In 1851 about half the population of Britain attended church regularly. Now it is about 8%. Statistical data on religious beliefs are available only for the last fifty or so years, but they show a similar trajectory to that of church attendance. Baptism was once universal and so widely held to be essential that in the middle ages midwives were taught a simple formula to baptize babies though unlikely to survive until the arrival of a priest. Now fewer than onethird of babies are baptized. In 1971 over two-thirds of weddings were religious; now it is less than one-third. There is no need to labour the point: anyone familiar with European societies will be aware of the drastic decline of organized religion. In Holland, the percentage of the adult population describing themselves as having no denomination rose from 14% in 1930 to 39% in 1997 and 42% in 2003. An overwhelming majority of Swedes (95%) seldom or never attend public worship. The spiritual but not religious are a growing demographic in secularizing societies.

According to the PEW findings of 2012, 18% of United States adults are ‘spiritual but not religious.’ Of that 18%, 15% consider themselves to be ‘religiously affiliated’ (Catholic, Protestant, etc.) and 37% consider themselves to be ‘religiously unaffiliated.’ Thus, although some reject religion in name, they do not necessarily reject the community, beliefs, or practices wedded to a denomination.

Our situation is characterized by a market of world views, simultaneously in competition with each other. In this situation the maintenance of certitudes that go much beyond the empirical necessities of the society and the individual to function is very difficult indeed. Inasmuch as religion essentially rests upon supernatural certitudes, the pluralistic situation is a secularizing one and, ipso facto, plunges religion into a crisis of credibility. Spiritual aspects of abuse in religions is really a reason for the credibility crisis. Churches were not sensitive so that they do not, in their pastoral care attempt to ‘force’ religious values or ideas onto people, particularly those who may be vulnerable to such practices. Within faith communities harm is caused by the inappropriate use of religious belief or practice; this can include the misuse of the authority of leadership or penitential discipline, oppressive teaching, or intrusive healing and deliverance ministries, which may result in vulnerable people experiencing physical, emotional or sexual harm. Immanuel Kant in his “The end of all things” wrote: “If Christianity should ever come to the point where it ceased to be worthy of love (which could very well transpire if instead of its gentle spirit it were armed with commanding authority), then, because there is no neutrality in moral things (still less a coalition between opposed principles), a disinclination and resistance to it would become the ruling mode of thought among people; and the Antichrist, who is taken to be the forerunner of the last day, would begin his – albeit short – regime (presumably based on fear and self-interest); but then, because Christianity, though supposedly destined to be the world religion, would not be favoured by fate to become it, the (perverted) end of all things, in a moral respect, would arrive.” These are warnings and signs of the times to read and change the worldly ways to a new way of being the church. The complexities of our situation are where theology begins its work. Qualities of the postmodern condition that might be of value: its fluidity, its pluralism and questioning of authority, its resistance to exclusivism and its openness to religious sensibilities characteristic of the postmodern return of the sacred. What does it mean to be human? What kind of a society do we want? And most importantly, what do we worship – gods and idols such as the state, the market, self-interest, progress? Are we attuned to a God who radically transcends such idols but is also radically immanent in the world as the generative power of freedom? Thus Karl Rahner regards it from the perspective of Ignatian spirituality. He talks of a “mysticism of everyday life.” As one of Hopkins’s most ardent admirers puts it: “By being dynamically inhabited by God, man is brought to attunement by God: he possesses a voice and the right voice at that. He does not stammer and babble; he speaks with God.”