Presently the dominant percentage of Americans are Christian. Christianity has shaped the foundations of Western civilization for two millennia. While Christianity is the dominant spiritual guiding force of America, it now, as it has been for two millennia, is also a social and political tool. While its values are embedded firmly in our society, these collective values are difficult to define in an increasingly fragmented reality. As the world becomes more global in nature, with its boundaries less defined by religion, culture or social ideology and more tolerant of diversity, the usefulness of a homogenized, spiritually oriented, socially constructed value system becomes suspect. This is not to predict the death of Christianity as a social force in America. Rather, it is to say that the social environment which has been conducive to separatist religious institutions and the survival of their values seems to be changing. Likewise, religion has been used on an individual level to assuage the psychological confrontation of man’s mortality. Therefore, when predicting the future of Christianity in America one must look at two crucial questions: In a world that is becoming more individualistic, will a holistic but separatist value system be imbrued?; and, Will individuals ever achieve a conscious acceptance of being alone in the universe without needing some externally composed coping mechanism? This analysis predicts that, while the definition and values of Christianity may change over the next two decades, Christianity will remain the dominant spiritual guiding force in America.
As the world becomes truly more global, it becomes more accepting of diversity and individualism as opposed to nationalism. The driving force behind this change is economic. In a global marketplace everyone is a potential producer and consumer. Suddenly, ideological differences become secondary to commercial possibilities. In The Third Wave, Alvi...