sin... Americans are increasingly following the path of SBNR ("spiritual but not religious&quot in their pursuit of the sacred.... Americans still believe in God but they surely do not agree about how to define and understand God...

What does all this turmoil and contestation, argumentation and confusion say about the state of religion and its place in American society?

For some social scientists and armchair philosophers, the increasing fragmentation of religion is a sign of secularization. All religions are losing their influence and a more secular frame of mind, anchored by natural sciences, economics, political science, and self-interest, rules the day in American culture. With the loss of social power and cultural authority, however, come forms of religious extremism and more public contestations -- the dangerous mixture of religion and politics that we see so frequently today.

more at link