Turning Points: Spiritual Transformations Around the World By Tom W. Smith

Of the thirty-two countries surveyed by the International Social Survey Program in 1998, the United States had the highest percentage of respondents saying they had experienced a turning point in their lives when they had made a new and personal commitment to religion. But this does not signal a religious revival: nearly nine out of ten who experienced these turning points said they were already believers, and had been all their lives.

The ISSP religion studies, conducted in 1991 and 1998, studied religious change around the world in two ways: by following trends in religious beliefs and behaviors in various countries over time, and by measuring changes that people have undergone during their lives. Personal changes measured by the ISSP include religious mobility—that is, the switching of religious affiliation from one's upbringing to one's current faith (or lack of faith), the occurrence of religious turning points in people's lives, and shifts in people's beliefs about God. The occurrence of religious turning points and shifts in belief about God come closest to what we usually mean by spiritual transformations.

Figure 1 shows the 1998 responses worldwide to the question, "Has there ever been a turning point in your life when you made a new and personal commitment to religion?" As the figure shows, the incidence of experiencing such turning points ranged from a high of 46 percent in the United States down to just 9 percent in East Germany. The high reading in the United States is most likely explained by the high percentage of evangelicals here. Among Americans, the level of such religious transformations has been pretty steady over time, with 47 percent in the 1991 ISSP reporting having had such an experience. Joining the United States near the top of the list in 1998 were other countries with strong to moderate representations of evangelical Protestants—Canada, New Zealand, and Australia—along with several post-Communist societies undergoing religious revivals (Latvia and Slovakia), the only Latin American country, Chile, and Catholic Italy.

With respect particularly to born-again experiences, the United States again made a strong showing. Between 1976 and the present, over a dozen surveys from various polling organizations reported levels in the 35-46 percent range, but with no clear trend. "Born-again" experiences were measured in the 1998 ISSP with the question, "Would you say that you have been 'born again' or have had a 'born-again' experience—that is, a turning point in your life when you committed yourself to Christ?" They accounted for a notable share of all religious turning points in the United States (82 percent), New Zealand (63 percent), Canada (52 percent), and Australia (46 percent), and thus largely explain the high proportions of people experiencing religious turning points in these countries. The relatively high level of changes in certain ex-Socialist countries are explained by the rebirth of religion and faith in these societies after the fall of Communism.

Showing the lowest level of reporting religious turning points were largely secular societies such as Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. Secular societies are defined as such in the general sociology of religion, based on studies measuring church attendance, belief in God, and similar items. As the responses to the turning-point question in Figure 1 indicate, the Scandinavian countries in 1998 were continuing to shift in the secular direction, with few people having religion-affirming experiences. Also showing low levels of turning points were ex-Socialist states that had not undergone religious revivals (East Germany and the Czech Republic), Catholic countries with strong, established churches (Ireland and Poland), Japan, and Cyprus. In Ireland and Poland, the reason for few turning points is different than in the secular countries. Most Irish and Polish respondents are lifelong Catholics; in addition, the Catholic tradition does not emphasize such personal religious changes. However, the relatively high rate of personal change in Catholic Italy indicates that Catholicism does not always lead to lower levels of such experiences.