Christian Smith
Sociology
Director of the Center for Social Research, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology, and the Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society
- Sociology of religion
- Social theory
- Cultural sociology
- Adolescence
Video
Smith in the News
Deseret News
Analysis: Confidence in religion is declining – along with confidence in everything else
December 02, 2025
Rather, larger societal issues that cut across denominations and faith traditions are at play, argues Christian Smith, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame in his new book, “Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America.”
The Christian Science Monitor
Americans are buying more Bibles. What does that mean for US Christianity?
November 11, 2025
The interest in specialty Bibles may indirectly indicate that religion is becoming more of a market economy, says Christian Smith, a professor at the University of Notre Dame, as different denominations “compete” for the faithful.
Newsweek
America’s Views on Religion Are Shifting
November 06, 2025
Christian Smith, a professor of sociology and director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame, told Newsweek: "It’s a bump driven by Trump’s reelection and people’s awareness of the conservative religious part of his political base."
Yahoo
The Decline and Fall of Christianity in America
July 02, 2025
This spiritual downtick has spawned endless charts and data-driven debates, with scholars pinning the blame for it on everything from economic comfort and fraying family ties to shifting demographics. But sociologist Christian Smith, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame, believes that these reams of stats, while helpful, do not capture what’s really going on.
Deseret News
Why studying spirituality is harder than you think
May 12, 2025
Sociologist Christian Smith studies American religion, but his research doesn’t take him to many churches these days...Smith, a professor at the University of Notre Dame, is on a mission to understand what he calls the culture of re-enchantment, a loosely connected web of conventions, shops, content creators and community groups that promote some form of spirituality, but not religion.
The Salt Lake Tribune
Jana Riess: Is traditional religion becoming obsolete?
April 08, 2025
According to social scientist and author Christian Smith, a professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame, “obsolete” describes the situation facing traditional organized religion in the United States. The title of his new book even puts its cultural expiration in the past tense: “Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America.”
Deseret News
The great awakening
March 28, 2025
If religious identity was once seen as a binary — either religious or secular — a third category has emerged. “It’s neither hardcore secular nor traditionally religious,” says Christian Smith, a sociology professor at the University of Notre Dame. “It shares with religion; it believes in spiritual realities.”
The Wall Street Journal
Our Many Jesuses
April 07, 2023
According to Robin Jensen, an art historian and professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, the Gospels give warrant for such variety, since they never physically describe Jesus and recount that, after his resurrection, some of his own disciples did not recognize him. For Christian Smith, a professor of sociology at Notre Dame, the proliferation of rival ideas of what Jesus stands for undermines the cultural authority of them all, by feeding into the “pluralistic, subjectivistic, relativistic” understanding of religion that prevails in contemporary America.
The New York Times
The New Chief Chaplain at Harvard? An Atheist.
August 26, 2021
The Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith attributes the trend partly to the growing alliance between the Republican Party and the Christian right, a decline of trust in institutions, growing skepticism of religion in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and a shift away from traditional family structures that centered on churchgoing.
Religion News Service
Parent like your religion depends on it
April 21, 2021
With Christian Smith, a sociologist at the University of Notre Dame, Adamczyk combed several national surveys for information and conducted over 200 interviews, resulting in the book “Handing Down the Faith: How Parents Pass Their Religion on to the Next Generation,” out this week from Oxford University Press.
Deseret News
A Christian survival guide for a secular age
March 22, 2021
Similarly, University of Notre Dame sociologist of religion Christian Smith found in his study of adults 18 to 23 that most of them believe society is nothing more than “a collection of autonomous individuals out to enjoy life.”
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