While respected Christian researchers like George Barna have been sounding the alarm on the dangers of syncretism to a biblical worldview in recent years, a new study published Monday suggests more Americans are leaving organized religion in search of personalized faith perspectives that embrace syncretism — a fusion of different religions.
The study, Breaking Free of the Iron Cage: The Individualization of American Religion, was published in the peer-reviewed open access academic journal Socius.
Landon Schnabel, associate professor of sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University, is the lead author. His co-authors are Ilana Horwitz, assistant professor of Jewish studies at Tulane University; Peyman Hekmatpour, teaching assistant professor of sociology at Oklahoma State University, Tulsa; and Cyrus Schleifer, associate professor of sociology at the University of Oklahoma.
In the study, the researchers tracked 1,348 individuals born in the late 1980s from adolescence through early adulthood using longitudinal surveys to examine how young adults manage tensions between institutional religion and personal authenticity as they came of age during the rise of religious “nones.”
The individuals, who participated in the National Study of Youth and Religion, completed four rounds of surveys between 2003 and 2013, from ages 13 to 17. During that period, they were asked a series of questions about their religious practices. Some of the respondents also had to do in-depth interviews with the researchers to help them understand “patterns of institutional disengagement alongside the meaning-making processes underlying them.”
“Our analysis shows how young people are responding to the bureaucratization and rationalization that [German sociologist Max] Weber predicted would create an ‘iron cage’ in modern institutions, developing new forms of religious and spiritual expression outside formal institutions,” the researchers wrote.
“We bring the iron cage argument back to religion, making the case that rising individualization and autonomy reflected in the 1960s countercultural movement set the stage for a revolution against the bureaucratization and politicization of religion,” they added.
The researchers argued that the religious marketplace had expanded beyond competing denominations to “include options outside formal institutions altogether, from personalized spirituality to individually crafted approaches to faith and meaning.”
“People are breaking free not with bolt cutters but with deeply personal acts of spiritual rebellion, rejecting the rationalized, systematized, and institutionalized religious constructs of modernity in favour of more dynamic, diverse, and syncretic expressions,” they argued.
When it comes to younger Americans, the researchers said their findings suggest politics and concern for autonomy on issues like gender and sexuality are key factors in their decision to abandon organized religion. The main driver, however, appears to be general individual freedom.
“People aren’t leaving religious institutions passively or only because of partisan politics, but because of more deeply held values — about the sacredness of the individual, their concern for others and feeling that their participation in an institution doesn’t align with being the type of person they want to be,” Schnabel said in an interview with the Cornell Chronicle. “They’re more intentionally choosing to follow what they really believe in.”
In 2023, Barna, who serves as director of the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, shared research showing that America is under threat from syncretism and urged churches to respond.
“The ideological and philosophical confusion that characterizes America is perhaps the biggest reflection of the nation's rejection of biblical principles and its decision to replace God's truth with ‘personal truth,'” he warned.
Citing data from the American Worldview Inventory, which is the first-ever national survey conducted in the United States measuring the incidence of both biblical and competing worldviews, Barna showed how the four adult generations in the U.S. — millennials, Gen X (baby busters), baby boomers and elders — had very different spiritual responses to the pandemic.
The research, which involved the tracking of a nationally representative sample of 2,000 adults, showed the lowest incidence of adults with a biblical worldview among the youngest cohorts, millennials, adults born between 1984 and 2002, and Gen X, adults born from 1965 through 1983. Only 2% of millennials were shown to have a biblical worldview, while among Gen X, it was slightly higher at 5%.
“Biblical churches must see this as a time for an urgent response to the direction society is taking. While the Left pursues the Great Reset, it is time for the Church to pursue the Great Renewal — leading people's hearts, minds, and souls back to God and His life principles,” Barna warned.
The authors of Breaking Free of the Iron Cage: The Individualization of American Religion argue that the religious revolution underway in America is a reflection of a familiar ebb and flow between organized religion and individual spiritual expression that has happened across centuries.
"Americans are increasingly doing religion their own way, almost like DIY," Schnabel said in his statement to the Cornell Chronicle. "Spiritual innovation occurs when traditional ways of being religious don't seem tenable anymore. People come up with new ways of exploring their faith, new types of spirituality, new beliefs and practices."
