For many years people have been predicting the demise of religion in general and Christianity in particular. Voltaire, Marx, Nietzsche and Freud all thought that Christianity would be dead and buried long before now. Christianity is on the decline in Europe and Australia. According to the census figures the number of people claiming allegiance to a Christian church is declining by around 43 people per day in Australia.
However, even allowing for places where faith is declining, the number of people claiming to be Christians globally is growing by over 70,000 people per day. According to sociologist Christian Smith in the latest issue of Sociology of Religion, “The very internal logic of doing Christianity persistently produces events, interactions, and feelings in and among people compelling enough to keep the tradition flourishing despite many countervailing forces.”
In other words, Christian faith is something that seems to “work”. This doesn’t prove that faith in Jesus is “true”, but it couldn’t be “true” if it didn’t “work”. That’s about as far as sociology can take us. A problem with sociology is that it looks at issues only in human terms, not taking into account the work of the Holy Spirit in people’s lives.