An interesting phenomenon is occurring in the United Kingdom (and likely across much of Europe as a whole). Religion is dying, or, more accurately: Christianity is dying.
The most visible sign of this is that many – and I must stress many - buildings which used to be churches and indeed still look like what we typically call a “church” are being converted into buildings used for non-religious functions or being abandoned and left to decay. In fact, I have a class in one such building – stained glasses, steeple and all (though I suppose there probably used to be a cross that stood at the top of the steeple or somewhere on the building). Yes, the pulpit has been turned into a lecturing podium, the pews replaced with students’ desks. When I looked up the location of my classroom building, it said not only to look for the old converted church on the corner of University and Gibson but also not to confuse it with the other converted church that stands on the opposite corner.
Last week the Pope was in Glasgow which, of course, triggered many days of discussion on morning radio talk shows (and I’m sure television as well). BBC Radio 1 had many “experts” from different perspectives come in and speak about the event along with taking calls from listeners. It was very clear, from the data provided by the experts and the phone-ins that the number of Christians in the UK is dwindling at a rapid rate. In fact, it was said repeatedly that about only 47% of the population believe in God - and that is including people of non-Christian faiths. Catholics who called in on the radio were not adamantly defending their faith nor crying out about the declining number of “believers”. Some seemed almost apologetic that they still believed.
Statistics and my personal experience do not give the impression that the UK population, as a whole, is of higher education or greater intellect than the United States, and I point this out because I have heard (and thought myself) of the argument that the more highly educated a population becomes – more knowledgeable of and influenced by scientific fact – the less religion, If not faith in a higher power entirely, plays a role in that population.
I don’t think it is a matter of science, but rather a matter of history, and I ask this:
Does a population get to the point after centuries upon centuries of faith-based conflict, massacres in the name of religion, their church raping and pillaging lands in the name of “God” but really in the name of greed and power, people of the same faith slaughtering each other (Catholics killing Protestants and Protestants killing Catholics, for example), monarchs using religion for their own selfish agendas (God Bless Henry VIII!)….that they just say, "enough is enough" and give up on faith and religion entirely? It’s not even just a matter of more than half of the UK population not labeling themselves as “religious” – it is a complete abandonment of faith in a higher power of any sort - publicly and without reservation labeling themselves as “non-believers”, period.
Again, I ask, is it a matter of science/intellect or a matter of history? (Because, frankly, I don't know.)
Is the United States on that same path, but being the “little sibling” of the UK with only a short history, relatively speaking, it still has a long way to get there? Sadly, some might argue that it is well on its way to the critical stage of religiously-driven internal conflict, as we turn to recent events that made news around the world with a fundamentalist Christian leader wanting to burn the sacred text of all Muslims, because they are all “fundamentalists”?
Is a specific faith really that important, or, to push the envelope a bit further – is faith at all really that important? And if we were to dissect present-day examples of faith-based conflict in the US and around the world, something tells me that we would find that ti's not about faith at all – it is, like always throughout history, about power, greed and control.
Perhaps the UK is on the right path in its converting churches to something more functional – symbolic of converting religion itself into an ideology – or lack thereof – that is much more functional and realistic in our societies.
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