The decline of Christianity in the West, according to skeptics and secularists from William Godwin to the New Atheists, was supposed to usher in an age of rational discourse, social comity and political stability. Instead it produced the collapse of communities once held together by religious belief, the proliferation of bespoke spiritualities and idiotic superstitions, and the pervasive unhappiness that always results from the attempt to answer spiritual longings with political zealotry.
Jonathan Rauch, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, acknowledges this state of affairs in his book “Cross Purposes,” published Feb. 4. In a prologue titled “The Dumbest Thing I Ever Wrote,” he recalls a 2003 essay for the Atlantic in which he lauded what he called “apatheism,” the tendency among Americans not to care about religious questions. This he termed “a major civilizational advance.”
“Ahem,” Mr. Rauch writes in mild self-mockery. “Let’s just say that’s not how things turned out.” In fact, he goes on, citing studies and analyses, “as America has secularized over the past 50 years, cynicism about politics, disdain for institutions, and discontent with public life have risen.”
