For some years, a range of empirical studies (e.g. Inglehart & Norris in "Sacred and Secular", 2004) confirmed a global correlation of religiosity to societal levels of want and income inequality and (especially) insecurity. As respective publications have been made available at the internet for free, a wider public is getting the message. E.g., a sound example of a well-done study has been published by Tom Rees in the Journal of Religion and Society.

Another one has just been published e.g. by Gregory Paul in Evolutionary Psychology.

Confirming traditional and scientifc observations

Interestingly enough, these findings are confirming diverse observations in religious traditions and modern sciences alike. Readers in holy scriptures and historians of religions alike have pointed out for a long time that the main monotheistic religious traditions usually emerged among the migrants, the slaves, the poor, the displaced and the oppressed and tended to be fought by the respective ruling elites (as e.g. in early Israel, Rome, Mecca etc.). A prominent German proverb precluded the correlation for centuries: "Not lehrt beten. - Want teaches prayer." And central personalities of religion as e.g. Jesus formulated explicit sayings as: "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest." (Mt 11, 28) while explicitly warning against the disinterest of the affluent: "For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." (Lk 18,25)

Social progress - the end of religion? Or its chance to go intrinsic?

Nowadays, many people seem to read the scientific findings either as promises of secular glee or religious doom: Does social progress lead to the inevitable decline of religiosity and religions? Is the welfare state the mortal enemy of religious life?

There is a simple answer: No. Although strong states and social securities are indeed contributing to declines in the overall levels of religious participation, substantial percentages of the populations are keeping the faith. Not even socialist-atheist regimes as e.g. in Poland, Russia or Eastern Germany have been able to erase these faithfull minorities - who took an active part in overcoming them for the sake of freedom. (And the same process has started in China, with the increasingly desparate secular-communist government fighting Christians, Muslims and Buddhists alike.)

From a psychological perspective, the matter seems to be pretty clear: There is a shift from more extrinsic motivations ("I pray because I need someone."), which are widely shared, to more intrinsic ones ("I pray because I love someone.").

What's more, especially in wealthy and secure environments (as e.g. Switzerland), not only the religious communities are weakened by affluence and security: So are families, marriages and finally fertility rates. More and more people tend to abandon many relations "obviously no longer of use". In fact, those very (often ridiculed) religious "survivors" are partially resisting these trends, too - building (on average) stronger families and giving birth to (on average) more children as their secular-hedonistic peers.

I am not a theologian, but I would dare say that this shift from extrinsic to intrinsic motivations in religious and familial matters doesn't have to be interpreted as a bad process, after all. As most of the successful religious traditions realized: Wealth and security are the strongest challenges to faith, with only serious believers "surviving". From the perspective of biocultural evolution, there are interesting analogies to be found e.g. between Jesus' "eye of a needle" and the biologists "neck of a bottle".