New York Times columnist Ross Douthat says that over the years, he’s seen a striking shift in the responses he receives to columns in which he discusses his religious faith.
When Ross first became a Times columnist, it was during the heyday of the New Atheists like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens. Whenever he wrote about anything related to his own religious faith, he would be inundated with letters from devotees of these writers, quoting them and telling Ross what an idiot he was for being religious.
In recent years, he has noticed the kinds of letters he received changed in tone and substance. What he started to receive instead were people saying, “I’m not religious. In fact, I’ve always been an atheist, but I wish I could be religious—I just don’t know how.”
His new book Believe, is an attempt to help them do just that.
While Ross is a devout Catholic, he isn’t really making the case for Catholicism. He’s making a case for religion writ large.
I learned about this book on a podcast called Weird Studies that is sort of a metaphysical/philosophical podcast run by a Catholic and a Zen Buddhist who both agree with Ross’s premise. The Zen Buddhist host was previously a strong atheist and fan of the New Atheist genre. He now can see how the container of Zen Buddhism has been really beneficial to him. So it’s worth noting that when I say religion, it could be a non-deistic type of practice like Zen Buddhism.
It’s important to note that Ross and these hosts are not saying “become spiritual.” They are saying “become religious.”
I’m surprised to be saying this, but I think they’re onto something.
There is something very different between being spiritual and being religious. I know because I’ve been spiritual and religious and spiritual and not religious. I also have been an atheist/agnostic in my younger years, so I’ve seen this from various vantage points.
Because I had such a terrible experience when I became religious in my thirties, for the last eight years or so I’ve embraced a more of a “spiritual, not religious” sort of Christian-adjacent faith (since Christianity is my context due to my history in that tradition). My faith is one that is informed by mystics from all traditions, but has been nearly devoid of any kind of religious aspect other than going to the occasional Mass.
I think it served me well enough up until probably around the time it started shifting for lots of Ross’s readers.
I’m not against being “spiritual, not religious” per se. I just think it likely isn’t a strong enough container for the period of history we are living through.
I also think that it may not be strong enough even in the best of times, and the reason for that is that it doesn’t generally do a good enough job of keeping our egos in check. When your ego is running amok, it just creates problems for you and everyone around you. It’s what makes everything seem terrible when some things are terrible and some things are wonderful. Your ego doesn’t like nuance, and it loves to blame all your problems and the problems of the world on other people. It loves to be hopeless because it knows there is no point in being otherwise.
Back in April I interviewed Richard Rohr and I asked him about something he said in his latest book, which is that if you’re going to be prophetic, you really need to be part of a religious tradition because you need the guardrails.
You need to be in some sort of context that says it’s not okay to demonize your enemies because, actually, you’re supposed to love your enemies. There really isn’t any religion that doesn’t teach this. You will be in a context that won’t affirm your judgment and rage and all these things that we humans like to do when we feel threatened.
This context ideally will funnel your anxieties and concerns into service and action that is healthy, and that looks nothing like raging on social media. (I'm aware there are many churches in the US that do stoke rage, and I don’t consider those places religious. I consider them ideological. Stay away from them at all costs.)
But the truth is, you really need these guardrails even if you aren’t going to be a prophetic person.
I asked Richard, on my behalf and on behalf of many of the listeners, how we can be part of these religions, particularly Christianity, that are so problematic?
His answer basically was, “That’s just your ego.” When he said it to me, I knew it was absolutely true. As he pointed out, your ego makes things all good or all bad—everything is black and white. It makes you the ultimate judge. His point was that the Catholic Church is not one thing. He pointed out that he has been a fierce critic of the Catholic Church, so being religious doesn’t mean you can’t confront problems within the institution.
Even though I knew it was true, I still have been having a hard time going back to church, all while feeling it would probably be good for me. But it was something in Ross’s book that wasn’t even the main point—and in fact, he sort of rejected it as a starting point—that actually has made me decide that I’m going to start going back to church.
He quoted from the ex-nun turned comparative religion historian Karen Armstrong’s 2009 book, The Case For God, where she rebutted the approach the New Atheists were taking in attacking religion. “It is no use magisterially weighing up the teachings of religion to judge their truth or falsehood before embarking on a religious way of life. You will discover their truth—or lack of it—only if you translate these doctrines into ritual, or ethical action.”
This was the first time I had read that quote, but it’s something that I believe and that I actually have said to other people in the past when they were struggling with their faith.
But, of course, as usual, I can never take my own advice.
While Ross makes the case that you really can reason your way into religion, I am more in the Karen Armstrong camp that it’s spiritual practices that will get you to where you probably want to go.1 Reason can help, but it’s not in my experience what leads to real spiritual transformation. So for Catholics the spiritual practices would include the sacraments or praying the rosary, and for Zen Buddhists it would be a serious meditation practice that is part of a lineage and community rooted in that lineage.
The thing that’s amazing about spiritual practices is you don’t have to believe in anything for them to work. All you need is sincere intention.
In my experience, if you are sincerely seeking God or Source or whatever you want to call it, you will find it.
It almost never happens overnight—sometimes it does, but that’s very rare. But over a period of time, I really have never seen a person who engages in sincere spiritual practice not bear some serious fruit. Instead, many of us try to think our way into belief or a connection with God/Source and end up feeling even more confused than when we started.
I have seen people who say they are very spiritual and who are engaging in practices kind of go off the rails when they’re not in any kind of community or adhering to a religious worldview that contains their ego. When they are just taking these spiritual principles out into the world to build their empires or to do whatever it is they want to do, they can be very successful because they have tapped into some real truth about how things work here on earth.
But if you pay attention, these people often are egomaniacs and will feed your ego as well by telling you how righteous you are and how terrible everyone else is if they don’t line up with your values or beliefs.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that two people who have had a huge impact on me in terms of my faith—Richard Rohr and James Martin—are Catholic priests. These are people who are incredibly constrained by the vows that they took decades ago. Yes, I know lots of Catholic priests don’t honor their vows; that doesn’t mean none do.
While doing your spiritual work in private will bring benefits, I think it really needs to be done in community. We need to have guides, we need to have teachers, and we need to have accountability. This is of course where a lot of people run into problems, because sometimes these guides and teachers are really problematic or even abusive. So it’s important to do your due diligence before you start going too deep in any particular community.
We know that religious people tend to be happier, and we also know that people who spend time in community also are happier.
I know some people think that religious people are happier because they are dumb or in denial about reality, but I don’t think that’s it. I think they’re happier because they are engaging in something really meaningful, and they are engaging in spiritual practices that are designed to make you feel connected to God or Source, or just something bigger than ourselves.
Religions are problematic because people are involved in them. If you want something pure and perfect, it doesn’t exist. While it’s easy to portray the “spiritual, not religious path” as somehow less problematic than religion, I can say I have run into more grifters and culty gurus than I can count outside the walls of religion. It’s just a feature of humans that, given power over others, many will behave badly. The worst part is this kind of behavior drives people away from the kind of religious community or faith that they need to sustain them in this world.
If you are involved in a religious institution, you also are more likely to be given opportunities to serve other people, which will help you get outside of yourself and put your life in perspective.
Let me be clear about what I mean by “religious.” I’m not talking about blindly signing onto theological viewpoints. I’m talking about being in community, engaging in spiritual practices, and having a healthy container to process the ups and downs of life. I don’t accept many of the Catholic Church’s “rules” that strike me as ideological rather than genuinely religious. Being religious doesn’t mean abandoning critical thinking or ignoring what I know about how church theology developed over time.
The religious path is ultimately an inner path. Maybe that shift Ross noticed in those letters isn’t just about wanting community or meaning, though that is certainly a piece of the story.
Maybe people are sensing we need something stronger than our own certainty, something that can hold us when everything feels like it’s falling apart.
I don’t know exactly what going back to church will look like for me, but I’m curious if showing up and practicing—rather than waiting until I have it all figured out—could be the missing piece in my spiritual life.
To be clear, Ross doesn’t dispute that spiritual practices help; he just is writing for people who want to be convinced with reason that religion is more believable than atheism.
great essay. we are really on the same wavelength right now, I'd talking about benefits of religion all month. https://thedoubleshift.substack.com/p/you-dont-have-to-believe-to-belong
Kirsten,
I will be interested to hear about your experience. I am deeply invested in and guided by Jewish ethics and traditions, studying them and knowing about my heritage. It's also very important to me that my children and now grandchildren are being raised as Jews. I feel an obligation to my ancestors "not to break the chain" and that may be a particularly strong feeling in Judaism given our history.
That said, I've never been attracted to the rituals of going to synagogue. The prayers leave me cold. I'd rathe read about the historical development of the prayers than pray.
Bu maybe that will change for me at some point.