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| Pâ•qidꞋ Yi•rᵊmᵊyâhꞋu |
2004.11.24 – The most recent scholarly theory attempting to explain why the U.S. is more religious today (62% are church members) than in 1890 (45% were church members) is called “Supply-Side Religion” (SSR).
Theological theorists have long clung to the notion that as nations become more modern – prosperous, healthy and educated – the role, and demand, for religion will decline. Increasingly secular and anti-religious Europe appears to demonstrate the truth of the theory that modernity will cause religion to become extinct. Trouble is, the U.S. experience contradicts and disproves this theory.
As a result, scholars have developed a new theory based on the “Supply-Side” theory of economics. SSR posits that the greater the supply of religious proponents (churches & organizations), the greater the competition, the better the religious product and the greater the public religiosity. (On the other hand, also the greater the dispersal among the varieties.) Trouble here is that Islam thrives where there is no competition, a glaring contradiction that disproves this theory.
I’ve developed a theory that explains all of these factors. For lack of better description, I’ll call it the Tri-Modal Theory: religious pervasiveness has three primary modes:
In the Tri-Modal Theory, modes 1 & 3 will increase religious participation: #1 because it is dictated and #3 because this environment generates the most relevant answers to pertinent life questions. Further, mode #1 is as temporary and religiously meaningless as the dictatorship imposing it. Mode #2, however, leads to widespread disillusionment with religion because the state religion, which is the only choice, offers no relevant answers and has no incentive to change; leading the population to opt for the only other choice: to ignore religion. Islam is an example of mode #1. Europe is an example of mode #2. The U.S. is the best example of mode #3.
Israel most closely resembles mode #2, and the current state confirms the expected result of the theory. To be more religious, Israel will have to get off of the mode #2 fence and move either to mode #1 or mode #3. The Israeli public won’t accept mode #1 (which, like Islam, is doomed to eventual failure anyway). For Israel to provide its citizens relevant answers, and to become the Light of the world, we will have to move to mode #3. This implies that for Tor•âhꞋ to keep from going extinct religious Jews will have to learn to present Tor•âhꞋ competitively in the modern environment. That also implies that, when this is accomplished, Tor•âhꞋ will prevail in other mode #3 environments.
"The national government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life." – Adolf Hitler, My New World Order, Proclamation to the German Nation at Berlin, February 1, 1933. (Quote thanks to our ta•lᵊmidꞋ in San Clemente, CA, Anthony G. Payne, Ph.D.)
This is a crucial (pun intended) point for Christians to learn as well. Attempting to make the U.S. a “Christian nation” would lock the U.S. into mode #1 – a Christian Taliban state. This would inexorably cause Christianity to become as irrelevant and resented in the U.S. as the Taliban was in Afghanistan. It isn’t merely threatening to Jews. It’s self-defeating and suicidal for Christians! It’s also harmful to the U.S. because it would suffocate the free flow of religious views, stifling the religious competition that generates meaningful answers to life’s problems and purpose and one of the arguably primary factors that has contributed to the U.S. becoming the world’s superpower.
(Based on New York Times article "Give Them Some of That Free-Market Religion", by Eduardo Porter, 2004.11.21.)
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