Religion Is Thriving, Not Declining, New Study Shows

Plus, Harvard anti-Trump team balloons to 17 outside lawyers

A church in Massachusetts. Photo: The Editors.

Religion is not declining, it’s thriving, a new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper says.

The paper, “Religion in Emerging and Developing Regions,” is by economists Sara Lowes of the University of California, San Diego; Eduardo Montero of the University of Chicago; and Benjamin Marx of Boston University.

“Rather than waning, religious beliefs, practice, and institutions may be adapting to the profound social and economic changes sweeping across the globe—consistent with religion’s remarkable ability to reinvent itself in previous periods of change,” they write, relying largely on survey data and a synthesis of other research. “Religious adaptation, rather than decline, may therefore be the key phenomenon at play in many regions.”

“Former communist countries are, if anything, experiencing a resurgence of religion,” they write. “The declining trends observed in the U.S. and Western Europe—for both the importance of religion and religious service attendance—stand in contrast to the rest of the world.”

The authors speculate about reasons for the resilience of religions in developing countries. “Instability may drive people to look to religion for both risk management and psychological comfort,” they write. Also, “religion often serves as an anchor for identity in periods of rapid social and economic change.”

“Future research could help shed light on how religion can unite communities against external threats (a cultural defense mechanism) or help individuals navigate life transitions by providing continuity and community (a cultural transition mechanism),” they write.