A Religious Revival Could Help Reinvigorate the Liberal West
Even atheists might prefer time-tested faiths over illiberal upstarts.
Atheist though I am, my wife's rabbi insisted on parading me around on his shoulders as part of recent Simchat Torah festivities. As a volunteer security guard for the synagogue, I was weighed down with weapons and body armor, so it's good he doesn't skip leg day during his trips to the gym. Less vigorous was my adult son's baptism at a Tucson church earlier this year. My Jewish wife, Wendy, and I were bemused by congratulations from members of the congregation on Anthony's thoughtful pre-dousing speech. We knew we'd raised a good man, but we had little to do with his faith. For that matter, I'm not really sure how an atheist married to a once-secular woman ended up in a multi-faith household.
But I'm not alone in seeing changes in the religious landscape and (maybe) a religious revival. And while I'm not a believer, I see people grasping for meaning. For me, the reinvigoration of time-tested belief systems compatible with a free society beats the adoption of newer and explicitly illiberal religion substitutes.
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Evidence for a Religious Revival
"From February 2024 to February 2025, there was a sharp rise in the share of U.S. adults who say religion is gaining influence in American life," Pew Research reported this week. Last year, 18 percent of respondents—the lowest level seen after two decades of decline—said religion was gaining influence in American life. This year, 31 percent said religion is gaining influence—the highest figure in 15 years.
Gallup reported similar results in June, finding that 34 percent of U.S. adults believe religion is increasing its influence in American life, up from 20 percent a year earlier. Clearly, a good many people perceive a reversal in fortunes for traditional religions that have long been shedding adherents.
But it's not just public perception. In February, Pew reported that "after many years of steady decline, the share of Americans who identify as Christians shows signs of leveling off—at least temporarily—at slightly above six-in-ten."
Youth and Faith
Pew also found support for the much-reported story about younger men shaking up traditional religious roles by growing more religious while women, who historically anchored families to faith, continue to become more secular. The researchers note "there are signs that the gender gap in religion is narrowing, as it is smaller among younger people than among older Americans," though younger adults as a group are less religious than older ones.
For my son, the journey to faith began in homeschooling lessons about the Enlightenment and the foundations of Western civilization. He concluded the West has become unmoored from its core values and that many of its inhabitants no longer hold the beliefs that let us become free and prosperous.
His impressions were cemented when he briefly attended a private school and watched a large share of his classmates embrace intolerant progressivism. Soon, they were purging one another out of study groups and online chats as deviationists from the groupthink of the moment. If you'd called them religious fanatics, they'd have been offended. But Anthony believed that, in their search for meaning in the world, his classmates had rejected relatively mild and tolerant traditional beliefs only to fill their place with illiberal substitutes that allowed no room for dissent. He preferred traditional faith.
Writing for Australia's Lowy Institute, Intifar Chowdhury observed in August that revivals in traditional religion are occurring among young people around the world. For many of them, faith offers "meaning, stability, and guidance" that they don't find in secular culture. While both men and women are reinvigorating traditional faiths in many places, in countries like the U.S. and Australia, "the Gen Z religious revival is sharply gendered." For young men, "religion, especially traditions with male-led hierarchies, offers them belonging, purpose, and a defined role."
Chowdhury worries that religious revivals may offer fertile ground for populism. But my son first embraced Christianity as a pillar of the liberal Enlightenment, then found further meaning in a theology that connected him with a Creator that, according to the Declaration of Independence, endowed us with "certain unalienable Rights….Among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Pulling Together After October 7
As you might imagine, my wife's journey back to her childhood Judaism followed a different path. She'd never shared my atheism but always retained a belief in God even if she didn't celebrate shabbat or read the Torah. October 7 changed that for her. Like many in Israel, the U.S., and elsewhere, she realized that she was hated and could be hunted as a Jew whether or not she was observant. There's even a term—"October 8th Jew"—referring to those who returned to the community after the terror attack.
"Across the Jewish world, particularly in North America, there's a wave of what they call 'the surge'—people who…are rediscovering their Jewish identity in the aftermath of the October 7 attack," according to Zvika Klein in the Jerusalem Post.
In a sign that the Jewish revival may last, young Jews seem particularly affected. The Jewish campus organization Hillel "is close to breaking its record for highest student participation in its 100-year history," according to Religion Watch. The rival Chabad organization told the same publication that it experienced "an increase of over 40 percent in new students coming through" its chapters' doors.
Traditional Religions and the Alternatives
I've had to make peace with a suddenly multifaith family, though it's been relatively easy. Unlike some atheists—we've all met them—I don't belittle people who embrace religion. My atheism isn't militant; it has more in common with the beliefs of the philosopher Epicurus or with the Deism of the Founders that the existence of a god or gods doesn't matter since there's no evidence that it or they involve themselves in our lives. I don't care much about the issue, so long as nobody foists their beliefs on me.
That makes my version of atheism as compatible with the political traditions of our heavily Deistic Founders as the Christianity that my son sought for its connections to the Enlightenment and the Judaism of my wife that helped spawn Western civilization.
The same can't be said of the modern alternatives that have become popular in certain circles. My son had his run-in with totalitarian progressivism which fueled an Inquisition-like environment at his old school. It's mirrored on parts of the right by an illiberalism that rejects individualism, limited government, and free markets. Now, there are attempts to unify these ideological strains in a distilled post-liberalism that embraces collectivism and authoritarianism. Where that ends is probably something like Republican Paul Ingrassia's and Democrat Graham Platner's shared taste for Nazis.
If there is a religious revival underway, and if it maintains its steam, there's no guarantee it won't lead us in that post-liberal direction. Traditional faiths have certainly been authoritarian in the past. But they've also had some time to have the sharp edges knocked off and prove themselves compatible with free societies; the same can't be said of the alternatives.
As people grasp for meaning in a changing world and look for something to believe, I'll place my hopes on traditional faiths that helped create our civilization over upstart would-be replacements that openly reject it.
