University of Denver Fall 2023

Professor Daniel McIntosh Daniel McIntosh is a professor in the Department

talked about more openly than perhaps they had been. And that led to some rejection of organizations in general,” McIntosh says. Churches began to be aligned, to different degrees, with some of the political parties and movements. Polarization began to happen, and people began leaving because they no longer felt comfortable with the realignment. But what happened over 50 years ago doesn’t explain the growing disaffiliation in recent decades. McIntosh describes it

kids are ‘nones,’ they never were part of [a religious organization], and that begins to accelerate.” Assistant Professor Marquisha Lawrence Scott Marquisha Lawrence Scott is an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Social Work. Her work focuses on religious congregations and other commu nity-based organizations and how they impact community outcomes. Scott also has theological training, with a master’s degree in divinity. She studies

of Psychology who studies religion. He believes that the U.S. is following the path taken by a more secular Western Europe. “The U.S. has often been an outlier among Western industrialized countries in terms of how unusually religious we’ve been, compared with trends in other countries,” says McIntosh. “So, one way of looking at it is that we are following the pattern that other Western, industrial,

both theological and social perspectives and how the two relate to each other. Scott says there is a growing trend in congregations to address social justice issues. For example, she says, many congregations are now focused on climate change. “Congregations feel like there’s a theological requirement—coming from a Christian perspective— this kind of ‘stewards of the earth’ idea.” In a Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) survey released earlier this year, seven in 10

educated democracies have been following.” McIntosh adds that the roots of disaffiliation in the U.S. can be found in social movements in the 1960s and 1970s. “I think the story in

“People left the church. Now you have a set of people who are religious ‘dones.’ They were raised in a religious organization, but they’ve left.”

the U.S. starts with all the changes that happened … with the baby boomers and the hippies and the anti-Vietnam movement, and the social changes that were occurring from the civil rights movement to the pill, to gay and lesbian awareness and rights movements,” he says. “All of that coalescing around that time began to raise some questions.” Although Christian churches in the 1950s may have seemed homogeneous, they weren’t. Within those organizations, there was a lot of diversity among a lot of issues, he adds. “Part of what happened in the 60s and 70s is that you begin to have this questioning of those organizations. Some of these issues began to be

– Daniel McIntosh, professor, Dept. of Psychology

churchgoers (71%) agreed that providing a faith perspective on pressing social concerns is an important part of a church’s role. However, less than half (45%) agreed with the statement that “congregations should get involved in social issues, even if that means having challenging conversations about politics.” Nonetheless, Scott finds that many aging congregations are

as a snowball effect within what Pew calls “intergenerational transmission,” or the passing of religious identity (or lack thereof) from parents to children. “I think it’s a self-accelerating process,” he says. “People left the church. Now you have a set of people who are religious ‘dones.’ They were raised in a religious organization, but they’ve left. They begin having kids, and their

20 | UNIVERSITY of DENVER MAGAZINE • FALL 2023