Is Religion Coming Back?

Jules Evans defined a religion as a system that binds us in religio: a kind of sacredness, obligation, faith and “cosmic certainty” towards a particular set of precepts. Those outside the religio are framed as “existential threats”, with a strong in-out dynamic bound by a common transcendent ideal.

We’re often told that ‘religion is in decline.’ Belief is plummeting and the pews are emptying. In fact, between 1999 and 2020 — almost every country across Eurasia and the Americas showed stark declines in religious belief. But that isn’t the full story, and many believe religion is as much a force as it ever was. It’s just changed shape.

In addressing the meaning crisis — the vacuum left by the failures of religion, modernism, postmodernism, and today’s online alternatives — it takes a return to what bona fide religion really captures. The communitas. The ecstasy. The ritual.

It might be time to stop simulating. To become conscious that we might be driven by our religious sense and drive it instead. No matter what one may hope, religion is here to stay. The question is how to move with it consciously, and avoid getting sucked down the plughole.

At its extremes, the Modernist elevation of science and materialism — both that science is the only means for answering problems, and reality is solely built from unconscious matter — has an axiomatic quality that borders on faith.

Why we evolved to found religions isn’t certain, but psychologists suggest it could be an emergence of pattern-seeking, a need to explain — or perhaps a way to push the social engagement system, especially around shared communal ritual.

How did we arrive at this strange situation, with traditional religion declining while our politics and ideologies are looking increasingly religious? We believe there are a number of historical, philosophical and psychological forces at play, and that these might tie together phenomena as different as the argument over teaching Critical Race Theor... See more