The Unbundling of Christianity

A package that has come unraveled

Brink Lindsey writes,

Here is the loss of faith, not as weakening belief in the supernatural, not as diminished salience of the transcendent in a secularized world, not as the loss of the church’s social welfare functions, but rather as loss of trust — of confidence, of attachment, of belonging. The acid bath of romantic hyper-individualism has degraded all the connections of contemporary society — connections to one’s family, to all the major secular institutions, to the land of one’s birth, all the way to the shared sense of the sacred.

This kind of loss of faith — this sense of alienation, or homelessness, born of confrontation with reality’s flaws and disappointments — is, in my view, the great spiritual crisis of our time.

I have a different interpretation. Rather than speak in psychological terms like “loss of faith” or “spiritual crisis,” I would offer an economic interpretation, in which religion has become unbundled.

We can think of Christianity as a package. . .Looking at each component separately, we can understand why this package has unraveled.

I am leery of generalizing about all religions. I want to limit myself to Christianity. Even generalizing about Christianity is brave enough, given its heterogeneity.

I speak of Christianity as an outsider, as a Jew. I think that many of my observations here also happen to apply to Judaism, but I do not want to lump Judaism and Christianity together. I have always found the term “Judeo-Christian tradition” condescending. It comes across as a way for a Christian to say “Of course, when we disparage the non-Christians around the world, we don’t mean you.”

We can think of Christianity as a package. It includes some specific supernatural beliefs, particular answers to some of life’s mysteries, regular communal gatherings, entertainment, norms for sexual conduct, general moral principles, monitoring and enforcement of social conformity, group affiliation, social insurance, stable traditions, and rituals and community support at the major life cycle events: childbirth; puberty; marriage; and death.

Looking at each component separately, we can understand why this package has unraveled. Some supernatural beliefs specific to Christianity were undermined by scientific progress, which also has provided answers to some of life’s mysteries. But as Lindsey points out, other supernatural beliefs have a powerful hold on people’s imaginations.

Christian sexual norms have become more difficult to enforce in an urbanized, mobile society. Not confined to small villages and suspicious neighbors, people indulge in temptations that Christianity regarded as illicit, including pornography, homosexuality, and extramarital sex. Reliable birth control has resulted in premarital sex being encouraged rather than discouraged.

Urbanization, mobility, and communication technologies also have affected the way that other moral norms arise, get monitored, and are enforced. Less of our behavior is observed by members of our church, and relatively more of what we do falls under the gaze of our employer, the credit bureaus, large corporations, and the state.

The social insurance function of churches has been undermined by the welfare state. This reduces the incentive to join a church.

There are now some secular alternatives for some of the social functions of churches. People don’t look for entertainment at church. For stable traditions, we now have Thanksgiving, the Super Bowl, and Christmas as a vacation and shopping occasion.

I think that people still feel comfortable with religious rituals at life-cycle events. But where the bride used to get married in the church to which her parents belonged, today she is more likely to choose a church with which she is not affiliated as a member, or a secular venue.

The unbundling of Christianity strikes me as irreversible. I do not believe that Christianity, or any other mass movement, is going to re-assemble the entire package.

But the unbundling is probably a source of some discomfort and unhappiness. The whole was greater than the sum of its parts.

For Joseph Henrich, a crucial component of Christianity is the norm of monogamy. Whether that norm also is breaking down is an important issue that is beyond the scope of this essay. If you are not familiar with Henrich’s thesis, you might start with my review of The WEIRDest People in the World. That might be a good book to discuss when I get back to live events, perhaps the week after next.

This essay is part of a series on human interdependence.

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The Loss of Faith