James Petras: The Religious and Social Crisis in America.

Political Consequences. The opening long decade of the 21st century (2000-2012) has been a period of repeated and profound economic and social crises, of serial and prolonged wars and declining living standards for the vast majority of Americans. How have people responded to this crisis? No large scale, long term, socio political movements have emerged to challenge the bi partisan dominant classes. For a brief moment the Occupy Wall Street movement provided a platform to denounce the 1% super rich, but then faded into memory. Questions arose whether in the midst of prolonged hardship, people would turn to religion for solace, escape into spiritual pietism. The question this essay addresses is whether religion has become the opium of the people, as Karl Marx suggested, or whether religious beliefs and institutions are themselves in crisis, losing their spiritual attraction in the face of their inability to resolve the everyday material needs of a growing army of impoverished, low paid, unemployed and contingent workers, and a downwardly mobile middle class. In other words, are major religions growing and prospering in our time of permanent economic crises and perpetual wars, or are they on the down-slope part and parcel of the decline of the US Empire? According to the latest data, as of 2008 the biggest religious group is Christianity with 173, 402 million members, representing 76% of adult population, followed by Judaism with 2,680 million,  representing 1.2% of the adult population, followed by Eastern religions 1.961 million, and representing .9% Muslims 1.349 million, representing .6% of adults. The second most populous group after the Christians are those who state they have no religion 34.169 million or 15%. The dynamic trends over time show a declining percentage of adults who are Christians: between 1990-2008, they dropped from 86.2% to 76%. Jews have declined from 1.8% of adult population in 1990 to 1.2% in 2008, and Eastern religion is growing from .4% of adult population to .97% of population. Likewise, the percentage of Muslims in the adult population has grown from .3% in 1990 to .6% in 2008. The percentage of non religious adult population has increased from 8.2% in 1990 to 15% in 2008.