As usual, this Christmas we had to listen to the accusations that we were not celebrating Christmas spiritually enough. And that we’re never really spiritual enough, and that we’re an atheist nation, and that if we all went to church we’d be in a very different place politically, and I don’t know what. This time I’m going to bring up Rodney Stark, the Catholic historian and sociologist of religion, in my opinion clearly the best analyst in this field.
Stark shows that we have a choice. Either we can be a country where churches are built, religious symbols are on the national flag, religion is taught in schools, almost everyone has a church wedding… but where people will be completely lukewarm religiously and almost no one will care. Or we can be a country where a lot more people will think about spiritual things and live a nondenominational religious life. But then there won’t be those cathedrals, signs, religious instruction in schools and thousands of church services. For the two are mutually exclusive. The types of religious organizations (churches, sects, etc.) that can influence the state and the public atmosphere, they cannot reach the vast majority of people. And those that can reach people personally, in turn cannot influence the state and the public atmosphere. Either one or the other prevails.
The types of religious organizations (churches, sects, etc.) that can influence the state and the public atmosphere, they cannot reach the vast majority of people.
Stark also shows that in history these periods alternate. Sometimes cathedrals are built and other times people are interested in spiritual things. After all, we in the Czech Republic have gone through this particularly intensely. As late as the beginning of the 17th century, our country was a centre of the Reformation, a centre of education and a centre of personal piety. Then followed 100 years of very brutal enforcement of the Catholic Church. Almost 90% of the population had to leave the country or convert to Catholicism. Hundreds burned, thousands executed, tens of thousands imprisoned. Thousands of churches were built, the Catholic Church merged with the state – and informal personal piety disappeared.
Incidentally, the same pattern seems to apply elsewhere. Remember, for example, the recent report that atheists are increasing in Arab countries that are returning to Islamic law and Islamic traditions?
