There are plenty of reasons for Christians to worry about America today. Many of those reasons involve Christianity itself. Most denominations are struggling just to retain their numbers; some have simply hollowed out. Christians face headwinds in the public life, from increasingly hostile private institutions and, not infrequently, from government actors. Jack Phillips is back in court, after all.
It is enough to make one wonder if there is something beyond mere secularism at work. This is the thesis of two recent books: You Shall Be as Gods: Pagans, Progressives, and the Rise of the Woke Gnostic Left by talk-radio host Erick Erickson and Pagan America: The Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come by Federalist senior editor John Daniel Davidson. Both authors argue that an alternative faith has encouraged and benefited from Christianity’s decline.
Neither believes it is a new faith. Erickson sees a resurgence of Gnosticism, an early Christian heresy; Danielson finds a renaissance of paganism. I reviewed both books for the Acton Institute’s Religion & Liberty Online today. Both are worth reading, and each has its merits. Erickson’s attitude toward the challenges that Christians face is appropriately equanimous, and Danielson’s confidence about Christianity’s civilizational inheritance is refreshingly assertive.
I found much to agree with in both authors’ descriptions of America today. But I also found reason for hope. Read my review to find out why.