Latest / Future Christian / Religion Didn’t Die—It Became Obsolete | Christian Smith

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Religion Didn’t Die—It Became Obsolete | Christian Smith · Future Christian

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  Martha Tatarnic (00:05) This is the Future Christian Podcast, a conversation about church leadership, fresh ideas, and the future of the church. Martha Tatarnic (00:18) Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today, Loren Richmond Jr. is in conversation with Christian Smith. Christian is the William R. Kennan Jr., Professor of Sociology Emeritus and founding director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame. Smith is well known for his research
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  focused on religion, adolescence and emerging adults and social theory. Smith received his MA and PhD. from Harvard University in 1990 and his BA from Gordon College in 1983. He was a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for 12 years before his move to Notre Dame. A reminder before we start today's conversation, please take a moment to subscribe to the podcast, leave a review and share Future Christian with a friend. Connect with Loren Martha and Future
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  Christian on Instagram. Shoot us an email. at lauren at resonate media pro.com with comments, questions or ideas for future episodes. We appreciate your support in making this podcast possible. Loren Richmond Jr (01:33) My name is Loren Richmond Jr. and I'm pleased to be joined today by Christian Smith. Hello, welcome to the show. Christian Smith (01:39) Hey, thanks for having me on. Loren Richmond Jr (01:41) Yeah, looking forward to having this conversation. I do always like to ask folks,
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  like, what part of the world are you coming from? Christian Smith (01:48) Well, right now I live on a small farm in southwest Michigan. I'm originally from Philadelphia area and I lived long time in ⁓ Durham, North Carolina. But I've been in the Midwest for almost 20 years now. Loren Richmond Jr (02:01) Well, as it is, we're recording this in the midst of March Madness and baseball starting. Any of that do anything for you? Notre Dame, I think, is the least the men aren't, right? The women are
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  in the tournament. Christian Smith (02:15) Yeah, my team would be UNC Chapel Hill, which is where I taught for a long time, but they bombed out in their very first game. I'm not really in it now. So unfortunately. Loren Richmond Jr (02:23) They did. They did. Yeah, fair enough. Well, we're going to talk with Christian today about his book, Why Religion Went Obsolete. But before we do that, I want to hear more because I first encountered your work, like I'm sure many others through this term,
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  moralistic, therapeutic deism, which, gosh, you could say more about than I could. But it's been a few years since you first posited that term. So I'd certainly appreciate for myself and for our listeners, any other thoughts you've had sort of out that, that thinking and any ways you'd like to expand or refine your ideas on that. Christian Smith (03:05) Yeah, moralistic therapeutic deism was a term that I came up with in the 2000s. I think it was published in 2000, so 20 years ago actually.
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  And it referred to what I said was the actual de facto tacit religious faith of most American teenagers. And since then I've studied religious parents and I've done lots of interviews with different kinds of Americans. And I guess I would say I think basically the idea still sticks. Loren Richmond Jr (03:15) Hmm. Christian Smith (03:35) Americans roughly have that kind of orientation. ⁓ Teenagers tend to, or back then, Millennials, when they were Millennials, had a much clearer, sharper
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  version of it. I think we followed those same teens when they grew up over 10 years. ⁓ As life happened, it got little more messy and complicated. Some of them decided they didn't believe in God. Lots of things happened in the 20s. I would say nothing dramatic has changed since then. I still think that's sort of the underlying view of God and religion in the US by most, not all. ⁓ But, you know, in different subcultures it's different and when life gets messy, God turns out not to be just quite
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  like a divine butler or cosmic therapist to step up when you ask. So it's just a little more complicated, I think, out there. Loren Richmond Jr (04:24) Hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Well, thanks for sharing that. I feel like I had to ask that question because of, like I said, that become that term, I think is I've heard it for so many years. So on your book here on why religion went obsolete, first of all, I guess we should, I should have you define what we mean by obsolete
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  and what makes something become obsolete in a cultural sense. Christian Smith (04:59) Yeah, so the way ⁓ many people, social scientists and ordinary people talk about what's been happening to religion is use the word decline, which is fine. It's a good descriptive word. But decline tends to focus on organizational metrics like number of members in the denomination or congregation, or just sort of survey numbers, how they go up and down. Loren Richmond Jr (05:07) Mm-hmm. Christian Smith
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  (05:21) I wanted in this book, think where the real action is in the realm of culture and I wanted in this book to capture something a little different than decline and I think the word obsolete does it. So what I mean is what we normally mean by obsolete. That is something that was once relied on, used, had more social support for it, ⁓ sort of fades away quickly or takes a long time and something replaces it. people don't refer to it or don't rely on it or use it like they used to and ⁓ it's
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  not like they hate it or reject it, it just becomes ⁓ sort of in the past. And then there becomes less and less support to make it happen. So some of the images I use for Obsolete are ⁓ what ⁓ personal computers and laptops do to electric typewriters, right? Loren Richmond Jr (06:03) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Christian Smith (06:16) ⁓ or what personal calculators did to slide rules, what automobiles did to horses and buggies. But I think it's important to realize obsolete doesn't mean extinct. ⁓ Obsolete
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  doesn't mean that the old thing doesn't function. ⁓ In some ways, the old thing actually is better. So if you think about vinyl records have better musical fidelity than streaming. So it's not a judgment against the thing that's gone obsolete. Loren Richmond Jr (06:20) hehe Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Christian Smith (06:46) obsolete it's just totally neutral like bell-bottom jeans versus like slim jeans but for religion to have gone obsolete in the culture what I mean at a very specific time in
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  the in 1990s and 2000s the millennial generation There emerged what I call a zeitgeist, the millennial zeitgeist that just made religion passe, not something you'd think about. Fewer and fewer people were doing it. Other things came in to replace it. There was, I talk about cultural mismatch, which we can discuss if you want, but it's not that everyone said, doctrinally, I'm against this or that, or I don't believe in God. It's not like it happened as a theological or intellectual. matter.
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  It's just culturally it kind of faded into not really being what younger people especially this is post boomers thought thought should you know they should give their attention to or really care about and that has the consequence of ⁓ there's less people around doing it so if you want to do it you're more on your own just like if you want to use an electric typewriter instead of a laptop you can do it but Loren Richmond Jr (07:43) Mm-hmm. Right. Christian Smith (08:01) it's a lot harder to
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  get it repaired or to find the ribbons. Loren Richmond Jr (08:05) Well, I think this is such an interesting- Comparison of like you said the electric typewriter or vinyl or what-have-you because like you said all those things still work I could still write a paper on a typewriter and it can still listen to music on vinyl But it's very like you said niche If there are niche communities who who would listen to collect vinyl or listen to vinyl or or even collect old Electronics and even use those
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  old electronics, but it's seen as niche Christian Smith (08:27) Yeah. Loren Richmond Jr (08:38) It's seen as something, again, this is where I find interesting your use of word therapeutic. It's something that I pull out when I feel like I need resources for me, but otherwise I set it aside and do my own life otherwise. Christian Smith (08:52) Yeah, and it can also be subject to retro movements, you know, like cool people know like how to get the right clothes or decorations or music. in the
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  religious sphere, there are in fact, Gen Zers who are like, I don't want to do stupid religion. I want to do serious religion. So you might think of them as sort of retro to hardcore. But, and the other thing that's going on here is it's not all about popular acceptance. A lot of it is top Loren Richmond Jr (08:55) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (09:22) It comes from industries or movements or corporations or technological changes that have to do with ⁓ profit making. ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr
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  (09:32) Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (09:34) You know, it's the same thing with, so a lot of what goes obsolete is just technological development. So it's not like, one of my arguments is it's not like there was this huge movement of anti-religious people that were out to destroy the church. It's just that there were a lot of things happening technologically in the world, economically, that just kind of pushed a traditional religion, I make a distinction between traditional religion and sort of
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  alternative religions, to the sideline. Loren Richmond Jr (09:47) Right. Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (10:01) Yeah, so again, it's not like Americans woke up and said, ⁓ we don't want that. There were a lot of structural institutional forces that pushed things around during this era in the 90s and 2000s, just like in product obsolescence, it would be. Loren Richmond Jr (10:14) Well, let's talk about... Right. Let me ask you about traditional versus, I forget the word you use here, alternative
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  religions or... Christian Smith (10:23) Yeah, re-enchantment, re-enchantment, a culture, these are other terms that I use. Loren Richmond Jr (10:29) But this idea, cause I'm trying to find the quote here. ⁓ you argue that other parts of the culture have in some ways done the work of religion better. So like I'm thinking, and I'm not sure if you would agree, but I'm curious your thoughts here. Like, you know, traveling sports, CrossFit to some extent, like are these examples of what else, what
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  else is out there that has essentially done religion better than religion? Christian Smith (10:50) Yeah. Yeah, so one of the points of this book is just because religion, traditional religion, has declined or gone obsolete doesn't mean secularism has won the day. It turns out most Americans are not interested in secularism as an ideology and atheism. ⁓ It's really a minority of Americans that are into that. Most Americans still want meaning and purpose and significance and ⁓ community and
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  something spiritual. Loren Richmond Jr (11:01) Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (11:19) It's very popular, people call themselves spiritual or spiritual but not religious. So part of what's going on with obsolescence is a kind of displacement. Instead of getting dressed up, going to church once a week, etc. Other things have come in to fill the place. Now, use the word better in your question. I don't want to say it does it better. People may think it's a replacement. I'm not saying it's better, but
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  for example, historically, religious congregations were a prime if not the primary place for people got community in their lives. Long-term, intergenerational fellowship, support, ⁓ moral community. Well, along come the internet and social media and people think, well, I'm going to have my community on Facebook now and I don't have to leave my desk. So it is a form of replacement community, but it's not the same. And I don't think most people would say it's better. Loren Richmond Jr (11:54)
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  Mm-hmm. Right. Hmm. Christian Smith (12:19) it's easier, but it certainly is a lot more shallow, right? And ⁓ you can delete each other. I mean, in a real community, you don't just delete people and ghost people. So for the most part, so yeah, so things like sports, ⁓ certain kinds of sports that are more intense, the spectacle of sports, a lot of people argue sort of replaces a kind of religious liturgy even. ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (12:20) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Christian Smith (12:48)
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  politics has become much more recently, more almost sacralized and it's sort of become sort of a primary identity for a lot of people. And so who's going to say, well, I'm a Presbyterian, you know, but they put banners out in front of their, on the left and the right, but especially the right these days, you know, their political beliefs. So yeah, part of it is a displacement that functions that religion used to serve. Loren Richmond Jr (12:53) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Christian Smith (13:15) because of
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  technological changes and other things, people looked in other directions. And one other very important piece of that is what I call re-enchanted culture or a culture or alternative religions. Where most people are turning, again, it's not secularism, but ⁓ magic, paganism, crystals, alternative healing, vampire subcultures. ⁓ roleplay games that have sort of a magical fantasy aspect. There's a whole movement and in a way it's like everywhere and so it's obvious and and we tend to dismiss it as
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  either trivial or ⁓ just entertainment. But really once you get the eyes to see it, there's huge movements ⁓ of interest in, and again, this is rooted in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter, like there's just tons of background to all of this. It has a light side, it has a dark side, but that's where most, if there's any major movement, that's the growth industry, is ⁓ people, especially younger generations, interested, they still want magic, they still want sacred, they still want Loren
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  Richmond Jr (14:01) Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (14:30) spiritual, they still want mystical, but not in Catholic mass, not in the Methodist ⁓ sermon. They find it in other places. So that's another form of displacement that's quite different than traveling sports or the Green Bay Packers or whatever. Loren Richmond Jr (14:35) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I'm thinking of, work part time as a hospital chaplain and on the chaplain census I receive, I'll often have marked what religion or faith
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  someone is. And inevitably if someone has marked down, I'm Episcopalian or Methodist or what have you, you know, they're 70, 80, 90 years old, just to illustrate your point there. Christian Smith (15:12) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Loren Richmond Jr (15:17) I'm thinking about Christian Smith (15:17) But you probably get some, you may get some people that say just spiritual, right? Or maybe even the occasional pagan. There are actually ⁓ more pagans in the United States than Presbyterians now. Loren
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  Richmond Jr (15:21) Right, right. more? I gotta write that down. Christian Smith (15:30) Yeah, I actually have a follow-up book coming out ⁓ in December on this called A Culture, which is about this whole movement. I never was interested in it and I didn't think it mattered until I worked on this project and realized this is big, this is significant culturally. yeah, and people spent, ⁓ Americans spent like three times more on crystals than they do on religious books. So it's big industry.
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  Loren Richmond Jr (15:55) Well, let me go off track then and ask this because there's so much, at least in some evangelical circles are so much like, I don't know if it's like want to make it happen through talking about this talk about revival. And, know, they talk about like Bible sales are up and what have you, like it, that's pretty startling to hear like people are spending more money on if you, if I heard you write crystals, right? Christian Smith (15:57) Hahaha! Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so
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  I've done a lot of, I've looked very closely at this revival question. ⁓ Here's what I think about that. There are... local places where there significant things happening, student ministries on universities, maybe some congregations. ⁓ So there's something going on out there. But statistically, it's incredibly small and there really is very little to no evidence for anything widespread. Some of it is actually based on very bad surveys that were done. There was one done in Wales and England
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  that said there's three times growth in the number of young people going to churches. Is this a terrible survey? Loren Richmond Jr (16:38) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Christian Smith (17:04) with a bad sample. ⁓ That was done by the Bible Society over there. So, but once that stuff hits the news, I think, think a... Loren Richmond Jr (17:06) Hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Christian Smith (17:14) religious leaders are so desperate for any decent news. It's been so bad for so long. And B, journalists who cover
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  this stuff are desperate for a different headline. I'm sure their editors are saying, we don't want the same story. You've been saying this. So I think there's a market, so to speak, for something like maybe there's a religious revival. And then if you look at all the publications about it, a lot of them are just referencing themselves in circles. Loren Richmond Jr (17:18) We are. Yes. Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (17:44) to be dashing cold water on people's hopes, but as a sociologist, if you
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  look at it, ⁓ wishful thinking doesn't help anybody. And in the end, reality wins. If it's not going on, it's not going on. So I think it's better to realize, yeah, there are some places where there's really interesting things happening. I wouldn't deny that at all, but the numbers... ⁓ If you have 50 students in your student ministry and then it jumps to 100, that's 100 % increase. That sounds impressive, but it's 100 college students. We're talking 340, whatever, million Americans. So, yeah,
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  so sorry to be a wet blanket on that, but. Loren Richmond Jr (18:21) Right. Christian Smith (18:31) To go back to the point, there's a lot, a lot, lot, lot, lot, lot more interest in things magical and enchanted that are not part of the Christian tradition than sort of return to standard faith. Loren Richmond Jr (18:31) Well... Yeah. So I read your book, I can't remember either right before or right after I read, and certainly this is a few years old now, Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping
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  Point. So you know, that's what, the 90s, which I also want to talk to you about, but something that hit me about his book that connected to your book was, is this idea like, it's going to take some amount of generations, you know, for any semblance of statistical Christian Smith (18:55) Mm-hmm. Loren Richmond Jr (19:13) impact or measurement to really, because even if we have those 50 to now 100 college students, like it's going to take what 15, 20 years for them to have kids and then their
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  kids to have kids before we really start seeing like a really significant demographic margin of increase, right? Christian Smith (19:34) Yeah, and these things tend to happen generationally. Like, generations is central in my book. If you look at a decline in survey numbers, it's mostly generational. So, you know, in the old days, people thought baby boomers were rebellious. Well, compared to Gen X is less religious, millennials are less religious, it looks like Gen Z is less religious. So,
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  generations matter here, and what we know is... Loren Richmond Jr (19:45) Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (20:02) Once a generation gets formed, most people don't change their orientation. ⁓ people tend to stick with the values and not everybody, but most people tend to stick with what they were raised with or how they, when they were formed growing up. Loren Richmond Jr (20:17) Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (20:19) And so, yeah, it takes time and tipping points are actually something I discuss in the
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  book. So there were a lot of forces building, leading to obsolescence that were sort of held at bay, especially in the 1980s, which were allegedly more traditional. But then the 1990s, it kind of all broke open. So, but it can work in the opposite direction, but it would, from a sociological point of view, it would take, I mean, I'm not denying the Holy Spirit, whatever could do anything. Loren Richmond Jr (20:30) Right. Right, right. Christian Smith (20:49) but sociologically viewed, it
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  would take some big changes in the way the world works, in technology and economics and that people's experience in life to sort of shake things up for a different orientation. And then that probably would hit a different generation differently. so. Loren Richmond Jr (21:08) Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's right. Now I'm remembering you did use the word tipping point. And that's why there was the really obvious connection between that and Gladwell's book. I'm thinking about like my wife and I just
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  finished watching the Chernobyl mini series on HBO. So I'm kind of in this frame of mind of like late, you know, late cold war era right before the fall of the Berlin wall. I know like Ryan Berg, for instance, and I think other sociologists talk about like the certainly you and your book talk about the early 90s being like the real start of the decline, so to speak, obsolescence, as you say, like, and I'm curious, like, is it was just because of the Cold War? Like, has there, have you thought
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  about those connections? Was that causation? Christian Smith (21:56) Yeah, the book spells out, I mean, the story of my book is basically these are long-term, deep, cultural, and institutional changes. So what I argue in the book is actually it was a pivot year, 1991. I actually sort of go out on limb and name a specific year, 1991. It's not that everything changed, but that's when things pivoted and things turned in a very different direction. So 1991 was the very first year that the Loren
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  Richmond Jr (22:06) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Christian Smith (22:25) in a long-term uptick in the number of Americans who said they were religious nuns, that they were not religious. So forever, about six or seven percent of Americans said they were not religious. Then in 1991, it started to grow. And now we're way up, know, 20 whatever and among younger, 30 some percent. That's a huge, sociologically, that's a huge sort of transformation. And 1991 was the beginning of that. It was also the end
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  of the Cold War. Loren Richmond Jr (22:30) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (22:55) 1991 was the launch of the World Wide Web, believe it or not. It was the launch of America Online. It was the rollout of the second generation cellular phone technology. In the cultural realm, a lot of things were happening. I put a lot of weight in the book on the band Nirvana and it smells like teen spirit. It's putting a stake through the heart of the 1980s big hair in a rock band, which brought in a
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  different cultural sensibility in pop culture. Loren Richmond Jr (22:58) Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah. Christian Smith (23:24) hip hop, role play games, culture wars. James Hunter published his book on culture wars. it took, what I argue in the book is it took another two decades for the sort of the internal logic of all that to unfold. But yeah, 91 was a hinge year in history with all this. Loren Richmond Jr (23:43) Yeah, I thought it was fascinating how you contrasted. can't remember who was the 1991
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  Dove Awards winner, but I remember like the next year, I think you point out was for him, who was a Christian group that I followed growing up. And just thinking about how, how contrasting that was, like you said, to that Nirvana smells like teen spirit. Christian Smith (23:52) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's a section in the book, I say, let's look at who was winning awards. you know, Smells Like Teen Spirit was the national secular music award. But if you look at what, and the point of this is
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  not to make fun of Christian music, the point of this is to show the cultural mismatch that if you were a millennial who was captivated by Kurt Cobain, Loren Richmond Jr (24:11) Right. Right. Right. Christian Smith (24:27) And then you see, you know, the top Christian music, it just feel like, what? Like, what is that? It's from, that's like old, old white folkies. It feels very, it felt very ⁓ baby boomerish, white, middle-class, et cetera, et cetera. So again, just analyzing it culturally,
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  it's just a mismatch. It's just a lack of connection with the next generation. Loren Richmond Jr (24:36) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I want to ask you to, you talk a lot in the book about self-inflicted wounds, because certainly one of the themes of the book is like, like you've already said, there wasn't this like big mass. I mean, contrary to what many like fundamentalists and really conservative Christians would think that there was not this big ⁓ planned attack on Christianity, that there was a
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  lot of self-inflicted wounds. Do you want to talk more about some of those things? Christian Smith (25:00) you Yeah, sure. So ⁓ what I argue in the book overall is that most of the forces that drove religion and obsolescence were unintended. Like ⁓ Steve Jobs in cell phone ad hour on Facebook, like all of this other, they're not trying to hurt religion. That was the unintended sort of casualty of what they were up to. ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (25:38) Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (25:42) A lot of
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  times, especially the Christian right in the late 70s, in the 80s, a lot of the theme was the culture is out to get us, the media is out to get us, the academics are out to get us. And I don't deny that there's some truth in that. ⁓ And after September 11 in the mid 2000s, the new atheists were clearly ⁓ out to torpedo all religion, which they said is the source of all evil, which is ridiculous. But they had their day. Loren Richmond Jr (25:51) Right. Right. Christian Smith (26:12) But most
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  of the forces were not intentionally anti-religious or anti-Christian. were inadvertently so. ⁓ And on top of that, to answer your question, I also argue that ⁓ mainstream Christianity and religion in general, it's not just Christianity, but did a lot more to damage itself than anti-religious people. And there's a whole chapter on this. ⁓ And of course, leading the way was endless, seemingly endless religious scandals over sex, money, sometimes even murder. ⁓ Not just in like in almost every
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  single tradition, white evangelical led it especially, you know, back to the televangelists getting caught in scandals or the head of the National Association of Evangelicals with drugs and a prostitute. But of course, the Catholic priest abuse scandal and cover-up was huge. Loren Richmond Jr (26:49) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (27:12) hugely damaging to the credibility of the Catholic Church. then that it's people, most Americans don't know enough about religion to think, well, that was
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  that denomination. Like they just think religion in general. So they, it started to reinforce this notion. There's something internally and necessarily corrupting about religion. Loren Richmond Jr (27:26) Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (27:35) which sort of reinforced the new atheist argument, but there's something wrong inherently bad about this that makes people do bad things. And so the idea of religion, in the old days, religion used to be like, well, it's pretty good people, they're good for the
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  community, even if I don't believe it, and I'm glad that there are people that are like... Loren Richmond Jr (27:52) Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (27:55) transformed into religion became suspect. Rijan became like you don't trust the pastor anymore. You never know what he's going to do. So yeah, I document in the book there's tons of that kind of ⁓ shenanigans or worse went on that really damaged religion. And then there's a lot more than just scandals. I mean, there's movements, ⁓ the purity
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  movement and evangelicalism, which sort of backfired in various and sundry ways. Religion really sort of piled onto itself, crushing itself and making a bunch of, I think, sometimes well-meaning, sometimes not, sometimes just strategic errors. ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (28:20) Right. Right. Christian Smith (28:37) that really didn't help at all. So the punchline of that is just the idea that if religion is in decline or obsolete, it's because anti-religious people have pushed that. It's just
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  grossly simplistic. This is not true. Loren Richmond Jr (28:53) Yeah. I want to ask you about main. Yeah. Christian Smith (28:54) I should also say that, if you have pastors listening to this, all it takes is a very small minority of bad apples to ruin the whole barrel of apple. It's not that most pastors are horrible people, right? But it doesn't matter. If you have enough in the news, everybody gets tainted by it. Loren Richmond Jr (29:08) Yeah, yeah. Christian Smith (29:16) And the other
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  thing that changed was the technology of news change. like things could go viral immediately. It didn't take Walter Cronkite to decide to talk about how a priest behaved. It was all over the place. Loren Richmond Jr (29:20) Mm-hmm. Right. I want to ask you as someone myself within the mainline Protestant world, gosh, I picked the wrong time to become a mainline Protestant to be frank. know, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, mainline Protestantism dominated the American Christian sphere. And now,
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  you know, the latest data is something like, I don't know, 10 % or less of Americans are mainline Protestant. You talk about Jay Demirath, I'm not sure how to say that name. Talk more about if you can, mainland Protestantism and you know, is mainland Protestantism a victim of its own success, so to speak? Christian Smith (30:12) Yeah, so I mean, Maylight Protestantism was at its peak in the post-war era, in the Eisenhower era. ⁓ And then, but since the 60s and into the 70s, it's been in
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  numerical decline. And there's a lot of arguments for why that would be the case. ⁓ But one argument that's really interesting is by the sociologist, ⁓ he's not alive anymore, but Jay Demerath, used to be at UMass Amherst. ⁓ he basically argued that ⁓ mainline Protestantism lost the organizational. Loren Richmond Jr (30:27) Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (30:49) war because it won the cultural war. Namely, ⁓ it convinced everybody or everyone came to agree with mainline Protestantism that many of its
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  core values, you know, be a good person, ⁓ reason, human experience. Loren Richmond Jr (30:52) Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (31:09) a bit of skeptical attitude about authority. ⁓ This was not the opposite of fundamentalism, right? It's sort of like human experience, ⁓ history, ⁓ reason, science, all of these are valuable and good. Modernity is good. And so those kind of became mainstream values and outlooks even for non-mainline Protestantism. And then mainline Protestantism became, kind of put
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  itself out of business because Loren Richmond Jr (31:16) Right. Christian Smith (31:39) What did it have to tell people that they didn't already believe? Or at least that's how most people thought of it. Especially the parts of mainline Protestantism that kind of downplayed the distinctive or harder religious aspects like miracles and hell and all this sort of thing. It's sort of mainline Protestantism generally tried to make itself respectable to... Loren Richmond Jr (31:46) Mm-hmm. Right.
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  Christian Smith (32:06) modern man is how it used to be talked about. ⁓ in the long run, Demerath says, yeah, it did that. And then people decided, well, I don't need to go to church anymore because I already believe that stuff and what's the big deal. So that's a different spin. Most interpretations of a mainland Protestant decline or it somehow failed. It became too liberal or whatever it did. ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (32:08) Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (32:33) Or another version is,
• 4:16
  ⁓ mainly Protestants started using birth control a lot earlier in the 20th century. So you multiply that over generations, you just have fewer kids. But Demereth's argument is basically mainly Protestant going down the tubes organizationally because it succeeded. Loren Richmond Jr (32:41) Yeah. Yeah. Well, I did want to ask you about liberalizing trends. I think you write about that in the book. It seems like it, my take on your book is you're, you're, seem critical of expressions of liberal
• 4:20
  Christianity. Is that fair? And what thoughts do you have more on that? Christian Smith (33:06) I mean, as a sociologist, I'm not here to judge theologies, but what I focus on in the book, especially, which goes back to moralistic therapeutic deism, is the notion that most Americans have come to believe, I'm not quite sure when it happened or how it happened, but most Americans now really believe religion is essentially a moral issue. It moralizes people. It helps people make good decisions, ⁓
• 4:24
  not do stupid things, to be good people. Loren Richmond Jr (33:35) Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (33:36) And so it has that kind of benefit that even if I don't believe it, at least religious people will be marginally or much better. What I try to argue is that moralizing of religion has pretty strong roots in European, actually, liberal Protestantism. There are explicit theologians back in the 19th and earlier centuries that argued Loren Richmond Jr (33:53) Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (34:03) What
• 4:28
  matters about Christianity is not its miracles and doctrines and dogmas. What matters is that it creates the brotherhood of man or it helps us evolve to a higher level of humanity or something like that. ⁓ so in basically turning Christian doctrine into a set of ethics, Loren Richmond Jr (34:19) Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (34:30) Again, I'm not here to say that was the right or wrong move. I'm just saying if people come to believe that, then the move that was made in the... 2000s especially was,
• 4:32
  well, I'm a good person. I don't need God to be good. ⁓ We don't need Christianity to make us good. I'm good. My neighbor's good. And along with back to the scandals, there's a lot of religious people who are bad. the idea that religion, so in other words, if one of the things that religion specializes in in people's minds, it stops being necessary for or even effective at, that is making people Loren Richmond Jr (34:47) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (35:12) then religion loses its sort of
• 4:36
  legitimacy, like, why do we need it? It's like it doesn't have a patent on anything. doesn't, so that was part of, again, none of this was decisive. It all worked together in a very complex, bigger picture. So ⁓ in the book, I'm not out to target liberal Protestantism. I simply wanted to say this has historical roots. All of this has deep historical roots and, ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (35:21) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (35:41) It may be worth, from the church's point of view, rethinking like,
• 4:40
  what are we really claiming? What do we really have to offer that's distinctive that people may want that they don't think they can get on their own? Loren Richmond Jr (35:55) Yeah. Let me ask you this, I suppose, as a sociologist thinking about how trends happen or what influences people, you know, you're talking about at the beginning about, you know, obsolescence and like people still use vinyl or typewriters, but it's very niche and thinking about tipping points, like what is it? What are,
• 4:44
  I mean, gosh, certainly I, as someone who's a pastor wants like not to manufacture things and trust the spirit, but also like I want to pay attention to what I'm doing or not doing that's conducive, if that's the right word to, you know, not self-inflicting wounds. Christian Smith (36:33) Mm-hmm. Right. Well, ⁓ I'm a sociologist, not a pastoral consultant. And honestly, after I wrote this book, I thought, jeesh, it's a wonder anybody's still religious. ⁓ And I don't really have a lot of
• 4:48
  answers. Although I can say, you read the book and think about the implications, you can start to think about some, like, what would it mean? So for example, Loren Richmond Jr (36:48) Yeah Christian Smith (37:06) authenticity and inauthenticity. If you want to connect with young people, they've got to really believe you're authentic. You're not just sort of making something up and trying to sell. They got everybody in the world trying to shove stuff down their throat, sell them stuff all the
• 4:52
  time. So the other thing is I think that, I mean, we know this, that especially among young people, there's essentially a crisis of mental health and isolation and loneliness. Now, Loren Richmond Jr (37:13) Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (37:34) Historically, I said, churches were a place where people got support, coping, community. ⁓ And young people are not saying, I think I'll go to church, you know, to get more friends. potentially they're. They're meeting up with their pagan
• 4:56
  group, right? Or they're magical. But I'm not sure how satisfying that is either. I think there are unmet needs out there that are worth pondering. What I don't think is sort of like, I wouldn't say, you Loren Richmond Jr (37:51) Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (38:09) ⁓ young people have mental health crisis. We're going to solve, like, there's no solution to this next year, right? So it's going to require some deep thinking, some long-term soul searching. But the point is, it's not like everybody
• 5:00
  out there is happy and satisfied. If anything, I think things are sort of more unsettled and more problematic than they've been in a very long time. So in a way, you might say that's an opportunity. I hate to use that kind of language, but even Loren Richmond Jr (38:14) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Right. Christian Smith (38:38) and worse would be say there's a market, but ⁓ it's not like everybody's satisfied. So that creates an environment where it's worth reflecting. I think what the church
• 5:04
  needs to do is to step back and say, are, like, who are we at heart? What does it mean most to be faithful? Where are we getting off track here and there and the other place? And what, as a longer-term strategy, or sort of a reset, might help us to reconnect with people? Loren Richmond Jr (39:12) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. One more question I do want to ask you before we take a break, just kind of on this trend. I've wondered like, does it make sense? think the last, especially 20, 30 years, especially
• 5:08
  with like evangelicalism and I think even within mainline prosentism has been this kind of trend to kind of like de-emphasize religion or traditional aspects of the faith ritual, especially in evangelicalism. And I have wondered like, do you think it would make sense to just become more weird if that makes sense of more like into these methodist practices or Presbyterian practices or you know Christian Smith (39:51) Yeah, that's a great question. And it's a difficult one because... ⁓ I don't
• 5:12
  think the strategy of just mimicking the world works or just sort of downplaying distinctives because people say, why do I want that? It's so different than anything. On the other hand, becoming weirder or more sectarian or more... ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (40:03) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (40:18) I think the word distinctive would get it. If people saw, you know, those people are different actually in a way that I admire, that that would at least get some attention. Loren Richmond
• 5:16
  Jr (40:24) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Christian Smith (40:31) But I think, again, it's gotta be authentic. It has to come from a reality that's grounded in something deeper than just we have a plan, we have a marketing strategy. So at the end of the book, I discuss, it's kind of a difficult situation, but I discuss, it's sort of damned if you do, damned if you don't. no matter what, it seems to me, at least at the present or recently, it's almost like anything the church does is gonna be not
• 5:20
  satisfactory. Loren Richmond Jr (40:34) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (41:00) So I think that in that context, again, you step back and say, okay, who are we? What are we doing? What does faithfulness look like in this tradition? And how does that articulate with the larger social cultural situation? Loren Richmond Jr (41:17) Yeah. Well, the book is Why Religion Went Obsolete, the Demise of Traditional Faith in America. Christian, I really appreciate your time here. Let's
• 5:24
  take a quick break and we'll come back with some closing questions. Okay, we're back with Christian Smith and we always tell our guests you're welcome to take these questions as seriously or not as you'd like to. But if you're a pope for a day, what might you like to do with that day? What would be important to you? Christian Smith (41:43) Yeah, well, I would hate to be Pope, I may not, you can't write a papal encyclical in a day, but I think we could use another papal encyclical on the
• 5:28
  environment and global warming. I think that that would be really important to do. Otherwise, I would probably enjoy just some quiet time by myself. I'm an introvert, so quiet time by myself in the Vatican, you know, hanging out, if I only had a day. Loren Richmond Jr (41:56) Okay. Yeah, I mean only a day. Yeah, I'm in the Denver Metro and we've just broken smashed in March here as we're recording this, like smashed high temperatures. So I am, ⁓ I'm concerned. Christian Smith (42:27) Yeah, we
• 5:32
  have good reason to be concerned. Loren Richmond Jr (42:30) Yeah, a theologian or historical Christian figure you'd like to meet or bring back to life. Christian Smith (42:36) I mean there's a lot that'd be great to talk with, right? I might say Karl Barth, but I'm going to go way back in history and say ⁓ the Apostle Peter or John, just because the gospels are so sparse, you know, on details and on experience. accounts to recounts events and teaching, but it's very sparse on sort of what
• 5:36
  people were experiencing. So if they'd be willing to talk, it'd be fascinating to hear sort of. So when you betray Jesus, like what was it? Loren Richmond Jr (42:53) Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (43:09) Probably John or Peter. Loren Richmond Jr (43:14) That's good. What do you think history will remember from our current time and place? Christian Smith (43:18) Hmm I'm at it depends on where history goes of course and how we compare but ⁓ What I can imagine I mean where it's hard to see because
• 5:40
  we're in the middle of it, but we're in the middle of a ⁓ Massive technological explosion of technological power explosion of technological power and and and since the end of the war World War two economic growth Loren Richmond Jr (43:24) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (43:45) which is again having a huge environmental and ⁓ I think we all know AI, robotics, all this could transfer. So sort of, we seem to be on the cusp of a lot of expansion of power and that could be good or could be
• 5:44
  threatening, but it also, we know it's not good for the environment. it could be future generations look back on us and say, why were you partying so hard? You should have been changing course. Loren Richmond Jr (44:13) Yeah, yeah. I'm thinking about this as it was, think, just this week, if I saw the news correctly, that, I mean, quite literally, the first lady walked out with at the White House, like a AI powered robot suggesting that Christian Smith (44:28) Yeah, well, if I just watch the
• 5:48
  Chinese new, the Spring Festival Gala highlights, and if you go that, if you look on that on YouTube, there's AI robots doing martial arts with martial arts humans. It's just astounding. I mean, it's just, I won't say scary, but it's just the power, the technological power is amazing. Loren Richmond Jr (44:47) Whoa. Well, I don't know if I want to see that, but fair enough. What do you hope for the future of Christianity or broadly speaking, religion in America? Christian Smith (45:03) Mm-hmm
• 5:52
  ⁓ I think in the shorter term, I think what would be good is if the political, the politicization of things and political polarization could be backed off of. I don't think... the association of religion or Christianity or the church with particular political programs. It's especially prominent on the right now, but there's also, you know, the left has its own draw. So I just think, you know, attacking the Capitol. Loren Richmond Jr (45:34) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Christian Smith (45:43) the way it
• 5:56
  happened some years ago with crosses and references to Jesus, that is not gonna help anything. I know politics are tricky and people may disagree with this, but I would say depoliticizing and sort of pulling back and focusing on what are we, what's our core mission, so to speak. ⁓ Maybe America is not what the church is all about. Loren Richmond Jr (46:08) Yeah. Christian Smith (46:09) So I guess I would say that in the short run and then in the longer run, sort of somehow, increase knowledge,
• 6:00
  faithfulness, commitment, how to make that happen in this environment, I don't know. But they used to say religion in America is a mile wide and an inch deep. And I think where things have come is it's not a mile wide anymore. maybe even it's, ⁓ with the exception of some pockets where it's pretty strong and intense, ⁓ I don't know how deep it is. It's amazing how little American religious people know about the Bible or doctrine or history. So there's a lack of roots, there's a lack of sort of
• 6:04
  seriousness. Loren Richmond Jr (46:49) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Well, do you have a website anything how folks can get it get in touch with you if they'd like? Christian Smith (46:56) Yeah, I'm kind of anti social media, so I don't have any of the most of it. I have a lot of bucks on Amazon. I have a Wikipedia page and I've got some YouTube podcast recordings, but nothing on TikTok or Instagram or any of that stuff. So. Try to hide out from it, you know. Loren Richmond Jr (47:13) Fair enough. Fair
• 6:08
  enough. Yeah. Well, I really appreciate your time. Thanks for the conversation. We always leave folks with a word of peace. So may God's peace be with you. Christian Smith (47:25) Thanks for having me.