Over the past two decades, the number of local religious groups in Switzerland has decreased by 7%. The average age of participants has increased, as shown by a study published in the journal “Social Change in Switzerland”.
In Switzerland, local religious groups organize themselves into parishes, communities, mosques, synagogues or temples. On the basis of two surveys and representative polls, a team of sociologists of religion led by Jörg Stolz, from the University of Lausanne, shows that their number decreased by 7.2% between 2008 and 2022, going from 6,341 to 5,883. groups.
With the increase in population over this same period, we went from one community per 1,184 inhabitants in 2008 to one community per 1,476 inhabitants in 2020.
The Reformed and Catholic churches, in particular, lost many local groups. In the Muslim community in Switzerland, the number of mosques has also decreased slightly, although the number of regular participants has increased, according to a press release from the magazine published on Tuesday.
The situation is different for evangelical charismatic (Pentecostal) communities. They are on the rise throughout the world and in Switzerland too: more than 200 new groups of this type have emerged since 2008. But as so many groups have disappeared, the number of these communities and regular participants has remained stable.
Decline in religiosity
The decline in religiosity is also reflected in the share of the population who regularly participate in religious services. In Switzerland, it fell from 11.6% to 9.5% between 2008 and 2022.
There is a strong trend towards aging: half of the regular participants are now over 60 years old. The average age of spiritual leaders (priests, imams, etc.) has also increased significantly, from 50.8 to 53.8 years.
This strong aging trend is not only evident in recognized Christian churches, but also in evangelical communities as well as Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and Hindus in Switzerland.
This result contradicts the idea according to which secularization is limited to traditional Churches. However, there are exceptions: for example, the Orthodox Churches are growing.
Trend towards inclusiveness
Finally, the trend is towards inclusiveness. Local religious groups have on average become more open to the possibility of having gay members and leaders and to the possibility and practice of women’s leadership. These trends are considered significant, although slow, and are only visible for certain religious traditions.
Many religions show little or no change or even decline in acceptance of women’s religious leadership in principle or practice. This is the case for conservative evangelicals, orthodox Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs.
This article was automatically published. Source: ats
