It wasn’t quite a “where were you when” moment, but almost. I’m talking about Richard Dawkins — the world’s most famous atheist — announcing that he’d become a “cultural Christian.”
Initially I was confused. Dawkins a Christian? Then I realized what he was saying. The Oxford professor wasn’t embracing faith; he was joining the parade of secular people acknowledging that much of what’s right about the West depends upon a flourishing church.
If his pivot surprises you, you need to understand three things.
› Secularism is stumbling. The secular mindset that emerged from the Enlightenment — the belief that religion would fade while science delivered heaven on earth — has failed. Though most love Novocain, iPhones and DoorDash sushi, in the end, it’s not enough. There are aspects of secularism we should all applaud, but people who are defined by it are disproportionately lonely, anxious and unhappy. More significantly, they’re not having children at anything near the replacement rate.
Secularism is holding its own in Ivy League faculty lounges, but if it were a stock, Warren Buffett would have sold it 36 months ago.