National and local observers are reacting to a landmark survey, which indicates that nearly half of adult Americans have switched their faith or opted not to have one at all.
According to the survey, which was released last week by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, over 44 percent of Americans have made a change in religion at some point in their lives.
Most people within that group have made a simple switch within one faith tradition, such as going from the Baptist to Methodist denomination within Christianity. Twenty-eight percent, however, have opted to totally leave the faith of their childhood and make a major change to a new faith tradition, such as going from Christianity to Islam. A smaller number have chosen to embrace no religion at all.
The survey is based on the results of interviews with 37,000 people conducted between May and August 2007.
John Green, senior researcher for the Pew Forum, believes the results reflect the fact that Americans have many more religious choices than they did in past generations.
“America has always been very diverse in a religious sense, but it is diverse in a different way now because we have more different religious traditions,” Green noted. “Somebody raised in 1900 could be a Catholic or one of several kinds of Protestants. Today one also has Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism available to them as well.”
For Roger Finke, a Penn State University sociologist who consulted on the survey, the results show a higher tolerance in a society where people are also changing homes and jobs more often.
“In the past, certain religions had a real holding power, where people from one generation to the next would stay,” said Finke. “Now traditional religions are losing that hold.”
Imam Mikal Saahir, spiritual leader of the Nur-Allah Islamic Center in Indianapolis believes that more people have become aware of different religions due to exposure from modern technology and communications.
“In the past you seldom heard people talk about beliefs outside your own faith. When they were discussed they were probably described with a negative slant,” said Saahir. “Today we have so much access to information about other beliefs from the Internet, e-mail and increased travel.”
Saahir also noted that more parents are less diligent about passing religious affiliations on to children, and some are even open to allowing children to discover their own spiritual path to happiness, even if it takes them from the faith of their upbringing.
Pastor Michael Jones of Progressive Baptist Church, also in Indianapolis, says traditional faiths, including Christianity, have experienced losses because they have not kept up with the practical needs of their members in a modern age.
“I think most religions are very good about telling you what to do in terms of morality,” said Jones. “Most of them teach things such as the Golden Rule, which is ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ What they do not teach overtly, however, is how to do it- how to implement ethics in the real world. I’m told to love my enemy, but how do I do that?”
Jones added that as a result some people are turning to a “new age” style of religion that doesn’t glorify a specific god, but emphasizes solutions to everyday problems based on self-help methods used by physiologists.
“Traditional religion, whether you’re talking Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism, is not expanding its nature and broadening its approach in order to deal with the root causes of problems,” he said.
Jones noted that some of the most successful churches, such as those led by national figures like Bishop T.D. Jakes and Pastor Joel Osteen, combine the directives of basic biblical principals with practical methods to help members use those principals in their everyday lives.
“That’s probably why their congregations are so large,” said Jones. “We need to have a marriage between theology, which helps us determine the ‘what,’ and basic psychology, which helps us determine the ‘how.’”
Overall, does a change in one’s faith or denomination have to be a bad thing?
Saahir says it really depends on the cause of the switch. He was raised a Christian, but became a Muslim in high school after receiving satisfactory answers to complex theological questions and witnessing the social activism of Black Muslims.
“Some people have been hurt in their original faith, while others seek the truth as it appears to them based upon their background, likes and dislikes,” he stated. “So they go shopping for the truth, just like they’re shopping for pants or shoes- until they find the right fit.”
Jones believes that if people want to study other faiths they don’t have to abandon their original beliefs if they are firmly grounded in them.
“We don’t have to become something else to study and engage people of other beliefs,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed studying Islam, Judaism, Eastern religions and some traditional African faiths. But I’m not giving up my Christ for anybody.”
