Another Cyberpunk thread: Surge of Faith.

[Flaco76]

2104-Earth and the Solar System have undergone massive changes in technology, society and the environment. Despite predictions by Futurists organized religion has seen a renaissance and has increased in size and power. As governments in all levels found themselves coping with several crises at one and shortages of funding, religious groups stepped in. In many countries religious groups ran food pantries, provided temporary housing, job assistance and ran schools from kindergarten to universities. This assistance soon turned into political and economic power as churches bought stock in corporations and provided voters for campaigns. Now religious leaders sit on corporate boards and government legislatures.

Environmental-Ranging from neo-pagan to environmental evangelicals these groups believe that the Earth is sacred and a gift from God. Members may be seen planting native plants to clean up chemical and industrial waste to disassembling old buildings for raw materials.

Militant-Using military ranks and training these groups have gone into the worse areas of the world to recruit/pacify. Former gang members and military veterans join as a form of penitence. Many regular churches have warrior orders just in case.

Mystic-using combinations of drugs, meditation and technology they try to figure out the structure of the universe. As a result many scientific developments and technology have been discovered.

Wandering scholars-These teachers and technicians travel from place to place teaching and repairing equipment. They may repair a water pump one place and tell stories to villagers in another. Many have medical training and university degrees in various subjects.

Order is the Key-These groups provide a comfort to many people with tradition and ritual. While many mainline groups have removed the obvious discrimination they have a hierarchy and structure. They also have enough corruption, intrigue and deal making worthy of a government.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

That was my suspicion, but it occurs to me that Romanism appears to be the default to a lot of people ... as some of Diagoro's suggestions were trending towards ... and something different might be implied.

I was actually thinking Anglican, substituting the Arch-Bishop of Washington for the one of Canterbury, but I hadn't considered that the Church of England isn't very popular in the US. In Australia, Anglicans and Catholics are about on equal footing, and if you say "Protestant" it's almost synonymous with "Anglican."

There's the Episcopal Church, I guess, as the American representative of the Anglican community, but I don't know how prominent they are in the US. And they're led by a Presiding Bishop, not an Arch Bishop.

In case it wasn't clear, I was trying to suggest a future where the secular USA has split into two new theocratic nations, with the Arch Bishop living in the White House. For a trinity, you could have the Southern Baptismal Federation as a third country.

[Daigoro]

As for the question of "how did things come to be this way?", I'd look at something more specific or dramatic than a generalised "church leaders gradually gained more power and eventually became CEOs and politicians" approach. In general, society is becoming more secular and rational, so to reverse the trend would need something significant.

A couple of ideas-

1) Brain virus-
Let's entertain the notion that the feeling of religious experience is governed by one particular module in the brain, and this is activated by practitioners in prayer or meditation, and may cause feelings of calmness or ecstasy. A different area of the brain might control more general feelings of faith and belief.

At some point in the setting's timeline, a group of neurochemists, brainhackers, discovered how to activate and control the expression of different levels of faith or rationalism. Their grand demonstration of this was when they targeted a sceptical, outspoken, anti-religious, Richard Dawkins-like figure and turned him into a committed Christian.

A later, secret group of religious scientists then took this mechanism and attached it to a strain of flu virus. As a kind of act of religious espionage, fighting against the forces of godless rationalism, they released the flu into the populace. Over the next 10 years, the world faced the pigeon flu, the Jamaican flu and the cat & mouse flu and survived each epidemic, not realising that they'd actually been hit with a more insidious payload. Their faith-rationalism brain centres had been subtly affected, and the changes also entered the human germ-line, affecting a further generation so that they were indeed "born believers."

The overall effect on society was gradual but massive, moving religion from something that most people only worried about on Sunday to become the centre of their daily existence. Secular institutions- government, banking, law enforcement- changed their focus and operational methods to be all about upholding moral and religious ideals.

The secret behind this new world order is known only to a select few, whose power base depends on the populace staying away from old-fashioned rationalism. This Damascene Conspiracy must keep this secret hidden from the world, as well as re-seeding the virus, re-inoculating society against rationalism, every few years without their interference being discovered.

With this idea, you could also have similar viruses that promote actual religious visions, with outbreaks of prophets. A counter-virus, promoting rationalism, could be released by a secular humanist underground resistance cell.

And the big philosophical question is, if religious experience, and society's faith in God, is down to some chemical switches in the brain, does it deny the existence of God?

And what of personal identity? Is the fervent religious me of last week the same person as the cold rationalist me that I am today? Maybe I'll feel better when I get over this flu.


2) Schism-
Apropos of this timely article, the Catholic church is facing a crisis. We have the new Pope Francis shunning the material trappings of his station, promoting a "poor church for the poor", versus the self-aggrandisement often associated with Catholic priests.

Let's say that in 10 or 15 years' time, Pope Francis tries to overhaul the image of the Church, and issues an edict that all dioceses must give up half of their holdings, sell off their treasures and mansions, and the priesthood must revert to poor and humble lifestyles. This change rocks the foundations of the Catholic Church, and many of the priesthood resist it, but nonetheless the motion is started.

Francis then passes away, and his successor starts to undo these changes, bringing the Church back to a path that glorifies God. However, momentum from Francis's reforms continues, and the Church splits into two new denominations- Poor Christians and the Glory of God. The Glory of God sees their faith as being under attack from an array of enemies, and this is proven when the new pope is assassinated. In counterpoint to the old softly-softly philosophy, Glory of God believes that they must attain greater worldly goods and secular power to protect their belief system, so actively start buying stocks in megacorporations and vying for political position.

The Poor Christian Catholics, Protestants and other denominations now feel they have to compete so that their position in the world is not overrun by these highly-motivated campaigners, so they too join the circus, joining boards of directors, campaigning for state governorships, and so on. After 2 or 3 decades of this wrangling, the social fabric is in turmoil and this leads into a more justified situation for the setting.


3) Armageddon-
Going back to the article from Scenario 1, there's an idea that religious belief persists in human society because it had an evolutionary survival benefit. It promotes group-bonding, generosity and altruism, moral behaviour, a common goal, things like that.

Let's say there's a major catastrophe, World War 3, or some similar great societal upheaval. It doesn't have to involve utter destruction, but just enough to remove modern social systems and such. Maybe an economic depression with mass rioting and social unrest to which order is eventually restored. In the aftermath, it is the people following religious institutions that recover quickest and regain the power positions in society, so in effect they get to choose the laws and how the new society will behave.



Anyway, that's just some spitballing, build on these or ignore as you will.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

I was actually thinking Anglican, substituting the Arch-Bishop of Washington for the one of Canterbury, but I hadn't considered that the Church of England isn't very popular in the US. In Australia, Anglicans and Catholics are about on equal footing, and if you say "Protestant" it's almost synonymous with "Anglican."

Anglicanism is actually quite a bit more complicated - at least here in the UK it is - parts of the CofE stick very closely to its roots as a suburb of the Church of Rome, others are virtually indistinguishable from Evangelical or Pentecostal communities until you look at their paperwork.

I guess "how Protestant" would be the question, but in America I would assume that large tranches of those who would be termed so are some kind of Baptist or Evangelical, but there's probably plenty more to consider.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

I was actually thinking Anglican, substituting the Arch-Bishop of Washington for the one of Canterbury, but I hadn't considered that the Church of England isn't very popular in the US. In Australia, Anglicans and Catholics are about on equal footing, and if you say "Protestant" it's almost synonymous with "Anglican."

There's the Episcopal Church, I guess, as the American representative of the Anglican community, but I don't know how prominent they are in the US. And they're led by a Presiding Bishop, not an Arch Bishop.

In case it wasn't clear, I was trying to suggest a future where the secular USA has split into two new theocratic nations, with the Arch Bishop living in the White House. For a trinity, you could have the Southern Baptismal Federation as a third country.

Episcopalianism looks like a poor candidate for a major denomination in the future unless something really strange happens to turn around the denomination's fortunes. It's in a steep demographic decline and appears quite likely to continue down that road.
Don't take my word for it. Look up the stats.

I'm not going to address why I think TEC is in such a decline, as that would drag things off topic. I have strong opinions on this, formed in part by discussing the matter with Episcopalian friends and family, including a reverend.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Yeah, that'd go off the rails fast. On the other hand, Episcopalianism at its lowest point ever here still has almost 2,000,000 in the last US census, and has always been on the "most-accepted" tier of religions that won't eg: pose an obstacle to a run for President, so IMHO it could easily rebound in popularity here if its current sources of controversy become less controversial.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

Yeah, that'd go off the rails fast. On the other hand, Episcopalianism at its lowest point ever here still has almost 2,000,000 in the last US census, and has always been on the "most-accepted" tier of religions that won't eg: pose an obstacle to a run for President, so IMHO it could easily rebound in popularity here if its current sources of controversy become less controversial.

Put me on record as strongly doubting a rebound for TEC, but I'm not saying it's totally implausible.
The OP's timeline is set far enough out that he's given himself a lot of wiggle room.


My money would be first and foremost on the Catholic Church as the major US church in this setting. The Catholic population is already much, much bigger than any single Protestant denomination. Millions and millions of people bigger. It's growing through immigration, conversion, and reproduction.


Evangelical Protestants might still be doing pretty well, or maybe not.








Non-Christian religions out to be considered, despite being minority faiths today and likely to remain so well into the future.

The Mormons are doing pretty well. It will always be a minority religion in the country as a whole, but Utah may be a theocratic democracy in this future setting. Deseret reborn...

[Randyman]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Put me on record as strongly doubting a rebound for TEC, but I'm not saying it's totally implausible.
The OP's timeline is set far enough out that he's given himself a lot of wiggle room.


My money would be first and foremost on the Catholic Church as the major US church in this setting. The Catholic population is already much, much bigger than any single Protestant denomination. Millions and millions of people bigger. It's growing through immigration, conversion, and reproduction.


Evangelical Protestants might still be doing pretty well, or maybe not.








Non-Christian religions out to be considered, despite being minority faiths today and likely to remain so well into the future.

The Mormons are doing pretty well. It will always be a minority religion in the country as a whole, but Utah may be a theocratic democracy in this future setting. Deseret reborn...

Here's my guess:

For the western US, look no further than Salt Lake City. The Mormons are (as of the last stats I heard) one of the two fastest-growing religious groups in the US (Islam being the other, but there's more Mormons, so total numerical increase is probably on their side). Plus, the Mormons are far more likely to step in and help their community as per the upthread post.

For the eastern US, I second Catholicism. Here's a twist - an American schism with Rome, followed by a merger of the Episcopalians into the new AC Church. Throw in some of the other mainstream denominations that are theologically compatible with the Episcopalians, and you have your church.

And if you want to break off the Southeastern US, I have to (sadly, as a Southerner myself) agree with another upthread post - the Southern Baptist Convention becoming the Southern Baptist Confederation is eminently possible within the context given.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

Yeah, that'd go off the rails fast. On the other hand, Episcopalianism at its lowest point ever here still has almost 2,000,000 in the last US census,

1.5%, apparently, compared to 25% Baptist.

and has always been on the "most-accepted" tier of religions that won't eg: pose an obstacle to a run for President, so IMHO it could easily rebound in popularity here if its current sources of controversy become less controversial.

Indeed, historically it's the most common religion for US presidents, although that's just saying it was the mainstream religion for most of US history.

Originally Posted by combatmedic

The Mormons are doing pretty well. It will always be a minority religion in the country as a whole, but Utah may be a theocratic democracy in this future setting. Deseret reborn...

Originally Posted by Randyman

For the western US, look no further than Salt Lake City. The Mormons are (as of the last stats I heard) one of the two fastest-growing religious groups in the US (Islam being the other, but there's more Mormons, so total numerical increase is probably on their side). Plus, the Mormons are far more likely to step in and help their community as per the upthread post.

For the eastern US, I second Catholicism. Here's a twist - an American schism with Rome, followed by a merger of the Episcopalians into the new AC Church. Throw in some of the other mainstream denominations that are theologically compatible with the Episcopalians, and you have your church.

I like the Catholic schism being an American thing.

But alternatively, for the Episcopalians and other protestants, in the West Coast you have the strange-bedfellows of Mainline Protestants and the Mormons in a coalition. Either the president is jointly chosen by both groups, or the government is a 3 person tribunal, with one Protestant bishop, one Mormon minister* and one lay president** serving together in overlapping terms. The balance of power could swing and sway with the president depending on his religious background.

How would non-Christian faiths fit in to such a setting? Persecution or segregation would be the obvious route, but easily leads to cliche. Could they have separate dispensations? Would everyone have to openly identify their religion? Would bouncers at drinking establishments have to check denomination as well as age before allowing people in to drink? Different courts and judges for different religions?

*actually, I'm not sure of the appropriate term for a Mormon with high Religious Rank.
** or the term for a member of a governing tribunal

[Anders]

An Islamic USA might be fun to consider.