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Why?
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110 6 Why? Strongly felt religion has always been around; what needs explanation is its absence rather than its presence. —Peter Berger1 In cerTaIn coUnTrIes today—many of them in Western Europe—religion isn’t doing so well.2 Sure, one can occasionally read about a successful Pentecostal church springing up here and there,3 but the overwhelming trajectory for religion in most Western European nations over the past century has been that of unambiguous decline. In Germany, for instance, most people aren’t going to church anymore, and church buildings that were regularly frequented by Germans for hundreds of years are now being converted into restaurants, coffee houses, discos, and apartments. One study predicts that in the coming years, 50 percent of Germany’s churches will meet such a secularized fate.4 But it isn’t just a drop in church attendance that illustrates the poor health of religion in Germany—religious beliefs are also withering there, with far fewer people today believing in the supernatural tenets of Christianity than in earlier decades.5 A similar phenomenon is discernable in the Netherlands. Whereas nearly 100 percent of the Dutch belonged to a church 100 years ago, today only 40 percent are church members, with the majority of men and women in the Netherlands being religiously disaffiliated.6 And only a small minority of the Dutch now maintain a strong faith in God and basic supernatural Christian teachings.7 In France, whereas 91 percent of babies received baptism in 1958, that percentage had fallen to 51 percent by 1990.8 In Britain, Christianity may very well be on its last legs: church membership has plummeted over the course of the last 100 years, and as for traditional Christian beliefs—in God, that Jesus was the Son of God, in an afterlife, the holiness of the Bible, etc.—they have eroded substantially, with a marked decline in recent decades.9 And, of course, the decline of religiosity over the course of the twentieth century is evident in Denmark and Sweden, too.10 Palm and Trost describe Sweden as “one of the most secularized countries in the world.”11 why? 111 Andrew Buckser describes Denmark as “one of the sociology of religion’s type cases in the secularization of modern society.”12 Indeed, over the last five decades, belief in God among Danes and Swedes has dramatically declined ,13 as has church attendance.14 As this book has attempted to illustrate , the state of religion in Denmark and Sweden is remarkably weak. The question is: why? It is the most pressing of questions, and yet unfortunately, the most difficult to answer. That is because any and every major characteristic, trait, trend, or aspect of any and every society is inevitably the result of a frustratingly complex and highly idiosyncratic combination of historical developments , economic dynamics, cultural peculiarities, political formations, gender constructions, creative expressions, geographic realities, weather patterns, family structures, etc.—all affecting one another and acting upon one another in a myriad of ways. However, that said, I shall nonetheless press forward and do my best to offer a sociological explanation of Scandinavia ’s marked irreligiosity, or rather, offer explanations, for there is no one single answer or sole explanation to this puzzle. Rather, there are numerous possible theories, all of which may illuminate our understanding to varying degrees, but none of which, on their own, solves the puzzle completely. lazy monopolies This theory comes primarily from the work of Rodney Stark and his associates .15 I am paraphrasing here, but the theory basically goes like this: when there are many different religions in a given society—with none of them being state-subsidized—interest and involvement in religion will be high. Conversely, when there is only one dominant religion in a given society —and it is subsidized by the state—interest and involvement in religion will be low. Why would this be the case? According to Stark, when there are many different religions—again, none of which are state subsidized— a “free market” competition arises; religious organizations must compete for members if they are to stay afloat. Religious organizations thus become good at marketing themselves, and are able to successfully stir up interest and involvement in religion by offering alluring products and services.16 However, when a religious organization is the “only show in town,” that is, when a given religious organization has a state-subsidized, hegemonic dominance in a given society akin to that of a monopoly—without any [44...