The General Social Survey monitors "confidence" in various institutions in the United States. Confidence in virtually every social institution has fallen since 1976. The military and education are the only exceptions. Confidence in "organized religion" has fallen from 32% in 1976 to 20% today. Says Nate Silver of 538.com:
"Confidence in organized religion also fell significantly under Bush's watch, although most of the decline came between 2000 and 2002, when the rating dropped from 29 percent to 19 percent. I'm not sure whether that was the result of the Catholic priest scandals, some odd kind of ricochet from 9/11, or something else, but the scores have yet to really recover."
Silver's mention of 9.11 and the pedophilia scandal tends to support two out of three factors that I cite in my own theory. The other factor, in my view, is the association of conservative Christianity with the Bush administration. As the Bush administration lost public support, Christianity got dragged down as well.
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