Is America Finally Becoming Secular?

No, I actually don’t think so. America is not really becoming secular.

But it depends on how you define the word "secular."

If you’re reading this, you are likely someone who has heard how church attendance and weekly participation among those who do attend have declined in recent decades, or that religious affiliation and belief are down. If not, go check out the Pew Religious Landscape Survey or PRRI’s American Values Atlas.

Let’s assume we all agree the numbers are down. And don’t worry, I’ve seen the “yes, but” arguments that megachurches are doing fine, or that some folks still believe; they just don’t go to church. The point is that the United States is slowly becoming less religious, and long-term, definitely not the other way around. We are becoming, however slowly, just like most other economically, technologically, and science-minded countries, which are way ahead of us in this regard, but that’s a different story.

Did you notice, however, how religion or the sacred is defined above?

It’s defined as church attendance, religious affiliation, and belief.

And right there we have a problem.

Human beings are meaning-making creatures. We can’t help it. We are wired to create and be inspired by patterns and continuities, and we are social creatures, so we work together in creating patterns and continuities. To accomplish this, we get excited about stories, music, and movement, and we want sacred spaces that include beautiful buildings, clothes, and furniture.

If aliens suddenly wiped our memories of Jesus, Christianity, and church, or the same of other religions, then you can be quite sure we would invent it all over again, and you can be quite sure it would then be called something else. Think of the ancient Celts, who weren’t as good at writing things down as other earlier cultures, and who happened to get into fights with the Roman Empire. If we still had a more northern European religious history, a different “christ” would likely have emerged, and we might all be praying to Lugus, or possibly Taranis.

So let’s just say that if religion in the United States declined, then it is definitely going to be replaced with something else. The difference today is that we cannot possibly go backward and start talking about a god the way our ancestors did. We will go forward, and we will still be finding meaning, enchantment, stories, and even amazing spaces, music, clothes, and furniture. It’s even quite possible we’ve already been doing this, if we’d just notice it and call it that.

Here’s another way to put it: Christians, especially the evangelical kind, in the United States are often some of the most secular people you might know. Just think of the megachurch experience: Walmart-like buildings and parking lots, big-screen TVs, motivational celebrity pastors (some with amazing biceps), and worship leaders with all the latest gadgets. Trust me, I’m not debating mega vs. trad worship services here; I’m talking about the way religion has evolved in the US.

And it gets worse. Doctrines of original sin and salvation that institutionalize individualism (that should be an oxymoron, but it’s not to the scandal of the evangelical mind). An implicit, though sometimes explicit, focus on material success that shows us we are “blessed.” Or just look at how our churches uncannily reflect the race and class divisions in our society. You can’t get any more secular than that. Wait, maybe you can: lately evangelicals overwhelmingly support one of the most corrupt, narcissistic, and religiously illiterate presidents we could possibly imagine.

Secular, then, really means a lack of sacredness, things unholy. And goodness knows we’ve had plenty of that.

Today Lake Drive Books releases a new edition of Sigmund Freud’s The Future of an Illusion. What’s new is an extensive introduction and page-by-page annotations for those who want to understand a wild and fascinating critique of religion. In short, and right there in the title, Freud makes a case that religion’s days are numbered.

I’ve read and studied a lot of Freud’s critiques of religion and his other writings, and a lot of the secondary literature in the interdisciplinary study of psychology and religion. The key thing Freud says is this: religion is an illusion. It’s a projection. Throw in a little scientific materialism, and Freud thought religion was indeed on its way out, as it surely was with the dying monarchies of his time.

Why I find this book so fascinating isn’t just because of Freud’s juicy arguments about how ridiculous religion can be (he was even aware of how ridiculous religion in America can be, even though he was writing 100 years ago). What’s amazing is that Freud’s pointed critiques help us see religious life as a window to ourselves, individually and socially. In other words, we project so many things onto our religion. It’s a basic human need, and let’s just admit that and talk about it for a while.

Despite all the good and true things we might find in American religion, it is also an utterly, unequivocally, very human illusion (which can be healthy). In the case of those who keep wanting to get religion “right,” it can border on delusion (which is definitely unhealthy). Just know that while Freud thought our task was to make the unconscious conscious and dispense with illusions, most post-Freudian critiques say that illusion is adaptive; it’s simply part of who we are. Really good illusions, really good stories indeed bring us together. They create cooperation, equality, healing, peace, and not just for Americans, or not just for whiteness evangelicals (are there really any other kind?).

The question today is whether those illusions are reinforcing repression (to use a psychoanalytic word), inequality, and oppression, as surely as those illusions do in the case of good evangelical Christians overwhelmingly voting for a white, male, celebrity multi-billionaire.

Illusions don't need to be replaced with facts. Illusions mean we live in a world that is enchanted, a world full of rich stories of love, inclusiveness, beauty, overcoming, and truly working together. Our problem isn’t that we’re becoming more secular. If we are, then we are most certainly doomed. Our problem, and where we are doing things wrong, is more that we define and think about the sacred using secular forms.

It might seem tricky, but we can do it. We can challenge ourselves to go looking for things that are sacred but not defined in the ways we used to define them. Maybe, even, we don’t have to rush to call them sacred at all. And maybe that’s the best way it’s always been.

David R. Morris, PhD, Publisher of Lake Drive Books

Image of church by Tony Webster.