I have been reading Mary Eberstadt’s book “How the West Really Lost God.” It’s a more difficult read than her earlier book “Adam and Eve After the Pill,” because it assimilates and often quotes a great many social studies about secularization and the decline of religion in the West.
How did the western nations lose religion, specifically Christianity? Was it because they secularized? Was it industrialization? Did the Enlightenment just make everyone happy without God? Did science displace religion? She offers a number of possibilities offered by many social scientists, but then offers her own, somewhat different reading of events.
Faith, in her view, is inextricably linked to family. Where families prosper, so does Faith, so does religion. Children, in her words, often drive people to church. It can also be that the decline of Faith leads to decline in family, but she thinks the dynamic is primarily the other way: Family drives Faith. When families disintegrate, so does religion.
She sees Faith and Family as two strands of a DNA-like double helix. Once you begin to unwind one strand, they both unwind.
All the trends she cites show both family and faith in a continuing decline. Think of contraception, abortion, single motherhood, divorce, gay unions, family structure in a continuous state of disintegration. I haven’t finished the book yet, but she does not seem to find anything which shows hope of reversing those trends.
When families atomize into non-stable units, society suffers many ills. Social structure cannot hold.
Is there no hope then?
She does seem to find a ray of hope, but even the hope is rather disturbing, I think.
Declining family trends include dropping fertility rates and economic decline. Those trends are intersecting with an increasing reliance on the welfare state. But because of the declining family, the welfare state cannot be sustained, which leads to crisis.
In times of crisis, religion—Christianity—often revives itself. Family becomes more important. Families increase and rely on each other. Faith and family rebuild. That’s certainly possible, but what it means, I think, is that current trends lead to social collapse followed by a resurgence of Christianity and a rebuilding of society. If that’s hopeful, good, but if I were a young man, I’d still be worried for the future.
