Why Religion Went Obsolete - The Demise of Traditional Faith in America

Traditional religion in the United States has suffered huge losses in recent decades. But we know a lot more about the fact that traditional American religion has declined than we do about why this is so. Why Religion Went Obsolete aims to change that. Drawing on survey data and hundreds of interviews, Christian Smith offers a sweeping, multifaceted account of why Americans have lost faith in traditional religion.

List of contents

• 0. Introduction


• I. Setting the Stage


• 1. What Needs Explaining


• 2. Religion Is Good When...


• 3. Some Complex Ways Culture Changes


• II. Perfect Storms Converging


• 4. Long-Term Social Trends


• 5. The Developing Religious Environment


• 6. The 1990s: Beginning of the End


• 7. The 2000s: Obsolescence Assured


• 8. Religious Self-Destructions


• III. The Aftermath


• 9. Contours of the Millennial Zeitgeist


• 10. Through the Exit Door


• Conclusion


• Appendix: Social Locations of Not Religious Americans

About the author

Christian Smith is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology and Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame. Smith is well known for his research focused on religion, adolescents and emerging adults, and social theory. He has written many books, including Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America (with Michael O. Emerson), as well as Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (with Melinda Lundquist Denton).

Additional text

This is an era-defining work. What Herberg's Protestant, Catholic, Jew was in the 1950s, what Lenski's The Religious Factor was in the 1960s, and what Wuthnow's Restructuring of American Religion was in the 1990s, Christian Smith's Why Religion Went Obsolete is to the early 21st century. It is a remarkable work of scholarship and essential reading for anyone keen to understand the perplexing status of religion in contemporary America.

Product details

• Authors: Christian Smith, Christian (William R. Kenan Smith, Smith Christian
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 01.07.2025
• EAN: 9780197800737
• ISBN: 978-0-19-780073-7
• No. of pages: 440
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Religion: general, reference works; Popular Culture, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology of Religion, RELIGION / Religion, Politics & State, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, RELIGION / Atheism, RELIGION / Agnosticism, Social & cultural anthropology, Religion & politics, United States of America, USA, Social and cultural anthropology, Religion and Politics, Religious groups: social & cultural aspects, Agnosticism and atheism, Agnosticism & Atheism, Social groups: religious groups and communities