Sociologist writes Book on U.S. Faith Practices

Cover of spring 2025 Notre Dame Magazine with graphic on featured article.

What do the Western, the once-popular movie genre, the electric typewriter, and traditional religion in the United States have in common? According to Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith, like the Western and typewriters, the practice of faith has become somewhat obsolete and lost its cultural significance since its apex in the mid-20th century. The spring 2025 issue of Notre Dame magazine features a cover article, “Out of Practice,” that is an interview of Smith by Kenneth Woodward, a retired religion writer at Newsweek. Smith’s new book, Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America, identifies “traditional religions” in the U.S. as Roman Catholicism, mainline, evangelical and Black Protestantism; Judaism, and Mormonism.

Smith’s research identified “a confluence of factors that gathered like dark clouds for decades, precipitating a ‘perfect storm’ in the 1990s and 2000s. Historical events, socioeconomic factors and the technological innovations of those two decades entrenched people’s mass retreat from the faith communities of their parents and grandparents (p. 19).”

One of the many factors that Smith writes about is how consumerism contributed to the obsolescence of traditional religion. “People that grow up in this, this is just the normal life,” he writes. “They have so many distractions. They have so much drive and pressure to earn incomes, to go out and spend money, to buy things, to have experiences.” (p.21) Smith says this changes a notion of self, that the good life becomes the goods life, what you buy, what you possess. (p. 21)

Sunflower growing at Motherhouse in St. Augustine.

In my own life I can definitely say that our world, our culture, has changed dramatically since the 1970s when I graduated from college, when I entered Religious life as a Sister of St. Joseph. I am old enough to remember using an electric typewriter and using the library to do research, not the internet or Google. Somehow God managed to call me to consecrated life, to become the person I was called to be through professing the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedience and living in community and serving God and the Dear Neighbor and all of God’s Creation.

The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel was what spoke deeply to my heart and led me to a deeper practice of my faith. The values of the reign of God are not the values of consumerism or individualism or worldly security. They are countercultural. They call for a personal and communal conversion of heart. And yet, they bring joy and peace, a peace the world cannot give.

Hydrangea budding in Motherhouse gardens in St. Augustine.

With the election of the first U.S. pope in the Roman Catholic Church recently, Pope Leo XIV, and our own bishop, Erik Pohlmeier, stressing the importance of evangelization in the Diocese of St. Augustine, it will be interesting to see what may develop to try to counteract the sociological and cultural influences on Catholics in the U.S. and elsewhere. Jesus challenged us to share the Good News of the Gospel with our neighbors. Sharing our own faith story with others can make a difference. We need the nourishment of weekly Eucharist - Word and Sacrament - to have the graces needed to live a life according to Gospel values.

During this Jubilee Year, let us be pilgrims of hope for one another. Let us be the salt for the earth, light for the world!