Whither faith goest?

In Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America (Oxford University Press, 440 pp.), Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith presents a sobering and provocative assessment of the weakening role of traditional religion in American life. Known for his pioneering work on “moralistic therapeutic deism” and the religious lives of American youth, Smith now turns his sociological lens toward a larger cultural crisis: not just declining church attendance or waning denominational loyalty but the structural unraveling of religion as a shared framework for meaning, identity, and social order in American society. Smith argues Americans, on the whole, can conceive of life apart from religion.

Why Religion Went Obsolete Christian Smith

The book’s central thesis is that traditional religion in America—rooted in historic Christianity—is no longer relevant or plausible in the everyday lives of millions. He argues that this obsolescence results not from a single cause but from a confluence of powerful cultural shifts: the triumph of expressive individualism, sexual freedom, politicized religion, the dominance of therapeutic culture, moral scandals and the loss of trust in institutions, declining family rates, conflicts over religion and science, the erosion of metaphysical realism, and the rise of digital capitalism. These valuable sections of the book comprise the bulk of Smith’s analysis.

Smith does not romanticize the past, nor does he treat secularization as a sign of intellectual progress. Instead, he offers a dispassionate but comprehensive analysis of a cultural transformation that has left many Americans spiritually homeless in a world where religion has lost its explanatory and formative power.

In earlier generations, religious narratives were reinforced by community structures, family traditions, educational institutions, and a broader moral ecology. Today, those supports have collapsed or been replaced by hyper-individualism, consumerism, and technological mediation, which actively undermine the religious imagination. As a result, traditional religion is not so much debated as dismissed.

To Smith’s credit, he avoids the ­simplistic narratives of decline often peddled in culture war debates. This is not a screed against secular elites or a lament for bygone days of churchgoing America. Rather, it is a sociological diagnosis of cultural drift. Smith is critical of religious institutions that failed to adapt or traded depth for cultural relevance and political power, but his deeper observation is that American culture has become inhospitable to any account of reality that includes transcendence, authority, and communal obligation.

Those within traditional religious communities may find Smith’s analysis both convicting and disheartening. He does not offer an easy road map for religious renewal. Nor does he entertain the illusion that cultural cycles will naturally swing back toward faith.

Why Religion Went Obsolete is not a book of theological reflection, but it should be required reading for theologians, pastors, educators, and lay leaders alike. It calls the faithful to reckon honestly with the cultural headwinds they face—not merely to decry them, but to understand them. Smith forces us to ask what we believe and why those beliefs have become so difficult to sustain in modern America.

Time will tell whether Smith’s theses persist. A new study from the Pew Research Center documents that religious decline appears to be leveling off—a sign that America’s dalliance with secularism may be waning—and politically we’ve seen a “vibe shift” occur over the last year. Cultural elites seem to be showing a renewed interest in Christianity, and one wonders whether we will in future years see a book examining whether the success of secularism was not also its looming demise.

In the end, Smith’s work is less an obituary for religion and more a cultural X-ray—a revealing look at the fractures beneath the surface of American public and private life. His challenge is simple, yet daunting: If traditional religion is to be reborn, it must speak a language that makes sense in a world that has forgotten how to listen.