Why Do the Alternatives to Christianity Fail?



The mainstream media has been gleefully predicting the death of Christianity for a long time. When I was a freshman in college Time magazine—then read by most Americans—had a cover which said, “Is God Dead?” A theology professor, of all things, had decided God no longer existed and we had to proceed without Him. 140 years ago Friedrich Nietzsche asserted the same thing. So atheism and unbelief have existed for quite a while. In fact, it was addressed 3000 years ago in the book of Psalms which opens with, “The fool has said in his heart, there is no god.” The Bible doesn’t deal much more with atheism in its 31,000 verses.

So it’s not surprising that there is a current attempt to rid the world of God, which will, of course, fail. Andrew Sullivan, a secular writer, made this astute observation: “Everyone has a religion. It is, in fact, impossible not to have a religion if you are a human being. [It] has expressed itself in every culture, in every age, including our own secularized husk of a society. By religion, I mean something quite specific: a practice not a theory; a way of life that gives meaning, a meaning that cannot really be defended without recourse to some transcendent value, undying “Truth” or God... Which is to say, even today’s atheists are expressing a…form of religion.”

Recently a religion and culture writer for the New York Times, Lauren Jackson, wrote a lengthy article entitled simply, Why are the alternatives to religion failing? Primarily she is wondering why the alternatives to Christianity are failing.

What are the alternatives?

One is materialism. People are trying to satisfy their spiritual and emotional needs by buying stuff. And we have never had more stuff or the means to purchase it. But all the gadgets and bobbles don’t work at the deepest level of our souls. After we have everything our money can buy there is still an emptiness. So the materialist alternative fails.

Close to materialism is hedonism. From the Greek word for pleasure it seeks to fill up our life with synthetic joys—alcohol, drugs, immorality, travel, houses, and everything else the Psalmist says would “gladden the heart of man.” But they fail. Living for pleasure produces everything but pleasure.

Some have tried worshipping nature. I have spoken often about the Environmental cult which is a modern rendering of this ancient religion. But nature is impersonal. You may love it but it doesn’t love you back. It ends up being another failed religion.

The most common and best-known alternative is the political religion of the Progressive Left. The modern version of the old Marxist cult. Twenty years ago the Catholic theologian, Joseph. Bottum, wrote, “An Anxious Age” about the Progressive attempt to find a religious replacement for Christianity. You cling to the right political beliefs. The way you vote saves your soul. But it doesn’t. And the Left ends up perpetually angry because their religion never delivers the heaven on earth they are hoping for. In an article on this topic our current Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, weighs in with a good observation. Americans are not abandoning religion. They are exchanging one set of beliefs for another. They are trying to replace religious faith with political ideology.

Lauren Jackson catalogues the alternatives many of which she has tried herself: “In 2015, researchers at Harvard began studying where Americans were turning to express their spirituality…The answers included: yoga, CrossFit, SoulCycle, supper clubs and meditation. Oprah tried sound baths. Gwyneth Paltrow advertised energy healing. More than a third of American women under 30 have downloaded the personal astrology app Co-Star.”

In her piece for the Times Ms. Jackson says she grew up in a traditional religion but abandoned it for the modern life she and Times’ readers prefer. What is the result? She says people are more unhappy than they have ever been and we are experiencing an epidemic of loneliness. Then she says, “those without religious affiliation in particular rank lower on key metrics of well-being. They feel less connected to others, less spiritually at peace and they experience less awe and gratitude regularly.”

Ms. Jackson provides a summary for all this: “Many of the demographers, psychologists, sociologists and statisticians I spoke to offered the same explanation: Americans simply haven’t found a satisfying alternative to religion.”

Why do all these religions fail? They are false. They worship gods that do not exist just like the ancient nations surrounding Israel and Christianity. And they fail to answer the big question, “What is the meaning of life?”

They result in wretchedness. They leave people unhappy.

If you have heard and embraced the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then go on your way rejoicing. It is indeed the good news. In fact, it’s the best news ever to enter human ears. Spread it around generously to the spiritually hungry but empty generation stretched out before us. Jesus was, of course, right. “The fields are white unto harvest.”

 

 

 

 

More: Can an Atheist be a Happy Person? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmGHG_MLk2U

Lauren Jackson in the New York Times: people are returning to religion because they haven’t found a satisfying alternative; https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/18/style/religion-america.html

On Sundays, I used to stand in front of my Mormon congregation and declare that it all was true.

My story maps onto America’s relationship to religion over the last 30 years. I was born in the mid-1990s, the moment that researchers say the country began a mass exodus from Christianity.

In Silicon Valley, tech bros have found God. Downtown hipsters have embraced Catholicism. And the singer Grimes recently said “I think killing God was a mistake.”

Secular organizations tried to provide the same benefits of religion, but without any theology. 

A few years ago, I biked on a warm summer morning to the meeting of one such organization, Sunday Assembly. I sat in the back and watched people sing pop songs by Miley Cyrus and Adele instead of hymns and give talks about morality. Afterward, I ate cookies and chatted with other attendees. They had all left religion in some form and were looking for another community, a new space to access and express their spirituality. I kept in touch with a few of them. None of us became regulars.

Religion provides what sociologists call the “three B’s”: belief, belonging and behaviors. 

The Age of Incomplete Religions: https://firstthings.com/the-age-of-incomplete-religions/

 

Marco Rubio criticizes the “pseudo-religions” of modern men: https://www.compactmag.com/article/against-progressive-pseudo-religion/

According to the Post, “spiritual collectives” are defined—and distinguished from churches—by their resistance to dogma.

But are they really? A closer read makes it abundantly clear that these communities are united by articles of faith. They just happen to be articles of progressive politics, rather than of traditional religion.

 But it seems more accurate to say that Americans are exchanging one set of beliefs for another––religion for political ideology.

 

Andrew Sullivan talks about the new religions of the West, particularly “woke” religion: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/andrew-sullivan-americas-new-religions.html?utm_source=tw

But none of this material progress beckons humans to a way of life beyond mere satisfaction of our wants and needs. And this matters. We are a meaning-seeking species.

The need for meaning hasn’t gone away, but without Christianity, this yearning looks to politics for satisfaction.