For Videos of this conference click here
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Paul Powell Chapel, Truett Seminary
Baylor University
8:30 am to noon
In recent years, religion’s decline and imminent fall has been a source of intense interest to media and academics alike. Repeated surveys have been cited as showing the decline of American faith, the growth of atheism, and of the number people admitting to no religion – the famous “Nones” – so that once famously religious America seems set to secularize on the lines of Godless Europe.
The problem is that schema is so multiply flawed as to be close to worthless. To say this is not to reject the methodology or conclusions of any one particular survey or projection, but rather to challenge the working assumptions of all of them. We can cite problems of definition and language; inaccurate understandings of history and historical change; and a stubborn unwillingness to observe and understand the many signs pointing to the resilient growth of religion around the world, and specifically in North America. Whichever approach we use – statistical, historical, comparative, sociological – the secularization narrative falls apart.
A gulf separates what can reliably and responsibly be said about future projections of religion, and the interpretations offered. Our goal in this event is to provide an essential corrective to the Secularization Myth, and to offer ways of understanding and debunking future claims as they arise.
A Godless World? Signs of a Global Religious Revival- Rodney Stark
GODLESS EUROPE? – Philip Jenkins
“Godless Lives?: Does Religion Matter for Our Well-Being?” – Jeff Levin
The Myth of American Piety ? – Byron R. Johnson
Toward a Godless America? – J. Gordon Melton
