What really seems to be happening is that Americans are making a declaration against “Religion” with a capital “R”… So for us, the changes are not about Americans’ faith and belief; it’s about the relationship of a chunk of Americans to organized religion. – Claude S. Fischer, Ph.D.

As debates intensify over what really is happening in American religion today – with respected studies showing rapid increases in the percentage of Americans self-identifying as “nones,” or religiously unaffiliated – University of California at Berkeley Sociologist Claude Fischer discusses his own research suggesting that subverting religion to the culture wars comes at a price. While spiritual beliefs and practice remain relatively constant, affiliation with organized religion is what is rapidly declining, Dr. Fischer and co-writer Michael Hout, Ph.D., point out in their important paper, Explaining Why More Americans Have No Religious Preference: Political Backlash and Generational Succession, 1987–2012, published in the Journal Sociological Science in 2014.

Scroll down for transcript.

Hear the full May 16, 2015 State of Belief Radio program here.

Politicized Religion Alienates Americans: Claude Fischer Extended Interview and Transcript

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