A quarter of the way in, the 21st century isn’t turning out to be the “post Christian” century it was predicted to be.
Just when the New Atheist movement is dying, “America’s Gen Z has got religion,” reported The Economist in February. “Because of them, a long decline in the number of Christians has leveled off.”
“Gen Z is finding religion. Why?” Vox asked in April and as if in answer, in The Free Press, Madeliene Kearns explained in June “How Catholicism Got Cool."
She noted the surge in new Catholics this Easter, and a Harvard University 2023 study shows Gen Zers more likely to self-identify as Catholic — with men leading the way. And it isn’t just Catholicism. The American Bible Society in 2021 polling and the Barna evangelical research group in 2023 saw the same phenomenon.
Why is this happening?
First, the culture has found no good alternative to Christianity.
In 1930, T.S. Eliot wrote,
“The world is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time: so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and save the World from suicide.”
Nearly 100 years later, we can see that his prediction was absolutely right — and that the time of rebuilding is upon us.
In 1996, Richard Dawkins, the biologist who led the charge of the New Atheism movement said,
“I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.”
Now, nearly 30 years later, he admitted in a TV interview that he appreciates “living in a culturally Christian country” and says, “I’m not a believer, but there is a distinction between being a believing Christian and a cultural Christian.”
The culture looked bleak without faith. In addition to frequent spikes in crime and steady rises in child pornography and human trafficking, many noticed how angry and mean we have grown. Worse, “deaths of despair” — suicides, directly or indirectly through addictions — have risen dramatically for complicated reasons including a lack of meaning and belonging.
Second, there is a growing intellectual acceptance of Christianity.
Former “New Atheist” leaders have doubtless also noticed that science alone, without faith, has not made people more level-headed, dispassionate, and rational. G.K. Chesterton was right when he said,
“When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing; they then become capable of believing in anything.”
Where traditional faiths have decreased, strange beliefs have increased. Last year, Pew Research Center found that 43% of women under 50 now believe in astrology — and nearly 1 in 3 Americans consults astrology every year.
Science divorced from faith hurts scientific belief, also.
“Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes,” St. John Paul II said.
He also warned U.S. bishops that, without faith, “utilitarianism will increasingly reduce human beings to objects for manipulation.”
He was right. We know more about unborn human beings than ever — and have found new ways to kill them. And science without faith embraced gender ideology, which Pope Francis called the “ugliest danger” of our time.
Meanwhile, Christianity is newly reasonable. Books by nonbelievers that take Christian ideas seriously include Jordan Peterson’s books as well as The Case Against the Sexual Revolution by Louise Perry, The Master and His Emissary by Iaian McGilchrist, and Jonathan Haidt’s books, especially The Righteous Mind.
Exciting things are happening: Former “New Atheist” thinker Sam Harris now engages with Peterson’s ideas, and atheist YouTuber Alex O’Connor has given great interviews with Bishop Robert Barron and Christian mathematician John Lennox. Meanwhile, apologists such as Catholic Answers and Trent Horn and Protestants Justin Brierley and Sean McDowell are increasingly sophisticated.
Intellectually, it is clearer than ever that faith and science belong together.
But, third, faith experiences are being taken seriously again, also.
Examples are everywhere, but two of my favorites are video interviews I ran across recently.
In one, the host of the Ezra Klein Show, a professed nonbeliever, interviewed fellow New York Times columnist Ross Douthat about the enduring nature of religious experiences — and admitted that he has himself had a spiritual experience that he can’t explain away.
In another, libertarian leader Dave Smith described to Tucker Carlson the moment he went from “militant atheist” to believer.
His wife was delivering their first child when complications arose.
“Immediately, I just started talking to God,” he said, praying, “Dear Lord, if you make sure that they’re okay, I’m going to be the best husband and the best father.”
He said he suddenly had no doubt A) that God existed, B) that God was loving and C) that God desired his goodness. Ever since then, he said, he prays daily — mostly words of gratitude.
That is how faith works for many of us. We don’t reason our way to God, we talk to him — and thank him for his love. And we have no doubt more people will keep joining us.
