May 15, 2011

I’m sure that most of you have figured out by now that I am fascinated by the changing scene of religion in America. I have been for many years but the transition from the Christ-haunted South, as Flannery O’Connor put it, and Madison, where Grace Church is practically neighbors with the Freedom from Religion Foundation, has given me much to reflect on, intellectually and pastorally. We live in an increasingly secular world, where, in spite of the prominence of Christian rhetoric in the political sphere, religious language and religious institutions, a religious world-view, is on the wane. More people identify themselves as non-religious, and many of those who still claim religious affiliation, are less and less connected to communities of faith. And then I read about the study that was published in the last couple of days that claimed to prove that to be human is to be religious, that is to say, that human beings, everywhere and always, have had religious quests.

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