Why religion went obsolete - Part 1
I recently finished sociologist Christian Smith’s latest book Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America and I’d like to spend a few blog posts distilling his argument (for those unlikely to read the whole book) and reflecting on its implications.
Smith starts by revealing what many other researchers confirm: “Traditional American religion is caught in a spiral of decline…That much is evident.”[1]
By “traditional American religion” Smith means “a person identifying with one specific tradition and becoming a member of a local congregation in which they participate and invest at least minimally.”[2] And while you’ve probably seen some news stories highlighting “young people” returning to faith and church in this way, the larger declining trend simply has not changed. Despite encouraging signs of sporadic revival, it remains true that rates of both belief and belonging continue to decline while the number of Americans identifying as either “not religious” or “spiritual but not religious” continues to increase.
Not only is this truer with each new generation but it also becomes truer for older generations the older they get. We’re all breathing the same air and it’s affecting everyone.
THAT this is happening is well known and well documented (and Smith shares all the latest data). WHY this is happening, Smith says, is less clear.
His argument is essentially that a number of different social forces and influences combined in the 1990’s and 2000’s leading to a cultural tipping point that pushed traditional religion into a state of unplanned obsolescence.
In Smith’s words;
Smith’s argument is that a combination of cultural innovations, incompatible larger trends, and perceived changes in functional needs—forces that began well before the 1990’s and 2000’s but that Smith argues combined into a “perfect storm” of cultural mismatch during that specific two-decade period—resulting in most people no longer seeing traditional religion as useful or necessary.
By the end of the first decade of the 21st-century, it wasn’t that the majority of Americans had become anti-religious—though struggles with traditional religion is one of the influences Smith addresses in the book—but that they had simply left it behind. In the same way that most people are not against typewriters but in a world of computers simply don’t think about them and would never dream of using one, most Americans today aren’t against traditional religion. They simply don't think about it and would never dream of using it.
Smith is quick to point out that obsolete does not mean failed, as if traditional religion’s obsolescence is because it has proven to be objectively bad. Obsolete just means one thing has been superseded by another. The Walkman didn’t fail. It was just replaced by the Discman, which was then replaced by the iPod. Some people prefer to still listen to music on a Walkman, just as some people prefer to still engage in traditional religion, but most have moved on to what they perceive to be better “technology.”
And one main reason for that is because most technologies depend on a broader system of “tools, ideas, products, and practices.”[4] You might like using a typewriter or watching movies on VHS, but what happens when your typewriter needs more ink or your VHS player starts eating your tapes? The supporting systems that make those technologies viable are harder and harder to come by resulting in fewer people using them.
This is the heart of Smith’s argument. His book focuses on a wide range of causal factors often ignored by other attempts to explain the decline of traditional religion in America. In other words, no one planned traditional religion’s obsolescence, Smith argues, but it happened because the cultural “tools, ideas, products, and practices” that have historically supported traditional religion have changed making traditional religion a far less-likely option for the average person.
In the following posts I’ll share and reflect on some of the “causal factors” that Smith identifies, I’ll look at some of the analogies he uses to describe the complex relationship between traditional religion and culture, and I’ll offer some thoughts on how all of this influences how Christians ought to live and minister.
Before I get to those issues, however, in my next post I plan to focus on some of what people used to find helpful about traditional religion that they apparently no longer do. If traditional religion has become obsolete, meaning people no longer pursue traditional religion because they no longer find it helpful, that must mean they once did find it helpful. What did the average person “use” traditional religion for that today some alternative has made more efficient or effective to achieve?
That people initially approach religion or faith for selfish reasons is obvious and understandable. But if people can walk away from religion because they no longer find it useful, that suggests perhaps they were using it for the wrong reasons.
If there is hope in Smith’s analysis, it is that people are walking away from traditional religion, not necessarily faith, spirituality, Jesus, or God. That poses its own set of challenges and problems, but it also leaves open the door that if people found in Jesus all that they most deeply desire, religion would always be useful, because the only way you receive Jesus is from people who already know him. And the only way there can be people in every generation who know Jesus is if they are being nurtured and sustained by a tradition.
[1] Smith, p. 1
[2] Smith, p. 3
[3] Smith, p. 4
[4] Smith, p. 5
Smith starts by revealing what many other researchers confirm: “Traditional American religion is caught in a spiral of decline…That much is evident.”[1]
By “traditional American religion” Smith means “a person identifying with one specific tradition and becoming a member of a local congregation in which they participate and invest at least minimally.”[2] And while you’ve probably seen some news stories highlighting “young people” returning to faith and church in this way, the larger declining trend simply has not changed. Despite encouraging signs of sporadic revival, it remains true that rates of both belief and belonging continue to decline while the number of Americans identifying as either “not religious” or “spiritual but not religious” continues to increase.
Not only is this truer with each new generation but it also becomes truer for older generations the older they get. We’re all breathing the same air and it’s affecting everyone.
THAT this is happening is well known and well documented (and Smith shares all the latest data). WHY this is happening, Smith says, is less clear.
His argument is essentially that a number of different social forces and influences combined in the 1990’s and 2000’s leading to a cultural tipping point that pushed traditional religion into a state of unplanned obsolescence.
In Smith’s words;
something becomes obsolete when most people feel it is no longer useful or needed because something else has superseded it in function, efficiency, value, or interest. Obsolete connotes outdated or old-fashioned, in the sense of being “put out of business” or style by some innovation, incompatible larger trend, or perceived change in functional need.[3]
Smith’s argument is that a combination of cultural innovations, incompatible larger trends, and perceived changes in functional needs—forces that began well before the 1990’s and 2000’s but that Smith argues combined into a “perfect storm” of cultural mismatch during that specific two-decade period—resulting in most people no longer seeing traditional religion as useful or necessary.
By the end of the first decade of the 21st-century, it wasn’t that the majority of Americans had become anti-religious—though struggles with traditional religion is one of the influences Smith addresses in the book—but that they had simply left it behind. In the same way that most people are not against typewriters but in a world of computers simply don’t think about them and would never dream of using one, most Americans today aren’t against traditional religion. They simply don't think about it and would never dream of using it.
Smith is quick to point out that obsolete does not mean failed, as if traditional religion’s obsolescence is because it has proven to be objectively bad. Obsolete just means one thing has been superseded by another. The Walkman didn’t fail. It was just replaced by the Discman, which was then replaced by the iPod. Some people prefer to still listen to music on a Walkman, just as some people prefer to still engage in traditional religion, but most have moved on to what they perceive to be better “technology.”
And one main reason for that is because most technologies depend on a broader system of “tools, ideas, products, and practices.”[4] You might like using a typewriter or watching movies on VHS, but what happens when your typewriter needs more ink or your VHS player starts eating your tapes? The supporting systems that make those technologies viable are harder and harder to come by resulting in fewer people using them.
This is the heart of Smith’s argument. His book focuses on a wide range of causal factors often ignored by other attempts to explain the decline of traditional religion in America. In other words, no one planned traditional religion’s obsolescence, Smith argues, but it happened because the cultural “tools, ideas, products, and practices” that have historically supported traditional religion have changed making traditional religion a far less-likely option for the average person.
In the following posts I’ll share and reflect on some of the “causal factors” that Smith identifies, I’ll look at some of the analogies he uses to describe the complex relationship between traditional religion and culture, and I’ll offer some thoughts on how all of this influences how Christians ought to live and minister.
Before I get to those issues, however, in my next post I plan to focus on some of what people used to find helpful about traditional religion that they apparently no longer do. If traditional religion has become obsolete, meaning people no longer pursue traditional religion because they no longer find it helpful, that must mean they once did find it helpful. What did the average person “use” traditional religion for that today some alternative has made more efficient or effective to achieve?
That people initially approach religion or faith for selfish reasons is obvious and understandable. But if people can walk away from religion because they no longer find it useful, that suggests perhaps they were using it for the wrong reasons.
If there is hope in Smith’s analysis, it is that people are walking away from traditional religion, not necessarily faith, spirituality, Jesus, or God. That poses its own set of challenges and problems, but it also leaves open the door that if people found in Jesus all that they most deeply desire, religion would always be useful, because the only way you receive Jesus is from people who already know him. And the only way there can be people in every generation who know Jesus is if they are being nurtured and sustained by a tradition.
[1] Smith, p. 1
[2] Smith, p. 3
[3] Smith, p. 4
[4] Smith, p. 5
Recent
Archive
2026
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
Categories
no categories
No Comments