2.26.2008
Parsing the Pew Numbers
The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has released a new study of the religious landscape in America. The results, which the Pew Forum calls "unprecedentedly precise", points towards an increasingly "post-Christian" landscape in America.
"The United States is firmly 78 percent Christian but barely 51 percent Protestant, according to a survey released Monday (Feb. 25). The findings, part of the sweeping U.S. Religious Landscape Survey produced by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, reaffirm a decades-long decline toward minority status for the family of churches that long steered American politics and culture."
That "barely" 51% figure includes both mainline and evangelical varieties of Protestants. The vast majority of the rest of that 78 percent are the Catholics, who are the largest Christian denomination in America with 23 percent of American adults. But things aren't looking too good for the Catholics either.
"In the marketplace of American faith, Catholicism is the big loser. Catholics have lost more members to other faiths, or to no faith at all, than any other U.S. religion, according to the new survey released by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life ... Perhaps more worrisome for church leaders, while 2.6 percent of Americans converted to Catholicism, four times as many -- 10.1 percent -- of cradle Catholics have left for another faith or no faith at all. Roughly 10 percent of all Americans are former Catholics, the study reported."
According to Pew researchers, Catholic numbers have only remained stable due to waves of Hispanic immigration. So Catholicism's stability is precarious, and observers claim that as the current waves of Catholic immigrants assimilate to American culture, they too will drift away from the faith as previous waves of immigrants have.
So if Christianity's cultural power is starting to wane, what is taking its place? Well, the number of religiously unaffiliated Americans has risen to 16.1 percent, with a large chunk of that number claiming to have no particular religious orientation. Hindus have acheived the highest retention rate among faiths in America (8 in 10 children remain Hindu), meanwhile, the study finds that religious adherence is becoming increasingly fluid, with 28 percent of people leaving their childhood faith, and a whopping 44 percent changing affiliation in their lifetime.
Finally, we have confirmation that modern Paganism is continuing to grow. The study found that 0.4 percent of Americans adhere to a "New Age" religion, broken down into "Pagan", "Wiccan", and "Other". These figures don't include those who described themselves as "eclectic", "spiritual but not religious", "other liberal faith groups", or members of CUUPs who identified themselves primarily as Unitarian Universalists. Working then with the idea then that (at least) 0.4 percent of Americans are modern Pagans (according to the study), that means there are at least 1.2 million Pagans of one variety or another in America.
This is the largest scientific study that (theoretically) places modern Paganism over the one million mark. A number that could conceivably be much larger (0.8% refused to answer the survey). Previously, the largest estimated number was 768,400 Pagans in North American according to a COG poll. It is very likely that the actual number of people fitting under the umbrella of modern Paganism is much larger. Signaling perhaps that our days of being classified under "other" are coming to a close. For more data, I suggest looking through the entire study, There is a treasure trove of information here, that has only begun to be analyzed.
Labels: Christianity, New Age, Paganism, Pew Forum, population, U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, Wicca
11.01.2007
Mainstreamed, In Demand, Yet Shrinking?
Is modern Paganism becoming more mainstream, yet shrinking in size? That seems to be the gist of two recent articles that talked to practitioners and academics about the state of modern Paganism today. Reuters reporter Sarah Marsh interviews famed Alexandrian priestess Maxine Sanders, who explains that Witches and Pagans are more in demand than ever before.
"'Witches are getting more and more in demand. People want a pagan wedding,' said Maxine Sanders, high priestess of the sacred mysteries and a promoter of the modern nature-based witchcraft movement of Wicca ... People are more tolerant on the whole nowadays, she added, and more interested in witchcraft."
Elsewhere in the article, pop-culture boosts to Wicca and other modern Pagan religions through shows like "Buffy" and "Charmed" are mentioned, but a metaphysical store owner says these newcomers aren't necessarily in it for the religion.
"More and more people are practicing magic but they are not necessarily interested in the spiritual side of witchcraft, said John Cole, high priest of a Manchester coven and owner of an occult shop selling everything from cauldrons to Viking rune charms."
Some of these themes are taken up in a Samhain-themed article for The Record in Canada. Mirko Petricevic interviews academic Douglas Cowan, author of "Cyberhenge: Modern Pagans on the Internet", who also credits pop-culture for a sudden burst of growth, yet now thinks modern Paganism is entering a "shrinking" phase as that initial surge of interest wears off.
"Cowan says he hasn't had to go far to track the popularity of Paganism. But he has also observed that participation seems to be declining. Not long ago, he says, books about Wicca and witchcraft occupied huge amounts of shelf space at book stores. "Over the years I watched that shrink" ... Cowan suspects the next census or two will show a dramatic drop in the number of Pagans. He says he believes Paganism will grow, but that it will build slowly from the same core group of believers who were practising before interest in Paganism was driven by pop-culture."
While I agree that we may be tapering off of the explosive growth modern Paganism saw in the 1990s, there seems to be no clear picture on if we are shrinking (call it the hypothetical "pop-culture corrective"). Book-buying as proof of growth rates is a pretty shaky indicator, especially if the market was over-saturated for many years (as I believe it was). There will always be transient dabblers and seekers who don't stay long, but the demographics of possible new Pagans keep improving, perhaps mitigating any dramatic "shrink" in population. No doubt harder data will emerge when both Britain and Australia hold their next censuses in 2011. Until then, while I agree we are becoming ever more "mainstream", I'm not sure we are experiencing any dramatic downturn.
Labels: Canada, census, Douglas Cowan, Maxine Sanders, Paganism, pop-culture, population, UK
7.15.2007
Is Paganism's Growth Leveling Off?
One of the pervasive beliefs about modern Paganism is that we are growing at an explosive rate. Several studies (often by conservative Christian polling groups) exclaim excitedly of how teens are picking up "occult" and Pagan practices in huge numbers, or how the vast majority of Americans believe in "the paranormal" to one extent or another. Recently, an Australian study of religion claimed that modern Pagan faiths were the fastest growing in that country.
"Amongst those religions on the rise are Buddhism (up 79% since 1996), Islam (up 40%), Hinduism (up 42%), Pentecostalism (up 11%), 'nature religions' including Paganism and Wicca/witchcraft, (up 130%), and Scientology (up 37%)."
But is our collective explosive growth now leveling off? While we still have no firm data on America's Pagan population, new data from Australia's 2006 census has just been released that sheds some new light on Pagan growth rates. Sociologist (and Pagan) Douglas Ezzy reveals that Pagan growth rates seem to be slowing down
"We just heard the figures for the Australian 2006 Census. They are: Paganism 16,000 (11,000 in 2001), Witchcraft/Wicca 8,000 (9,000 in 2001), Other Nature Religion: 2,000 (3,000 in 2001). That makes a change from a total of 23,000 (0.12%) in 2001 to 26,000 (0.13%) in 2006 ... so, basically, the number of Pagans recorded on the Australian Census in 2006 is around 0.13 to 0.14% of the population and has grown in size by about 13% since the 2001 Census. Not bad, but nothing like the growth the movement had earlier."
While Paganism is still on the rise, it is no longer the news-making "boom" that grabbed so much attention in the 1990s, and spurred a large-scale invasion of Pagan-friendly products into the mainstream. Since Australia's census takes place every five years it can perhaps give an quicker (and more accurate?) snapshot of our collective growth rates. But any claims of a overall slowing of Pagan growth will most likely have to wait until the United Kingdom's next census in 2011 (like Australia, the UK also reported "explosive" growth in Pagan numbers in its 2001 census). American statistics will have to, as always, rely on the more inexact nature of polls and surveys to get a feeling for our growth rates.
* Could this be yet another sign that our era's occult renaissance is about to end, just as Louis T. Culling predicted?
Labels: Australia, census, Paganism, population
