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 Shopping the Spiritual MallPosted on Feb 28, 2008WASHINGTON—Just below the text there was a Google ad inviting me to take a quiz. “Christian? Jewish? Muslim? Atheist? See which Religion is Right for You.” Aside from the eccentricity of listing atheism as a religion, I couldn’t help wondering what my grandparents would make of this religious matching service. For that matter, what would they make of the idea that you could choose your religion at all? To them, religion was part of your identity, if not your DNA. You were born into it, grew up in it, and died with its prayers. I noticed this ad because it was attached to the story of a new report on religion in America released by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The researchers interviewed 35,000 Americans. Their figures show that Protestants now comprise a bare majority—51 percent—of the population, and that the fastest-growing group is the 16 percent now self-described as “unaffiliated.” But what is most fascinating is that 44 percent of Americans have left the religious traditions in which they grew up. They left the religion of their parents with the frequency that they left their old neighborhoods. In my grandparents’ day, Americans were divided between the big three religions, sort of like TV networks: Catholic, Protestant and Jew. Now they have fragmented across a spectrum more like cable TV with satellite radio thrown in. The researchers describe a “vibrant marketplace where individuals pick and choose religions that meet their needs.” They surf their options. “We are shopping for everything else, why wouldn’t we shop for religion?” asks religion professor Donald Miller of the University of Southern California. Pew’s John Green adds, “It’s not surprising that we have a marketplace in religious or spiritual ideas.” What’s qualitatively different these days, he says, is that we have much more religious diversity. “We have more places to move from and more places to move to.” I realize that for many Americans the idea of shopping for eternal truths is still jarring. Even contradictory. The movement from one “tradition” to another may even suggest a kind of promiscuity—a faithless pursuit of faith. Yet the idea of religion as a personal choice seems thoroughly American—as American as religious tolerance. And increasingly these two ideas may be related. America has long been regarded as the most religious of Western nations. Six in 10 of us say that religion plays a very important role in our lives. Polls tell us that Americans are more willing to vote for a woman, a black, a Jew, than an atheist. Secular Europeans who look at those figures regard Americans as unthinking believers, conservatives following orders delivered from the pulpit. At home the culture wars are often polarized between the religious right and the secular left. Leaders of both sides often characterize—perhaps caricature—religious members as people rooted in old ways and immutable ideas. But a huge number of Americans are mobile in pursuit of the immutable. “We are, as a country, people who want to choose their own identity in a lot of areas of life and religion is one more part of it,” says Alan Wolfe of Boston College. There’s a difference between an identity that’s achieved rather than ascribed. Those who leave their childhood religions largely regard themselves as making their own individual choice. In this cultural context, even staying becomes an active decision. When religion was cast in stone, it seems to me that we were more likely to cast stones. It may be the new pluralism and the framing of religion as a choice that makes us more accepting. “You are the artist of your own life when it comes to religion,” says Miller. “This enables people to be more thoughtful about what they perceive to be true and right rather than inheriting what passes down to them.” Indeed, if we’ve left our childhood traditions, if our children may leave ours, there is good reason to nurture what Wolfe calls “intolerance insurance.” The Pew study also shows that 40 percent of all marriages are of mixed religious traditions—including “none of the above.” We take coexistence pretty literally. I don’t think Americans are just shopping for their beliefs in a trivial sense, trying on creeds like this year’s vestment, searching for the latest spiritual fashion. But we are a people on the move. About 40 million of us move to another home every year. So too, we drop in and out of church, U-Hauling our beliefs off in search of a better fit. Today, we may shop in a spiritual mall. But what good fortune to find the mall paved over the old religious battlefields. Ellen Goodman’s e-mail address is ellengoodman(at)globe.com. © 2008, Washington Post Writers Group Previous item: The Case of the Missing E-Mails Next item: McCain's Political Quagmire Elsewhere: . CommentsAre you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig.
By patsypersona, February 29 at 7:06 pm # This whole test is a sham!Ok, I took the bait and took the religion test. I was subjected to page after page after page of offers for everything imaginable from magazine to baby bottles to vacations to electronics.....on and on as I was deluged with amercian commercial marketing. I almost gave up.....just as I hoped to get an answer.....another five or so pages of offers came up. Seems I was driven to get the answer....I checked nothing, kept going and worried that I might get a barrage of spam as a result. Finally it said I was done but I would not get my results unless I check yes to one thing’ I forget wht it was but it seem benign. Then miraculously the answer popped up. I was an atheist. I was not sure what I was because I have been so put off by organized religion at this juncture of my life. Glad, after some 3000 to 500 commercial offers they told me I do not believe in god. I believe a hell of a lot less in the stark, disgusting commerciality hidden behind a test that one would glean some respect as to spirituality. What a SCAM! Well now Ellen, I think you should take the test and see what people will be subjected to and write another columnl
By human power, February 29 at 8:47 pm # Re: THE ALMIGHTY@1twenty1 Amen brothers and sisters. And don’t forget to take yours from the collection plate lest some be left for the poverty-stricken children.
By common sense, February 28 at 11:44 am # SSDDSo, which set of cultural superstitions and magic will you switch to? The underlying premise of any religion--of every religion--is “only mine is right and yours is wrong.” Some are OK with a simple “Tsk, tsk” while others feel the need to kill the infidels to prove their point. It’s all just different shades of the same intolerant approach, if you ask me.
By a human being, February 28 at 11:32 am # Just remember, we have free will for a reason. We can choose to live without sin (within the LAWs of GOD) or we can choose to do it our way (sin/the laws of man). Dig deep and look at which way provides the most love for yourself and your fellow man. The BIBLE is not a book that lies. There are ones that attempt to pervert the teachings of the BIBLE for there own sick purposes of control over others, but they can never take away from the simple truths of the BIBLE. Personally I was raised a SDA, but deviated as the world seemed so much more fun to me. Since then I’ve researched many other teachings that attempt to explain GOD’s creation and ironically was lead right back to GOD’s word. One big deterrent of other religious theories is self exemplification. If you are getting caught up in thinking you are greater than others in your knowledge, then you are on the wrong track....
By Jesse Ranee Decker, February 28 at 8:02 am # Pew Survey Tells the TaleI covered this topic the day it came out, and I’m surprised that more of the major news outlets didn’t feature the Pew Survey since it indicates some major changes in Americans’ attitudes toward religion. http://worldunitedministries.blogspot.com/2008/02/fait h-of-our-fathers-is-fading-fast.html Perhaps--just perhaps--humans are beginning to think for themselves about what really makes sense, what gives their lives meaning and purpose and, oh! by the way, doesn’t contradict itself at every other turn. We can only “pray” this is true. Add Your Comment |
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