Kingdom Harbor

From The Dispatch:

American church attendance might be in decline, but spirituality is up. And, according to Nick Pompella, this is likely surprising for the onetime followers of New Atheism.

New Atheism was an explosive social trend that ran rampant in the 2000s and early 2010s, defined by its most popular intellectuals and a fire-eater style that attracted young people as New Atheists actively picked fights about religion. As Pompella notes:

New Atheism was a kind of emotionally motivated rage against the idea of living in a world where one’s behavior was not fully liberated from all that came before us. If we’re enlightened denizens of the 21st century, it should be up to us to decide everything about our lives. Inheriting the family religion and all of its attendant communal duties cuts against all of that. There was a desire in New Atheism to insist upon the blank slate model of human behavior—that we get to make every single choice on our own from the word “go.” A lot of New Atheism began from this place of indignation, and then engaged in mental gymnastics to rationalize that feeling.

But in the long term, Pompella wonders if New Atheism’s scorched-earth tactics—which ultimately taught people to burn, not build—led not only to its downfall, but the modern growth in theism.

Go read the full article.