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#133: Has Religion Become Obsolete? A Conversation with Christian Smith (Part 1)

Dr. Christian Smith explores why religion feels outdated in modern culture, citing shifts in family, institutions, and technology as key causes.

What’s Really Behind America’s Religious Decline?

If you’re watching church attendance declining at your congregation and wondering what you’re doing wrong, this conversation will transform how you understand the challenges facing American religion. Dr. Christian Smith, sociologist at the University of Notre Dame and author of “Why Religion Went Obsolete,” reveals that the struggles you’re experiencing aren’t primarily about your leadership, programs, or preaching. Instead, we’re dealing with “perfect storm” conditions—massive cultural, technological, and social forces that have been building for decades, creating what Smith calls a “cultural mismatch” between traditional religion and today’s zeitgeist.

Smith’s research identifies specific factors since 1991 that have reshaped the religious landscape, from the deinstitutionalization of the American family to the rise of anti-institutional sentiment and popular postmodernism. Rather than trying to fix church attendance declining through traditional methods, church leaders need to understand these macro-level forces and redirect their energy toward discerning where God is already at work. This liberating perspective helps leaders move beyond self-blame to focus on faithful response to genuinely unprecedented cultural conditions. Join hosts Dwight Zscheile and Terri Elton as they explore why traditional religion has become “obsolete” in American culture and what this means for the future of faith communities.

In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

  • Why traditional religion has become “obsolete” in American culture (not just declining)
  • The specific historical factors since 1991 that created today’s landscape
  • How family structure changes affect church engagement beyond doctrine
  • Why both evangelical and mainline approaches inadvertently contributed to decline
  • The difference between organizational decline and cultural obsolescence

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Featuring

Headshot of Christian Smith

Christian Smith

Christian Smith is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame. He studies culture, religion, social theory, and environmental degradation and climate change, and is the author of many books, including Why Religion Went Obsolete: the Demise of Traditional Faith in America (OUP 2025); What is a Person?: Rethinking Humanity, Social Life, and the Moral Good from the Person Up (Chicago 2010); Soul Searching: the Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (OUP 2005); and Moral, Believing Animals: Human Personhood and Culture (OUP 2003). Smith and his corgi live on and work a permaculture farmstead in southwest Michigan.

Meet Your Hosts

  • Terri Elton

    The Rev. Dr. Terri Martinson Elton began teaching at Luther Seminary as an adjunct instructor in 2004 before becoming the director of the Center for Children, Youth and Family Ministry in 2008. In addition to her continued work with the Center, Elton accepted the position of associate professor of Children, Youth and Family Ministry in 2010 and associate professor of Leadership in 2014.

    Prior to her call to Luther Seminary, Elton served as an associate to the bishop in the Saint Paul Area Synod where her responsibilities included working with congregations, leadership development, First Call theological education and youth and family ministry.

    Before her work in the synod, she served at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Burnsville, Minn. for 16 years. While at Prince of Peace she worked in various roles within children, youth and family ministries, as well as served as the director of Changing Church Forum, an outreach ministry of Prince of Peace. She also authored To Know, To Live, To Grow, a confirmation curriculum, and co-authored What Really Matters, a book for congregational leaders, with the Rev. Mike Foss.

    Elton holds a B.A. degree in communications from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn. (1986). She earned both her M.A. (1998) and Ph.D. (2007) degrees in Congregational Mission and Leadership from Luther Seminary.

    Elton’s research and teaching interests include: congregational leadership, leading in the midst of change and conflict, helping ministry leaders craft a missional ecclesiology with an eye toward the First Third of Life, awakening a vibrant theology of baptism and vocation and reimagining faith and mission practices for children, youth, young adults and their families.

    Elton is a member of the Academy of Religious Leadership, the Association of Youth Ministry Educators, the ELCA Youth Ministry Network and the American Society of Missiology and is on the board for Real Resources. Elton spends much of her time working with congregations and congregational leaders and seeks out opportunities for enhancing ministry with those in the First Third of Life within the ELCA.

  • Dwight Zscheile

    The Rev. Dr. Dwight Zscheile is vice president of innovation and professor of congregational mission and leadership at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.

    He is the author of Embracing the Mixed Ecology (with Blair Pogue, Seabury Books, 2025), Leading Faithful Innovation: Following God into a Hopeful Future (with Michael Binder and Tessa Pinkstaff, Fortress 2023), Participating in God’s Mission: A Theological Missiology for the U.S. (with Craig Van Gelder, Eerdmans 2018), The Agile Church: Spirit-Led Innovation in an Uncertain Age (Morehouse Publishing, 2014), People of the Way: Renewing Episcopal Identity (Morehouse Publishing, 2012) and The Missional Church in Perspective: Mapping Trends and Shaping the Conversation (with Craig Van Gelder, Baker Academic 2011) and editor of Cultivating Sent Communities: Missional Spiritual Formation (Eerdmans, 2012).

    A graduate of Stanford University (BA), Yale University (MDiv) and Luther Seminary (PhD, Congregational Mission and Leadership), Dwight previously served congregations in Minnesota, Virginia and Connecticut. Dwight’s experience growing up in a secular home in California has shaped his commitment to helping the church cultivate Christian community with neighbors in today’s changing world.