Believing without belonging — the 21th-century “religion”

Seek God but not at church. This is a major religious trend nowadays. The “believing without belonging” phenomenon represents those who believe in God or some kind of superior force and even engage in some kind of individual practice but want nothing to do with organized religion.

Religious practice has decreased an average of 51% between 1971 and 2002 in the UE and in countries such as Argentina and Canada. This data was organized by the British historians Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart from a variety of censuses [Brazilian data is inconsistent]. However, it doesn’t mean that more people are becoming atheists. The belief in the afterlife, in some deity and the frequent contact with sacred texts remained high, showing that there is faith unrelated to religious practice.

These numbers confirm what scholars have been saying for a while now. The “believing without belonging” term was coined in the 1980s by the British sociologist Grace Davie to refer to the rejection of organized religion. According to her, it is typical of secular societies, which doesn’t have religion in its center, but as a compartmentalized part of life, so as State, family, work and so on.

Church reacts

The first time I heard the “believing without belonging” expression was at a Methodist…