A couple of months ago, I moved back to the town where I grew up after two decades of living elsewhere. I felt waves of nostalgia as I showed my wife and children around.
“This is where I went to school,” I explained as we drove through town. My wife humored me, but the kids looked kind of bored. Regardless, I was having a good time reminiscing, as older people sometimes do.
“And there… there is where I went to church when I was a kid,” I pointed to an old, steepled building that, to be honest, looked a little tired and run down. The gardens were slightly overgrown, and the paint was chipping off the walls. The sign out the front was exactly as I remembered it, but I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“Dad, that looks like a dump,” My daughter said.
I couldn’t deny it, and I felt a little sad to see a piece of my childhood in such a state of disrepair.
Once we had settled into our new home in my old town, I began to make inquiries about the local churches that were around. The plan was to go and try a few out. I remembered from when I was a kid where all the big and ‘happening’ churches were, so I asked about them first.
What I discovered left me shocked — although perhaps it should not have. Without exception, every single big and ‘happening’ church from when I was a kid had shrunk… significantly and noticeably. It was easy to find a car park. The pews were half-empty, the laughter of children was missing, and the congregations were overrepresented by the elderly.
I knew on an academic level that the church in the West is in decline, but to see it before my own eyes suddenly made it very real.
What’s going on?
Why does Christianity seem to be spreading like holy wildfire in certain countries, while in others, it’s fizzling out like a cheap firework? — most notably in the West? Why? When you explore the many theories on offer, there are a number of common themes and ideas.
Is it Persecution?
Christianity Today reports that hundreds of millions of Christians in numerous countries face severe persecution for their faith. What is more, unfortunately, religious persecution is on the rise. While many Christians view persecution as a significant factor in the decline of the church, the reality is more complex. For example, even in nations where Christianity has suffered significant harm due to persecution (such as present-day Iraq), the church has demonstrated remarkable resilience, not only surviving but often flourishing despite the obstacles.
Interestingly, Christianity’s growth does not seem to be influenced by whether or not the nation is free from religious persecution. In some cases, the opposite might even be true.
Is it Pluralism?
Some Christians firmly believe that the only way to give their faith a fighting chance is by shutting the door on all other religions. These believers claim that the increasing acceptance of religious pluralism is causing Christianity to wilt and wither on the vine. “If only we had kept those pesky people with their different faiths out of our country and didn’t encourage their strange ideas to gain a foothold in our culture,” they grumble.
Is it affluence?
Some argue that as people become increasingly prosperous, they no longer need to rely on a higher power to meet their daily needs. The invocation of a deity is reduced to nothing more than irrational superstition. Essentially, the more money you have, the less likely you are to believe in God. Some use this argument in inverse to explain the rise of Christianity in Africa, for example, where there are still many people in great need. They need their God as a kind of cosmic crutch, or so the argument goes.
Is it science and education?
Another proposition floating around is referred to as the secularization thesis. Essentially, this theory suggests that as society becomes more technologically advanced and education levels increase, Christianity’s impact on society will gradually fade away. It is not unusual to hear someone claim, “I don’t believe in God; I believe in Science,” as if the two were mutually exclusive. The belief that one day our knowledge of the universe would supersede our need for a God as an explanation is prevalent.
Is it the church itself?
The church has proven more than capable of shooting itself in the foot. Perhaps the crisis of church attendance is a mess of the church’s own making. Guilt-based religion, spiritual abuse, and child-sex scandals are not great for public relations. Add to this the fact that the prevailing views of modern people are increasingly at odds with conservative Christianity on many issues — like human sexuality and gender, for example — and it is no surprise that many choose to distance themselves from their former religious beliefs.
What new research tells us
There may be merit and truth to some of the arguments above. Perhaps it does have something to do with persecution, pluralism, affluence, science, and education, or even problems within the church itself. However, a new study published recently in the journal Sociology of Religion has revealed a surprising new theory behind the decline of Christianity in many Western nations.
Nilay Saiya, a researcher from the University of Singapore, has conducted an extensive statistical analysis spanning over ten years across more than 160 countries. His findings suggest a direct correlation between the dwindling popularity of Christianity in certain countries and the extent of support those countries’ governments provide to the religion via their legal and policy frameworks. In other words, the more the government endorses Christianity, the fewer people tend to follow the religion.
So it seems the age-old concept of the separation of church and state actually has some merit. Meanwhile, the more Christians clutch at political power, the faster they drive Christianity to extinction.
Why Government Involvement Destroys Christianity
When I first read this research, I found it hard to compute. How could government support for Christianity actually lead to its decline? Growing up in the church, I had been taught to believe that we needed good Christians in politics to preserve the Christian fabric of our society — enforce it, in fact.
Far from the marriage of church and state being detrimental to the health of the church, I was taught that inserting Christians in positions of influence would ensure the church’s future. And certainly, that’s the clear and shameless goal of much of the conservative branch of Christianity in the USA.
However, the more I reflected on the findings of this study, the more they began to make complete sense. Let me explain how state support negatively impacts the spiritual health of the church.
When the church forgets its mission
I used to work with a Christian organization that ran programs for troubled youth in local schools. It was a grassroots movement that simply wanted to demonstrate the love of Christ by offering practical and tangible assistance to others with no strings attached.
At some point, though, they began to lobby the government for financial support. They actively encouraged people connected to the organization to vote for particular politicians who would advocate for government funding while rejecting other candidates. Thus, by bringing political pressure to bear, they were able to obtain government funding and achieve bipartisan support.
However, something changed in the organization after that. Every election cycle, the organization would have to carry out another round of political lobbying to protect its financial interests. They would spend much of their time and resources convincing the community at large that they deserved to receive such government support. And, once they were enslaved to political funding, they were equally enslaved to the bureaucracy and red tape that comes with government money. Eventually, this organization lost its heart and soul, and many of the people who made the organization great in the first place.
Similarly, when churches start to cozy up to the state, they can get lost in the sauce of politics and forget about their mission to spread the good news, love God and love others, and serve the poor and unfortunate. Instead, the focus shifts from being all about love and kindness to being all about power and privilege. State-funded churches end up losing their soul and driving away those who actually have some spiritual integrity.
What is worse, when the church starts to throw its weight around and force its conservative beliefs on people who aren’t interested, it just causes resentment. Consider the church’s appalling treatment of the LGBTIQ+ community as an example.
The repellent of favoritism
State backing for Christianity can entail various perks such as financial support for religious purposes, exclusive access to state institutions, the liberty to discriminate based on religion, tax incentives, and exceptions from laws imposed on other minority religious groups.
Interestingly, the preferential treatment given by the state to Christianity does not benefit the church as expected. As per Saiya’s research, “Nine out of the ten countries with the most rapid decline in Christian populations worldwide provide moderate to high levels of government support for Christianity.” Notably, all of these countries are situated in Europe.
For example, establishing Christianity as the state religion and the Church of England as the state church in the UK provided certain advantages to the majority religious group, while minority groups were left without those privileges. Logically, you would think that Christianity would thrive, right? Well, according to The Guardian, less than 40% of the population in the UK now identifies as Christians, with a paltry 1% of individuals aged 18–24 identifying as members of the Church of England.
There is a similar trend in countries where Catholicism is the dominant religion. In the last century, nations like Portugal, Spain, Belgium, and Italy have shown a preference for the Roman Catholic Church extending generous government concessions concerning family law, religious broadcasting, tax policies, and education. Today, despite having most citizens clinging to their Catholic membership like a safety blanket, church attendance in these nations is now among the lowest in the Christian world.
It’s not a stretch to imagine tumbleweeds blowing through the halls of these grand cathedrals. The pews of these magnificent buildings, designed to accommodate hundreds of people, are so sparsely populated that one is forced to conclude that their role in society is virtually decorative — nothing more than relics of a bygone era and tourist attractions to the masses.
Consequently, Saiya argues, “The secularization of Europe is strongly linked to the widespread support given to Christianity by the state. In short, Christianity in Europe has been waning not despite state support but because of it.”
The benefit of competition
Some Christians believe that their faith is declining because there are too many other religions being given equal footing. And when they feel threatened by those pesky minority religious groups, they turn to the state for help to implement laws and principles that protect their so-called “Christian values.”
And if that’s not enough, they can resort to trying to keep people of other faiths out of their countries altogether. Because nothing screams “love thy neighbor” like building a wall to keep them out.
Saiya’s research shows that the opposite is true. Christianity is actually stronger in countries where it has to compete with other religions on an equal footing. That’s right; competition is good for the soul, or at least the faith.
According to Adam Smith’s theory, competition in the market economy encourages innovation and vitality among companies by compelling them to compete for market share. And the same goes for religion. An unregulated religious market has the same effect on faith institutions.
In countries where religious pluralism is prevalent, Christians are forced to up their game and defend their beliefs in the marketplace of ideas. They have to prove that Christianity offers answers to life’s questions. And when they do, the numbers don’t lie. According to Saiya, “Seven of the ten countries with the fastest-growing Christian populations offer little or no official support for Christianity.”
So, where is Christianity thriving the most? Asia and Africa! These regions have seen the most significant increase in Christianity over the past century. In fact, Christianity in Asia and Africa is growing at twice the rate of the population.
And guess what? They’re not getting any preferential treatment from the state. Nope, they’re thriving because they’re competing with other religions on an equal footing. Competition is actually the key to success. And who knows, maybe if you’re nice to your neighbors, they’ll want to join your faith instead of building a wall to keep you out.
The unsuitable marriage of religion and politics
While Africa and Asia have been blessed with the flourishing of Christianity in the midst of religious diversity, politicians in Europe and the United States have taken it upon themselves to strengthen the bond between Christianity and their respective governments.
What better way to gain votes than by positioning oneself as a defender of Christianity against the perceived threat of Islam and religious pluralism? Yes, it’s true that right-wing populist parties have increased their share of the vote in many countries using this strategy, but who cares about consequences when you’re trying to get elected?
Meanwhile, in the United States, conservative Christians have become involved in politics, fighting tooth and nail to uphold their precious “Christian values” and take America back for God. The only problem is that as Christianity has become more politicized, the country has actually experienced a decline in Christian belief, ironically achieving the very opposite of what these so-called Christians want to achieve.
Enter Donald Trump.
In the Evangelical world, whether or not a person was a good political candidate was dependent not on their policies but on their profession of faith — even if the content of their character was at odds with that profession of faith. They merely had to hold up a Bible and stand in front of a church, and they would get the Evangelical vote, much to the chagrin of those looking on. Yes, the more Christian nationalists with the Republican Party push their agenda for a “Christian” nation, the more Christianity is despised, and the less likely they are to ever obtain that which they seek. What is more, they will destroy the church in the process.
Where to from here for the church?
One thing is certain. Jesus Christ was not interested in political power, or he could have had it. He arrived in human history precisely at the right moment to lead an uprising against the rule of his Roman conquerors.
He could have raised an army. He could have led an insurrection. He could have probably stormed the capitol. He could have leveraged his considerable influence to restore his nation to its former glory, preserve its religion, and vanquish its foes.
Yet, he did not.
The movement that he started required no armies, governments, or rulers to champion its cause. It can be practiced with or without the approval of any state and, therefore, can never be legislated out of existence. Neither is it threatened by those who believe different things. It is the movement of the human heart that takes place when one resolves to simply love God and love others.
Therefore, in order for Christianity to restore its credibility, churches must renounce the pursuit of political safeguarding and entitlement and acknowledge it as wholly incompatible with the principles taught by Jesus Christ.
Christians who believe that Trump (or any other political figure, for that matter) and the Republican Party will save Christianity are kidding themselves.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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