Jonathan Rauch links U.S. decline in religious affiliation to polarization and mental-health trends

Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow in the governance studies program and the author of Cross Purposes, told a Hinckley Institute forum at the University of Utah that the recent, rapid decline in religious affiliation in the United States has coincided with growing social isolation, worsening mental-health indicators for young people and intensifying partisan hatred.

Rauch told the audience the changes are recent and dramatic: "Between 2008 and 2022 ... the number doubles," he said of adults who no longer attend religious services, and he described church membership falling from roughly 70% for most of the 20th century to "below half" as of 2020. He linked that decline to a rise in loneliness and mental-health problems among young people and to a form of "affective polarization" in which large majorities on both sides view the other party as dishonest and immoral.

Rauch framed the problem as civic as well as spiritual. He said the American founders expected a substrate of "republican virtue"—habits of civility, truthfulness and respect—that religion historically helped supply. "The constitution, our democracy, will not survive if religion does not do its job," he said, summarizing arguments he attributed to founders…