Bible & Christianity › Christianity today › Christianity's center shifts to the Global South
Secularization in the West
from the 1960s; rise of the 'nones'· Teaching or doctrine· Church, doctrine & the world
Historical recordConfirmed by archaeology, outside sources or contemporary records.
Since the 1960s, church attendance and Christian identity have fallen sharply across Europe, North America, Australia and other Western countries.
See it on the Bible & Christianity map →What it is
The 2021 census found Christians under half of England and Wales (46%) for the first time, with 37% reporting no religion. In the United States, the religiously unaffiliated 'nones' rose from about 5% in the early 1970s to about 29% by 2024, while Christians fell to about 62%. Weekly church attendance in much of Western Europe is around 10% or less. Proposed causes include prosperity, mass education, urban life, the welfare state and individualism.
Why it matters
Western churches shrank just as Southern ones grew, shifting Christianity's center of gravity and forcing churches to rethink their place in law, schools and public life.
Sources and history
National censuses, the US General Social Survey, Pew Research Center studies and church attendance counts; sociologists from Peter Berger to Charles Taylor (A Secular Age, 2007) have analyzed the trend.
Questions and debates
Sociologists debate whether secularization comes inevitably with modernity; Berger himself reversed his view in the 1990s. America's slower decline, and a recent US plateau, complicate the theory.
Connections (3)
▸Secularization in the West sped the shift toward Christianity's center shifts to the Global SouthMostly agreed by scholars
The connection
As Western churches shrank from the 1960s, the South's share of the world's Christians rose. Most demographers say rapid growth and high birth rates in Africa, Asia and Latin America mattered more than Western decline, but together they moved Christianity's center south. Shrinking Western churches now receive priests and missionaries from the South.
When and where
Europe, North America and Australia since the 1960s; by 2020, sub-Saharan Africa had overtaken Europe as home to the most Christians.
How do we know?
Pew and World Christian Database figures show both trends; immigrant congregations and African and Asian priests in Western parishes are visible signs.
Questions and debates
Demographers debate how much of the shift is Northern decline versus Southern growth, and whether Southern churches will secularize as incomes rise.
▸The Enlightenment: reason questions faith planted the seeds of Secularization in the WestMostly agreed by scholars
The connection
By making reason, not revelation, the test of public truth and by separating church from state, the Enlightenment began moving religion from the center of Western public life toward private choice. Over two centuries, and sharply after the 1960s, church attendance and belief fell across Europe and later North America.
When and where
Western Europe from the 1700s; the steepest decline came after the 1960s in Britain, the Netherlands and Scandinavia, and since the 1990s in the United States.
How do we know?
This is an interpretation: surveys and attendance records document the decline, but tying it to Enlightenment ideas rather than wealth, cities and welfare states is debated.
Questions and debates
The classic 'secularization thesis' predicted religion's decline everywhere; booming faith in Africa, Asia and America led sociologist Peter Berger to retract it in 1999.
▸Clergy sexual abuse crisis accelerated, in Ireland and elsewhere, Secularization in the WestMostly agreed by scholars
The connection
Abuse scandals sped decline where the church had been strongest. In Ireland, reports from 2005 to 2011 exposed decades of abuse and cover-up; Catholics fell from 84% of the population in 2011 to 69% in 2022, and voters legalized same-sex marriage (2015) and abortion (2018). Similar effects followed in the US, Germany, Chile and Australia.
When and where
Ireland's Ferns (2005), Ryan and Murphy (2009) and Cloyne (2011) reports; Germany's record of over 500,000 Catholics formally leaving in 2022; Chile after 2018.
How do we know?
Census and church-exit data, and economists' studies (Bottan and Perez-Truglia, 2015) linking US scandals to lower attendance and giving in affected areas.
Questions and debates
Decline began before the scandals, driven by prosperity and education, so how much they caused rather than accelerated it is debated.