Religion will still be with us 100 years from now, but most likely in forms that we would hardly recognize.

Religion will still be with us 100 years from now, but most likely in forms that we would hardly recognize.

The evolutionary process has endowed humans with large brains that enable us to think in complex ways, including about the meaning and purpose of our lives. This quest for meaning, whether primitive or postmodern, is the foundation of all religion. It is from this quest that religious rituals, institutions, and personal practice evolve. Religious forms that do not adapt to changes in culture cease to exist.

Currently we are in a period of structural change in which the historic religions—Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism—are being pulled apart internally by reactions to three major stressors: (1) Global technological advances that are exposing individuals to alternative worldviews; (2) Capitalism, with its focus on individual achievement and material well-being; and (3) The explosive growth of modern science, which is radically altering our understanding of ourselves and the cosmos.

I see six responses to these challenges playing out globally.

First, secular materialists in the Western world are rejecting religion, not so much out of hostility but simple indifference. Religion is not necessary to their way of life; their meaning system is confined to the material world, and even if they practice “mindfulness” or some other pseudo-religious ritual, it is to make them more functional within our hyper-capitalist world of rapid technological and social change. Secular materialism, in my view, is a substantial threat to religion, as we know it. But it is also an engine of creativity, forcing the historic religions to adapt in order to survive.

Second, we are simultaneously witnessing a surge in the number of fundamentalist reactionaries. These individuals are deeply threatened by advances in science and technology and what they view as the corrupting influence of modern capitalism, particularly its emphasis on individual rights and personal choice. They want to return to a mythical past when life was simpler, gender roles were highly differentiated, and belief was uniform. Ironically, they may utilize modern technology to spread their gospel of a former golden age when traditional institutions and authority figures benevolently ruled the masses. In my view, fundamentalist reactionaries have existed in every era, but they typically burn out after a generation or two – although, in the meantime, they may serve as a highly disruptive influence.

Third, the latest entrants into the religious marketplace are spiritual libertarians, comprising Millennials, many Gen-Xers, and others sympathetic to pluralistic worldviews who are wary of corrupt institutions, both political and religious. They are unsatisfied by a postmodern culture that has abandoned the search for universal meaning, even as they reject exclusivist institutional claims to truth. Instead, they seek the intimacy of a few spiritual friends, access to self-help therapies—so long as they can choose their “guru”—and celebrate the right of everyone to do their own thing, if it does not hurt others. Because this can be a rather lonely, anxiety-ridden existence, some spiritual libertarians make their way into charismatically driven mega-churches or similar groups where answers are radically simplified, thus dealing with the problem of over-choice. But these churches flourish only because they embrace the hype of modern culture and its emphasis on personal success. While some commentators think the current generation of “spiritual but not religious” people will return to organized religion as they age and struggle to raise children, I’m not so sure.

Fourth, because it is highly unlikely that organized religion will vanish overnight, institutional reformers will seek modest change, trying to liberate their communities from the dead weight of tradition and dysfunctional bureaucracies. These reformers believe in the value of the institution and tinker around the edges, trying to revive the original animating spirit of the religion. Pope Francis is a good example. While he might believe in enabling women to have a more prominent role in the Church, and might like to abandon some of the proscriptions related to divorce, birth control and so on, he has to move slowly and incrementally, replacing a bishop or cardinal here and there, rooting out corruption when it is most blatant. Reformers always have to deal with institutional inertia, but they also have to contend with the fact that the masses may not be interested so much in “truth” as in “miracle, mystery, and authority,” the triad announced by Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor. So, yes, the Catholic Church will prevail for a long time. I predict a shorter lifespan for many of the mainline Protestant denominations that are racked by divisions between conservative and progressive factions.

Fifth, religious innovators have throughout history addressed the problem of human meaning by creating new institutional forms and packaging transformational ideas in new belief structures and practices. For the past decade or so, I have been studying Pentecostalism in dozens of countries in the global South, where it is booming. Pentecostalism is an innovative expression of Christianity, uniting mind and body in ecstatic worship. Because its non-hierarchical character empowers lay believers, the movement gives agency to individuals while simultaneously filling them with joy and hope. There is corruption within some of these fast-growing congregations, as well as some magical practices. But it is an alternative to the religious package available in traditional religion, which is why large numbers of Catholics and religiously uncommitted people are embracing Pentecostalism.

Finally, there is a class of intellectuals and religiously serious people who do not belong in any of the previous five categories. For lack of a better term, I call them mystic seekers. They find it impossible to fit into one of the boxes of conventional religion, yet they are not religiously unconcerned. Embracing science in all of its unfolding complexity and humbled by what they do not know, they view the historic religions as social constructions that represent the attempt to articulate a human-divine connection. These individuals are sometimes found in retreat centers and places that invite contemplation, but they are always aware that icons, rituals, and creeds are “fictions,” not ends in themselves. Like mystics of the past, this journey is highly individualistic and sometimes even quite lonely. But I think this population is slowly expanding, especially among highly educated people, who seek a deeper source of meaning and purpose than what institutional religion and secular culture provide.

Predicting the future of religion presupposes a linear progression in which science, technology, and capitalism continue, roughly in lockstep with each other. Some of the formulations that I have posed above could be altered dramatically if one of two things were to occur: First, if some sort of environmental catastrophe radically changed the physical conditions of life on this planet; or, second, if capitalism were to implode, dragging technological innovation down with it. In either case, authoritarian political structures might arise that would likely reverse many of the current emphases on human freedom and personal choice—until the next renaissance. On a more positive note, it is quite possible that human evolution will continue unabated. One result is that the human mind will expand its capabilities, making the quest for meaning even more expansive.