Repentance

It is often said that we live in a "secular age," a term popularised as the title of Charles Taylor’s famous book. For several decades in the lead-up to the turn of the millennium, membership in traditional religious institutions among Americans was always around 70%. Today, it is less than 50% -- even as many of the forms of traditional commitments have become less rigorous and demanding. The commensurate decline in traditional observance has been matched by the sharp rise in non-traditional commitments.