Religious Identity In A “Post-Religious” Age

It seems that Western society has entered into a “post-religious” age. Attendance at religious services has steadily decreased while those who eschew religious labels are the fastest growing demographic.This shift in our cultural consciousness has been both celebrated and vilified by all sorts of people with various agendas. In popular media, a strict dichotomy between “fundamentalists” and “secularists” is often presented as the driving force behind this cultural shift. The popularity in recent years of books such as “The God Delusion” and “God is Not Great” concurrent to folks like Bill O’Reilly declaring a “culture war” feed directly into this narrative. Nothing like a good passionate “debate” between irreconcilable ideologies to sell books and drive TV ratings, after all.

As usual, the media narrative is an overly dramatic representation that does not reflect the complex reality that we find ourselves immersed in. The reasons for our shift in cultural awareness are varied and while it’s true that polarity exists between religious fundamentalists and passionate secularists, it would certainly be a stretch to identify that tension as the driving force that’s shaping the changes in our culture. Ultimately, it’s the universal human impulse towards a greater sense of unity and connectedness that is driving all of this. The religious labels of “Catholic,” “Protestant,” “Jewish,” etc. are becoming increasingly irrelevant, and this is a beautiful thing. It means that people are coming together and treating each other as equals; that love between people of differing ethnic and religious backgrounds (and same sex couples as well) is being celebrated rather than condemned; that friendships that would have been impossible a generation or two ago are flourishing today. This is the great paradox: As religion is increasingly seen as irrelevant and divisive, the embrace of secular values like pluralism and egalitarianism is fulfilling spiritual needs where religion simply hasn’t been delivering. The human spirit’s drive to be free and evolve simply won’t be held back by the systems of old any longer, and if those systems want to remain relevant, they are going to have to change.

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Religious Identity in a “Post-Religious” Age