Nick Spencer, Director of Studies at Theos has put out a good article in Theos’s January newsletter (originally published on the Guardian’s Comment is free website). He asks, “What did the noughties mean for religion? Can we climb out of the trenches?” Here are a few snippets, but do look up the full text if you have time:
Peter Berger’s oft-quoted comment from The New York Times in 1968 that "by the 21st century, religious believers are likely to be found only in small sects, huddled together to resist a worldwide secular culture" must rank as one of the worst predictions of all time, as Berger himself has recognised. Religion did not roll over and die, as many expected. Rather it migrated from being a fundamentally socio-economic phenomenon, which would simply dissolve when humanity finally arrived at perfect socio-economic conditions, to being a biological one, as hardwired into us as sex or aggression. Almost irrespective of whether religious beliefs are true or false, religious identity, behaviour, and communities are here to stay. …
Europe stumbled into the first world war through a kind of inadvertent positive feedback loop, as aggression was met with aggression was met with aggression. The last thing the 21st century needs, faced as it is with the prospect of resource shortages and environmental degradation, is contention between "faith" groups, among which I would include atheists and humanists, descending into conflict. The challenge before each group is to affirm what is of worth in the thinking and traditions of others. As Jonathan Sacks remarked recently, "religious groups in the liberal democratic state must be prepared to enter into serious respectful conversations with secular humanists … about the nature of the common good and the kind of society we wish to create for our grandchildren."
The next decade will not see anyone with their feet up in a Berlin café, but nor need it witness an exodus to the religious trenches.
