"Why Secularists Calling for a Christian Revival Are Wrong"

"Many readers will be well aware of the growing cultural narrative that what we need right now is a revival of Christianity. ... [What's] puzzling is the number of atheists and skeptics who have increasingly taken this position. ...

"Despite their still not believing Christianity to be true, they nevertheless think greater adherence to it has the potential to fix, or at least ameliorate, societal problems. Common arguments for this position are, I would argue, based on existential angst, historical revisionism, and a simple failure to understand human psychology. ...

"A common claim is that humans have a deep psychological need for religion—a Godshaped hole crying out to be filled. Related to this is the idea that Christianity is somehow inherently benign and provides a defense against far worse ideologies, particularly wokeness and Islam. Some argue that Christianity brings structure, order, a unifying narrative, and a sense of the common good that can reduce societal and political polarization. Others claim that all the positive things we value in society—science, reason, liberty, and democracy— are derived from and reliant on Christian values.

"These arguments largely ignore history and are based on an idealistic concept of human psychology. ...

"Atheists and skeptics who want to revitalise Christianity as a shared narrative and social glue are misguided. Their case rests on anxiety, revisionist history, and nostalgia for a culture that never existed. ...

"Christianity may feel benign today, but this is because it has been watered down and constrained by secular, liberal principles. Its authoritarian tendencies, like those of any proselytising faith that promises salvation or damnation, are still inherent within it and would be particularly likely to be activated were it to resurge into a culture already experiencing an alarming rise in radical and authoritarian ideological movements. ...

"Religiosity may be a manifestation of innate human tendencies heightened in times of existential anxiety, but religion cannot resolve the material causes of that anxiety. Atheists and skeptics who flirt with pro-Christian arguments are right to fear militant Islamism and woke authoritarianism, but wrong to imagine that a return to Christianity will protect them. The real safeguard is not mass commitment to any orthodoxy, but a principled commitment to secular liberalism. Rather than replacing one orthodoxy with another, we should strengthen those cultural and political frameworks that allow us to live together without coercion. ...

"I urge skeptics to recognise themselves as heirs of the Enlightenment and not to try to resurrect Christianity, but to rekindle confidence in the liberal tradition that made modern Western civilisation possible: a tradition that values evidence, reason, pluralism, and the rights of individuals."

~ Helen Pluckrose from her article 'Why Secularists Calling for a Christian Revival Are Wrong'