Is it such a bad thing? The rise of Atheism in America

I just saw this interesting article on Yahoo! News, explaining the rise of Atheism in America.

Per the article:

Only between 1.5 and 4 percent of Americans admit to so-called "hard atheism," the conviction that no higher power exists. But a much larger share of the American public (19 percent) spurns organized religion in favor of a nondefined skepticism about faith. This group, sometimes collectively labeled the "Nones," is growing faster than any religious faith in the U.S. About two thirds of Nones say they are former believers; 24 percent are lapsed Catholics and 29 percent once identified with other Christian denominations. David Silverman, president of American Atheists, claims these Nones as members of his tribe. "If you don't have a belief in God, you're an atheist," he said. "It doesn't matter what you call yourself."

A corollary or companion to this article might be called, "The Retreat and Decline of Theology in America." Because modern American churches—as well as the Roman Catholic Church under the leadership of its current pope—have abdicated theology as a field of expanding study, religious thought has not kept pace with the changes and growth our human species is currently experiencing. Theology, I was taught at one point during my Catholic education, is "Faith seeking understanding." On a more literal level, theology is the study of God.

Our collective human experience, especially as influenced by the free flow of information and the rise of technology, as well as existential threats to the world's population including terrorism, war, environmental degradation, resource depletion, and climate change all lead the human mind to question how "God" fits into all this, if indeed the mind in question has a current belief in God.

So how does our contemporary experience fit into our understanding of God? That's the traditional question, but it's not the best question to ask for these times. And the "atheists" have stopped asking, wisely.

Here's why: Fitting our experience into our understanding forces us to change our narrative about our experience if it contradicts what we are taught about God. If one is taught, for instance, that God disapproves of homosexuality, and that person is inclined to enjoy his or her homosexuality, then in order to gain God's approval such a person must then become disinclined to enjoy his or her own sexuality. In such a way, one's narrative about one's own experience must be altered to fit the belief.

However, spirituality (if not religion) works better when we have an experience that contradicts what we're taught, and then we examine what we're taught to see how it may in fact intersect with our own experience without contradicting it. Doing so, however, requires one's understanding of God to grow with one's understanding of the world and of one's own self. That is theology, and the study has been replaced with censorship (in Catholicism) and fundamentalism (in most of the rest of American Christianity).

So here's a call to today's churches: If you want to reduce the defection of your young, fresh, promising young people, be ready to question the understanding of your faith along with them. Your faith will deepen as a result, although your cherished beliefs may change.