I once heard a Christian warn his community: “God only has children, He does not have grandchildren!” In the postmodern context of relativising values and truths, diverse, strange or syncretic religious forms have emerged and continue to emerge. This is happening to a large extent within Christianity.
In what follows we will explore some of the facts about this phenomenon in an attempt to discern the identity of authentic Christianity, the followers of the Way. In other words, we will try to distinguish between God’s children and His supposed “grandchildren.”
Statistics and predictions
If we want to better discern the religious aspects of the postmodern world in which we live, to perceive its nuances and trends intuitively and probabilistically—because it would not be possible to do so strictly theoretically—then research of the kind conducted by the Pew Research Center will prove relevant. Pew describes itself as a research centre on the phenomenon of religion in the world, providing objective factual data (based on surveys, demographic studies, media content analysis, and so on) from a neutral, non-partisan position.
In the US, as in Europe, the Christian population will decline at an accelerating rate, from over three-quarters in 2010 to two-thirds in 2050.
Thus, research from 2015 predicts that the religious profile of the world will change rapidly by 2050, influenced by crucial factors such as: changes in people’s religious affiliation, differences in fertility rates around the world, and differences in the size of the young population belonging to different religions. Here are the predictions: 1) the Christian population of the planet will remain the largest (31%), but will be almost matched by that of Muslims (from 23.2% to 29.7%), who have a higher fertility rate (in Europe, Muslims will reach 10% of the population); 2) the number of unaffiliated (i.e. atheists, agnostics and those who claim no religious affiliation), while increasing in the US and France, will decrease as a proportion of the world’s population (from 16.4% to 13. 2%); 3) the number of Buddhists will remain unchanged, while the number of Hindus and Jews will increase; 4) India will have a majority Hindu population, but will also have the largest Muslim population of any country; 5) in the US, as in Europe, the Christian population will decline at an accelerated rate, from over three quarters in 2010 to two thirds in 2050; also, in the US, the Jewish population will no longer be the largest non-Christian population, but the Muslim population will take its place; 6) four out of ten Christians will live in sub-Saharan Africa; 7) Europe is the only region in the world where the population will decline from 553 million in 2010 to 454 million in 2050; moreover, 23% of Europeans will be unaffiliated by 2050; as a result of migration, the number of Buddhists will increase from 1.4 million to 2.5 million, the number of Hindus will double (from 0.2% to 0.4%) and the number of Muslims will increase from 5.9% in 2010 to 10% in 2050; 8) the largest groups of “nones” will be in France, the Netherlands, and New Zealand; 9) the countries with the most Christians will be the USA, Brazil, and Nigeria.
The unaffiliated and atheists
The number of unaffiliated Christians in Europe has increased. In England and Wales, for example, according to another study, the unaffiliated reached 48.5% in 2014, almost double the proportion in 2011. The British Catholic academic Stephen Bullivant, a specialist in theology and ethics, says that “the main driver is people who were brought up with some religion now saying they have no religion” and “what we’re seeing is an acceleration in the numbers of people not only not practising their faith on a regular basis, but not even ticking the box. The reason for that is the big question in the sociology of religion.”
Another study also reveals the following about atheists: none of them turn to religion to know right from wrong, but 32% turn to science for that purpose, and 44% rely on practical experience and common sense. Estimating the number of atheists, on the other hand, is difficult, as there are avowed atheists who believe in God or some form of “universal spirit”, and there are also believers belonging to various Christian denominations who declare themselves atheists. The author of the study also mentions the strange category of those who say they do not believe in any supernatural entity (9%), but only a third of them declare themselves to be atheists.
The study points out that statistical data on new faiths is insufficient to provide a basis for analysis, even though this reality of new religious forms is a growing phenomenon.
Other major questions
In the light of all this information, it is impossible not to raise other major questions, especially from a Christian perspective, which is therefore clearly biased. This is a “soul” bias, in that religious belonging presupposes not only clear decisions of conscience, but also affective involvement, feelings, emotions, incommunicable experiences, mystery, revelation, intuition, and a unified view of the world and of life to which all of these contribute.
For example, one of the questions that arises is why the demographic area of the unaffiliated is forming and expanding on the territory of the Christian denominations, both Catholic and Orthodox, as well as Protestant. Is this an existential disillusionment, a reaction of rejection or a protest against poor Christian education? This aspect deserves to be considered and analysed within practising Christian communities, which are not analysed in detail in the studies cited. Instead, we can deduce certain aspects of their reality by looking at the statistics for the other categories: atheists, agnostics, the openly unaffiliated, those belonging to new religious groups, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, etc.
Another question is whether or not those generically described as “unaffiliated” overlap with the secularised population. Given the diversity within this segment of the population, we tend to think not. Rather, it is a cluster of people who are diverse in their existential choices and worldviews: agnostics do not claim that they do not believe in a supernatural being, only that, if it exists, it cannot be known by mankind in a “scientific”, unquestionable way, with proof beyond doubt; sceptics are those who systematically doubt that we can arrive at any certainty and choose to suspend judgement until valid evidence or arguments for accepting a knowledge as certain emerge; atheists, as we have seen, may be among those who do not believe in any form of the supernatural, or who believe in a force that “animates” the universe but is not the same as a Creator; Deists are those who postulate the existence of a universal creative or ordering spirit of the cosmos but do not associate its existence with our existence or with any form of morality or divine plan for human life; Humanists regard human beings as the supreme value and attribute to them the spiritual, sometimes quasi-supernatural, power to transform the world; militant atheists also show a combative side towards believers, using arguments that include or border on reason, logic, and intelligence, but which sometimes include unprincipled attacks as well.[1]
The question of affiliation to new religions is worthy of careful study, because it would provide a valuable lesson for practising Christians: does it indicate an attempt to give a more acceptable form to the propensity of some people towards the sacred, whether or not they have had any previous religious education? Would this be proof that this inclination exists in all or most people?
The examples of new religious groups are so varied and constantly expanding that we once again realise the depth of the phenomenon. Some of them are variants of Christianity, more or less “diluted” from its biblical principles or traditions, while others border on a return to paganism. For example, the habit of various publications or radio and television stations to broadcast the zodiac seems to fit quite clearly into a kind of neo-paganism. Similarly, the fact that professing Christians in the media promote various analyses and hypotheses about reincarnation, and even pretend to provide scientific data, superimposing astrology on astronomy, would also fit into the category of neo-paganism. (I recently saw on a television channel a seismologist who, when asked about the frequency of earthquakes in recent years, gave the strange explanation that “Mother Gaia” was showing her displeasure with the way people treat her.)
Then there are those who profess to be Christians but incorporate elements of New Age culture into their religious vision: Buddhism—for the quest for Nirvana, the ultimate state of bliss through the merging of the soul with the whole universe, as well as the quest for inner balance in this life and the development of paranormal abilities through meditation and concentration; Tarot—for the irrepressible quest to know the future and make predictions useful for life on this earth, for prosperity and happiness; Feng Shui-for the somewhat “elitist” attitude of arranging one’s home according to aesthetic criteria and typically oriental cosmic “vibrations” that are responsible for one’s success or failure in life; the prophecies of Nostradamus, who is credited more than the biblical prophets with pointing out the path that humanity will take… and the list of these illicit borrowings from Christianity could go on and on, right down to coffee fortune-telling or the advice of dying parents, who display no Christian virtues whatsoever, but who formulate their final counsels.
One last big question is, how can these syncretistic or neo-pagan Christians not realise that they are drifting away from what the Bible shows us Christianity should be? How can they be so devoid of any reference points and criteria, and yet so confident in moving into confusing areas, sometimes with contradictory elements, which coexist in the minds of some of them for a lifetime?
The only solution I can see, for anyone who considers himself a Christian and wants proper guidance, is to return to the revealed text, to the testimony of the Bible. But the condition is that this guidance must be desired. There we are told: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).
