Alone, Suburban & Sorted: Part 2, Church and Politics

In Part 1 of Alone, Suburban & Sorted we noted that Americans are entertaining less and less in their own homes. In addition, Americans are withdrawing from informal recreational and social activities in their communities (e.g., bowling leagues). In this post we return to Bowling Alone to talk about trends affecting more formal social affiliations: Church and politics.

The big point I want to highlight from Putnam's analysis is the "hollowing out" of political and religious life. On the surface one can measure religious and political participation by watching the simplest of barometers, voting and church attendance. Both of those numbers have been declining. Since the 1960s, voter turnout has been steadily dropping. Zeroing in, this decline has been the steepest for local elections, primaries, and non-presidential election cycles. That is, interest in local politics--the politics of my town, schools and neighborhood--has seen the steepest declines in voter engagement. Again, this is a sign of social impoverishment at the neighborhood level.

Moving from voting to church attendance we see a similar decline in participation. From the 1930s to the 1960s church membership was rising. Membership leveled off in the 60s and 70s and then began to fall. Between the 50s and the 90s church attendance declined by about 1/3.

But Putnam's analysis goes deeper. It's not just that Americans are participating less in church and politics. Patterns of involvement are also changing.

For example, Putnam reviews many surveys that assess the various political activities that Americans might engage in. From the 60s to the late 90s political activities that employ the words "serve," "work," and "attend" have experienced the steepest declines. Solitary political activities have also declined but less so when compared to group activities. For example, the activity "working for a political party" declined by 42% from the 70s to the 90s. By contrast, "wrote a letter to the paper" declined by only 14%. The point here is that when Americans do participate in the political process they are tending to do this more and more often as individuals. We write letters, donate online, participate in political blogs, and put out a campaign sign in our front yard. That is, there may be a great deal of political activity in a person's life but much of that activity has been hollowed out, socially speaking.

Similar trends are seen in American churches. We've noted the declines in church attendance, but church members are also participating less and less in church social activities (e.g., attending bible class, being involved in church ministries). That is, although formal church membership has declined only about 10% over the last few decades the decline in participating in church ministries and groups has been very steep, a decline around 25%-30%. Again, it's a process of hollowing out. Church attendance and membership are issues of individual participation. But what is most rapidly declining in American churches is the degree of social engagement. This trend is exacerbated by the rise of church "surfing" and "shopping" where people drift from church to church. In sum, although Americans might be just as religious as they have been in the past, they are slowly withdrawing from church life. Americans might believe in God but they don't belong anywhere, religiously speaking. Faith has become a solo activity.

I'm guessing none of this is news to you. These trends have been well documented in the media. Also, just ask your children's minister if it is becoming harder and harder to find people to volunteer to teach Sunday School classes.

My point in talking about these trends isn't to sing a sad song of lament. Mainly I'm just trying to illustrate how alone we are. Americans are disengaged informally (less entertaining in the home, fewer bowling leagues), civically (less engagement in local politics) and religiously (less church participation). Across the board we are "bowling alone" more and more often.

Next Post: Broken Bridges