Transcript of a public lecture delivered in Moscow, 20 May 2026.

Good afternoon. Thank you for spending a sunny day on my lecture. Today I will be talking about religion in the modern world through a specific theoretical lens. The plan: first a short theoretical preamble, then we will discuss the contemporary religious situation — what kind of world we live in, where we are heading. Then secularization theory and its current state — is it alive, dead, more dead than alive? Views differ. Then how contemporary sociologists look at the religious situation anew. And finally, what the title promises: what does the modern person believe?

Theoretical Stance

Before talking about social reality, we need to be clear that we always depart from some theoretical premise. The most basic one sounds like this: the world can be objectively known, including the social world around us.

There are opposing positions — constructivist ones, arguing that religion does not exist as such, that it is a construct scholars agreed to call something. Paradigm wars continue in the social sciences to this day. Auguste Comte, the recognized founder of sociology as a science, was also the founder of positivist philosophy. In the 20th century a genuine battle broke out between neo-positivists — Bertrand Russell, Karl Popper — and constructivists.

I am not hiding this and am prepared to say it publicly: I am a supporter of the positivist paradigm. I think we can talk about religion objectively, or at least try. This is an important methodological stance.

Incidentally, if you want to ruin a religious studies scholar’s mood, ask them: “What is religion?” — and you will get a withering look and a ninety-minute lecture on how there are different approaches and no consensus has been reached.

The main thesis that can be stated as broadly established: the religious landscape is changing substantially. Where it is changing — that is an entirely different story.

Max Weber and the Disenchantment of the World

Perhaps the sociologist who contributed most to understanding where religion was heading in the 19th and 20th centuries was Max Weber. He made a Copernican turn in sociology: from the analysis of general processes, he moved to the analysis of the social action of the individual. He identified four types of social action: instrumental-rational, value-rational, traditional, and affective.

He also gave us the concept of the disenchantment of the world: as science and technology develop, the role of religion gradually changes. If religion was once constitutive — touching all spheres of life, explaining natural processes — a transition follows from religious explanations to scientific ones. Secular institutions begin to displace religious ones, and religion loses its absolute sacred authority. In this way, Weber anticipated secularization theory.

Secularization Theory

In the 1960s and 70s secularization theory was enormously popular in the West. Its chief proponent was Peter Berger, who wrote apocalyptic forecasts: religion would eventually be a tiny marginal fragment of society, surrounded by a vast secular narrative. As it turned out, this was wrong — and in the late 1990s Berger publicly abandoned the theory, saying: “I was wrong.” It takes extraordinary courage to admit that.

What is secularization in brief? It is the systematic decline of the role of religion in society. Three elements:

First — the autonomy of spheres: politics, law, economics, and science from religion. Today we live in a world where people very rarely relate their economic or political behavior to religion.

Second — belief becomes private. It is nobody’s business where I go after this lecture — to pray in a Buddhist temple, an Orthodox church, or a synagogue.

Third — the declining weight of religious institutions in the public sphere. This is criticized: look at religious conflicts in Nigeria, in the Middle East — religion continues to influence society. But these are fields of discussion, not absolute truths.

Let us look at data. According to Gallup, between 1993 and 2023 the share of Americans calling religion “very important” in their lives fell from 60 to 45 percent. There are fluctuations — perhaps linked to political events or economic crises. But the trend is there.

Another telling graph: countries with the lowest GDP per capita cluster in the top left corner — a very large share of their populations consider religion extremely important. High-GDP countries cluster in the opposite corner. The exception: the United States. More on that below.

A survey of 20 countries also shows: over the past two decades, the share of people calling themselves religious fell from 68 to 56 percent, the non-religious grew from 21 to 28 percent, and convinced atheists from 6 to 10. The gap between these groups has narrowed from three-to-one to two-to-one.

The baseline postulate of contemporary secularization theory: from generation to generation, religiosity declines, and this process is virtually impossible to stop. It is connected to the level of social well-being. In leading academic journals this thesis no longer needs to be proven — a reference to existing work is sufficient.

The PIB Model

Contemporary secularization theory describes the decline through the PIB model (Participation — Importance — Belonging).

First — practice leaves (P). This is the most resource-intensive stage: to go to church you need to get up, prepare, know prayers, interact with a priest. In a world where people queue at self-checkout rather than talk to a cashier, this is a serious obstacle. The classic illustration: wrestling in Anglican churches in the UK — things have gotten so bad they stage comedic imitation bouts to attract any attention.

Second — importance leaves (I). People begin saying religion is not so important in their lives. In the United States, this is the Gallup decline from 60 to 45 percent.

Third — belonging leaves (B). This is the final stage. Even when someone no longer attends church and religion feels unimportant, they still say “I’m Orthodox” or “I’m Christian.” But gradually this identity fades too. Phil Zuckerman’s Society Without God describes Danes who no longer connect their lives to religion in any meaningful way — but continue to baptize their children simply out of habit: “it is our cultural heritage.”

Why this order? Because attending church requires the most resources. Declaring religion important is free — no need to go anywhere. Identity is the most durable, tied to family memory, culture, literature.

Ronald Inglehart

One of the most influential representatives of contemporary secularization theory was Ronald Inglehart. His last book, Religion’s Sudden Decline (2021), is essential reading. He passed away recently.

Inglehart speaks of existential security: when a society achieves a high level of it — people are confident that someone will take care of them if something goes wrong — religiosity declines. He led the World Values Survey for decades, working with the best data available. Until 2022, including Wave 7, Russia was part of these surveys.

The United States long stood as an exception: existential security was growing but religiosity remained high. Inglehart explains this through the absence of a welfare state: no national health service, no subsidized education, people take on debt — religion persists as a support structure. However, since 2007 the US has been secularizing faster than other countries. The main exception is ceasing to be an exception.

An important feature of Inglehart’s approach: unlike classical secularization theory, he does not consider this process irreversible. If values of individual choice yield to values of reproduction or community, the process can reverse.

Steve Bruce

Steve Bruce is the last knight of classical secularization theory. His book God is Dead is, by my count via OpenAlex, the most cited work on the topic. Bruce’s argument: the main enemy of faith is not atheism, but relativism. When religion becomes “one among many,” it loses its position. He emphasizes the role of individualism and equality in religious decline, and considers the process irreversible since the mechanisms of religious socialization — Sunday schools, religious universities — have been dismantled. Churches stand empty.

Russia: An Interesting Case

Russia is a fascinating example. The transition from the Soviet system to the post-Soviet brought a religious revival. The pivot point was 1988, the millennium of the Baptism of Rus. In the 1990s, all religious movements poured in — from Hare Krishnas to new-age movements.

The Orthodox Church became number one — cultural and political influence enormous. According to VTsIOM and FOM, 60 to 80 percent of Russians call themselves Orthodox. But what percentage attends a service at least once a month? Between 10 and 20 percent — and this at a frequency that, by apostolic canons, is very rare: missing three Sunday services without valid cause is grounds for excommunication.

If we add questions about regular communion, Bible reading, prayer — the figure rapidly drops to 2–5 percent. Some striking data:

  • Only 9% of Orthodox Russians knew the dogma of the Holy Trinity (FOM, 2013). This is the central dogma — it is what makes someone a Christian.
  • Only 2% of respondents take communion regularly.
  • 69% of Orthodox Christians believe the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son — which is the Catholic position, not Orthodox. So 70% of Russia’s Orthodox Christians are, theologically speaking, covert Catholics.

This gap is very well explained by the PIB model: first practice leaves, then importance, then belonging. Russia is at an intermediate stage.

The mainstream sociological position is that Soviet anti-religious policy suppressed religiosity, and when those conditions were lifted, people realized: being Orthodox is legitimate, it’s encouraged. Orthodoxy revived sharply — this is called revitalization. Meanwhile, a pro-Orthodox consensus formed to which even atheists subscribed, as the sociologists of religion Furman and Kaariainen noted.

Religious Transformation: Where Does Religiosity Go?

The developed world is becoming less religious — where conditions for this exist. But this does not mean religion is dying.

According to Pew Research, between 2010 and 2020 Christianity grew by 120 million. Islam grew by 350 million — the fastest-growing religion in the world in both absolute and relative terms. The second-fastest-growing group: the religiously unaffiliated, plus 270 million. Pew projects that by 2050 Islam will be the world’s largest religion — purely demographic statistics, driven by birth rates.

A quarter of the world’s population are now religiously unaffiliated (nones). In the Netherlands — already 72%, Norway 62%, the UK 58%. Crucially: these are not atheists. A person who answered “none” to a religion question may perfectly well order a tarot reading that evening. Nones hold very diverse views — what unites them is not being satisfied by institutional religion.

Where do people go when they leave religion? Almost everywhere: they exit Christianity. Most move into the “no religion” category, not into another confession.

Among Protestant directions, the fastest-growing today is Pentecostalism — explosively active in Africa and Latin America. In traditionally Catholic countries like Argentina and Mexico, the Catholic Church is losing ground: it is perceived as an old, complacent monopoly. People move to Protestants because there are infinite Protestant options — from radical liberals to Amish.

The Transformation Paradigm

Religion does not disappear — it adapts. This is a refined research framework that absorbed the best of secularization theory and added context: crystals, astrology, digital religion.

The transformation paradigm holds: institutional religion declines, but flows somewhere else. People who left Orthodoxy and started charging crystals — they have not been lost to religion. They have become part of another, horizontal, diffuse religion. They draw on coaches, read strange books. This is bricolage in Lévi-Strauss’s sense: like a magpie gathering shiny things and building something of its own. A person takes yoga, the beauty of Orthodox liturgy, charges a crystal, checks their horoscope, considers a Hindu guru divine. The result: a custom-built religion, tailored to personal needs, without judgment — not formally affiliated with anything, yet fulfilling spiritual needs.

Recall Inglehart: spiritual needs do not disappear. If someone is no longer satisfied by the Orthodox Church, they are satisfied by crystals.

A useful concept here is fuzzy religiosity: most people live in blurred belonging. In Russia, the average person goes to church roughly twice a year — Easter and Christmas. They somehow position themselves relative to something, but do not belong to the inner circle of the genuinely devout.

Grace Davie formulated the concept of vicarious religion: most people approve of the existence of religious institutions and passively support them, but do not participate regularly. A small religious minority “carries the religious function” for everyone. The Orthodox Church enjoys very high support across all surveys — this is essentially vicarious religion. The person calls themselves Orthodox, respects the church, doesn’t attend — but walking into an Orthodox café for coffee? Sacred.

What Does the Modern Person Actually Believe?

Astrology. 43% of American women aged 18–49 believe in astrology (fewer men). Notably, this figure drops sharply for people over 50 — this is a young people’s practice, not “old ladies believing in signs.” Pew researchers note that people often do this casually — not entirely seriously, more as a social practice. According to VTsIOM, virtually all Russians know their zodiac sign; 42% read astrological forecasts with varying frequency, but only 3% do so regularly and seriously.

Conspiracy theories. Up to 40% of Russians continue to believe in secret organizations. A VTsIOM survey from September 2025 showed that nearly 30% of Russians allow for the possibility of chip implantation. Interestingly, people often simultaneously believe in conspiracy theories that are mutually contradictory.

Science and pseudoscience. 33% of American adults believe humans existed in their current form from the very beginning — no evolution. 60% accept evolution. Education itself is not a significant predictor of religiosity: in Russia there is no significant correlation between education level and frequency of church attendance. Some data suggest the more educated tend to attend religious institutions slightly more often.

Generational theory. The idea that each generation — Gen Z, Millennials, Boomers — has its own defining characteristics is not empirically supported. Research shows: generational differences exist at the time of measurement, but over time, people of the same age value the same things, regardless of birth year. How is this different from astrology? “You were born an Aries — live accordingly.” “You were born a Zoomer — you are a Zoomer forever.” This is a good example of what sometimes replaces religion: equally non-scientific ideas.

The Digitization of Religion

A distinct and very interesting trend: religion in digital environments. There is a real functioning religious robot — Bless U-2, made in Germany. There are religious chatbots trained on corpora of sacred texts, offering conversations with Jesus or other figures.

I am currently conducting a substantial research project on religious chatbots — this is my research focus. I am particularly interested in Magisterium AI — a Catholic chatbot trained on nearly 30,000 specifically Catholic documents. This is an attempt to replace the experience of speaking with a priest with speaking with a chatbot. Religion is trying to adapt to contemporary reality.

I spent about half an hour chatting with Magisterium AI. I tried to convert it to Orthodoxy — without success: “A respected position, but our documents say this.” A fairly resilient interlocutor.

Conclusions

When religion exits the domain of knowledge, that domain is often filled by strange things — completely unproven but highly influential. Astrology, conspiracy theories, generational theory are examples.

Religion is intimately connected to the social — Durkheim wrote about this, virtually every sociologist of religion has. This is currently the biggest challenge: how does the socialization of modern people work? In some countries, people simply do not interact with one another. There have been attempts to create “atheist churches” — Sunday Assembly in the UK (2013). Nothing came of it. For now, this aspect of religion — the social glue — is something non-religious society can barely replace.

Two directions of religious process:

On one hand, the decline of institutional religion — we have discussed and evidenced this. Practice leaves, then importance, then belonging — perfectly in line with the PIB model.

On the other hand, these people go nowhere. They fulfil their spiritual needs by other means. The fluid and indestructible character of religion is what the transformation paradigm emphasizes — the most current framework today, having largely supplanted classical secularization theory.

References

  • Berger, P. (1967). The Sacred Canopy. Doubleday.
  • Bruce, S. (2002). God is Dead: Secularization in the West. Blackwell.
  • Davie, G. (1994). Religion in Britain Since 1945: Believing Without Belonging. Blackwell.
  • Inglehart, R. (2021). Religion’s Sudden Decline. Oxford University Press.
  • Zuckerman, P. (2008). Society Without God. New York University Press.
  • Kaariainen, K., & Furman, D. (Eds.) (2007). New Churches, Old Believers — Old Churches, New Believers. Moscow; St. Petersburg: Letniy Sad.
  • Yang, F. (2011). Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule. Oxford University Press.