Faith's Last Gasp

On the basis of apparently incontrovertible evidence, commentators of various persuasions... are convinced that we are witnessing an upsurge in religious observance and influence...

But I see the same evidence as yielding the opposite conclusion. What we are witnessing is not the resurgence of religion, but its death throes...

When a climate of heightened tension such as this prompts activists in one religious group to become more assertive... other religious groups, not wishing to be left behind, follow suit... The effect is that suddenly it seems as if there are religious devotees everywhere, and the spurious magnification of their importance further promotes their confidence. As a result they make some gains, as the faith schools example shows...

Yet the fact is that only 10 per cent of the British population attend church, mosque, synagogue or temple every week, and this figure is declining in all but immigrant communities... Yes, over half the population claim vaguely to believe in Something... but they are functionally secularist and would be horrified if asked to live according to the letter of (say) Christian morality: giving all one’s possessions to the poor, taking no thought for the morrow and so impracticably forth. Not even Christian clerics follow these injunctions. This picture is repeated everywhere in the west except the US, and there too the religious base is eroding...

As private observance, religion will of course survive among minorities; as a factor in public and international affairs it is having what might be its last - characteristically bloody - fling.

AC Grayling, Faith's Last Gasp, Prospect Magazine, November 2006