Oct 9, 2026 · 47 min · 11 segments
In this episode of **Thinking Fellows**, Caleb Keith, Scott Keith, Bruce Hillman, and Adam Francisco discuss whether the internet has contributed to the decline of Christianity and religious…
Caleb KeithHost
Scott KeithHostAdam FranciscoHost
Bruce HillmanHost
This is a big study, so it's about the decline of religions, denominational Christianity in here among one of the chief parts of the study.
And it's from 1990 to 2022 is what they try to cover with surveys about religious attendance, beliefs, and things like that all compiled together with evidence from 81 countries, with the general conclusion being that the rise of usage of the internet, personal usage of the internet, is at le- at the very least correlative to declining religious participation and religious belief around the globe, really.
But in particularly, you can really see it in places like the United States, which is something we've talked about before.
Yeah, the, the article's pretty clear that it does not, it is not arguing for causation-
Like, so they're not saying the internet, like we're kind of, that's implied in the question you asked, and I know it's just rhetoric, right? But-
... they're not saying it caused it, but the argument is there's so much data and so much correspondence with the rise and the extension of the internet, and that when you look at that, you see a, I don't think it used the word precipitous, but a pretty heavy decline in, in, or a decentralization, I think is probably a better way of describing it, of traditional religious belief.
This is a big study, so it's about the decline of religions, denominational Christianity in here among one of the chief parts of the study.
And it's from 1990 to 2022 is what they try to cover with surveys about religious attendance, beliefs, and things like that all compiled together with evidence from 81 countries, with the general conclusion being that the rise of usage of the internet, personal usage of the internet, is at le- at the very least correlative to declining religious participation and religious belief around the globe, really.
But in particularly, you can really see it in places like the United States, which is something we've talked about before.
Yeah, the, the article's pretty clear that it does not, it is not arguing for causation-
Like, so they're not saying the internet, like we're kind of, that's implied in the question you asked, and I know it's just rhetoric, right? But-
... they're not saying it caused it, but the argument is there's so much data and so much correspondence with the rise and the extension of the internet, and that when you look at that, you see a, I don't think it used the word precipitous, but a pretty heavy decline in, in, or a decentralization, I think is probably a better way of describing it, of traditional religious belief.
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