Background

The thesis of religious decline, central to secularization theory, has become massively contested among social-scientific students of religion. Its critics observe not so much decline, but rather change in the religious landscape of Western Europe, in effect pointing out that the decline of Christianity’s traditional institutional, doctrinal and ritual dimensions should not be mistaken for a decline of religion tout court.

Purpose

In this research note, we address this ongoing debate among sociologists of religion by studying whether traditional Christian religiosity has declined in Western Europe over the past four decades, and whether the same applies to religiosity more broadly conceived.

Methods

To examine these trends over time, we analyze data from the European Values Study (1981–2017) for nineteen Western-European countries. More specifically, we carry out multi-level linear- and multi-level logistic regression analyses.

Results

We demonstrate that both traditional Christian religiosity and religiosity more broadly conceived have declined, with the former declining at a much higher pace than the latter. We also find that those who continue to be religious and/or spiritual deviate increasingly from the traditional Christian model. Thus, when one does encounter religiosity, it is much more likely to be non-traditional religiosity than was true in the past.

Conclusions and Implications

We conclude that religion has declined, whether one understands it narrowly as traditional Christian religiosity, or more broadly. Even though new forms of religiosity and spirituality cannot compensate for the loss in traditional Christian religiosity, they do make up an increasing portion of the overall declining religious pie. Finally, we reflect on the limitations of the data from the European Values Study (1981–2017) and make an urgent call for better survey data, especially by including more suitable questions with which to measure types of religiosity and/or spirituality that deviate from the traditional Christian model.

中文翻译：

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不同口味的小馅饼：西欧宗教景观的演变（欧洲价值观研究，1981-2017）

背景

作为世俗化理论核心的宗教衰落的论点，已经在宗教社会科学研究者中引起了激烈的争论。它的批评者观察到的不是衰落，而是西欧宗教景观的变化，实际上指出基督教传统制度、教义和仪式维度的衰落不应被误认为是宗教宣扬的衰落。

目的

在本研究报告中，我们通过研究过去四年来西欧的传统基督教宗教信仰是否有所下降，以及这是否适用于更广泛的宗教信仰，来解决宗教社会学家之间正在进行的争论。

方法

为了检验这些趋势随着时间的推移，我们分析了 19 个西欧国家的欧洲价值观研究（1981-2017 年）的数据。更具体地说，我们进行多级线性和多级逻辑回归分析。

结果

我们证明，传统的基督教宗教信仰和广义上的宗教信仰都在下降，前者的下降速度比后者快得多。我们还发现，那些继续信奉宗教和/或属灵的人越来越偏离传统的基督教模式。因此，当一个人确实遇到宗教信仰时，与过去相比，它更有可能是非传统的宗教信仰。

结论和启示

我们得出结论，宗教已经衰落，无论人们将其狭义地理解为传统的基督教宗教信仰，还是更广泛地理解。尽管新形式的宗教信仰和灵性无法弥补传统基督教宗教信仰的损失，但它们确实在整个衰落的宗教蛋糕中占了越来越大的一部分。最后，我们反思了欧洲价值观研究（1981-2017）数据的局限性，并紧急呼吁更好的调查数据，特别是通过包括更合适的问题来衡量偏离的宗教信仰和/或灵性类型传统的基督教模式。