The Last Christian – Secularization and the Future

Secularization is inexorable. It is happening right now, all around you. The half-life of faith is getting shorter and shorter. The tipping point is upon us and, when it comes, the end game will play out with astonishing rapidity. Here or there rosy-eyed souls will see a little flutter of faith and call it revival, but they will be merely noticing seed that has fallen on shallow soil and sprung up quickly. Soon enough, those rootless, new growths will wither and die. When the Son of Man comes he will not find faith on the earth.

So many prophets have come to reveal to you that it must be so. Marx explained that religion was just a mask used to cover economic self-interest and the raw exertion of power. Modern people have now seen through the religion ruse and are no longer interested in perpetuating it. Nietzsche exposed Christianity as a religion for slaves. We have chosen to be freed from its chains. Feuerbach, Durkheim, and Freud – each in their own way – patiently explained that your supposed Creator was actually your own creation. Their lessons have now sunk in. And because some of you had conservative temperaments, by some mysterious mercy, you were sent Ayn Rand.

The real acid of modernity, however, is not intellectual. It might actually just be acid. And weed. And fentanyl. And TikTok and X and Instagram. In the fierce competition of the attention economy, God lost out. Your time is now filled with posing and posting, liking and sending, scrolling and trolling.

There will be abandoned houses of worship everywhere. Abandoned megachurches and abandoned neighborhood churches, abandon storefront churches and abandoned historic churches. Churches with determinedly modern architecture, abandoned. Also, cathedrals. And chapels.

There will, of course, be a few stubborn old people too set in their ways to give in. They will keep to the old paths, albeit moving ever more slowly upon them. But soon they will be gone. Prostate cancer. Lung cancer. Bladder cancer. Pancreatic cancer. Respiratory infections. Alzheimer’s. Something is coming for them. And they will be gone. And they will not be replaced. Wendy will fall and break her hip, and no one will come to the old church to tend to its flower beds ever again. The whole thing – parking lot and all – will be given back to the weeds. Marv, long since retired from the factory, will no longer be able to do his attentive check of the building, making timely repairs here and there as needed. And when the water gets in the whole place will soon be beyond repair.

It will, however, become trendy to live in an old church building skillfully converted into a home. One last conversion for that old church, as it were. Churches will be repurposed in innumerable ways. A chain of gentlemen’s clubs called “The Secret Place” will have as a gimmick that all of its venues were once consecrated buildings. There will be a fad for repurposing communion sets. One banquet hall with a vaguely medieval theme will use only goblets that had once been chalices. Garnering wry amusement from the well-informed, sacred vessels will show up in the most surprising places – to hold matches and gloves, Jello shots and cheese nachos. They will prove good for holding most any ordinary thing. And the same with altars. A Gothic-themed casino will have every slot machine mounted on a salvaged stone altar with a cross etched into it. It will be rumored – presumably falsely – that some of these altars still contain the relic of a saint.

It is not exactly that you will have decisively stopped believing. It is just with life being so busy and all. It is good to sleep in when you can. Then there are all the sports and other activities that the kids are in which so often meet on Sundays. The weekend fills up quickly. God will just become de-centered. And a superfluous God is no God at all. He will have the decency to quietly bow out. It is unlikely that you will have mastered some careful argument that explains why God cannot exist or be worthy of your worship.

It will just be that, in all the rush, you somehow never got around to teaching the kids to pray. Not that you were an inattentive parent. God forbid! (as it were). There was summer camp and winter camp. There was sports camp and band camp. There were playdates and birthday parties. There was an entire year of dance team competitions. There was soccer and theater, e-sports and golf, cheerleading and swimming, not to mention the tutoring. You can be truly satisfied that you packed a lot in. But you never taught the kids to pray.

Bless my soul, no, you won’t be persecuted for your faith, even if you are not ready to flat-out renounce it. Faith will just no longer be fashionable. It will not be the done thing in your set, let alone the set you aspire to join. Mentioning church, let alone worship, will become embarrassing. You will never consciously decide to leave the faith and so you will never think to miss it. You will imagine it is still around somewhere to be accessed if and when the time seems right. But somehow the time will never seem right.

Soon enough, Wendy and Marv and their whole generation will be dead. You will have set faith aside as something that you might return to later. It was momentarily inconvenient. At this stage of your life. Given your current circumstances. Only you never will return. And you never did teach the kids to pray. And so, it all went away.

But right before the end, when two or three people who are still faithful believers gather together, how holy it will be. The fervor of their worship will shake the foundations of the earth. The efficacy of their prayers will work signs and wonders. The very stars will sing along with them. They will overflow with such joy that everyone who encounters them will begrudgingly admit to themselves that they have probably never experienced genuine joy.

And the last Christian on earth will be the most powerful, radiant person in the world. He will contain within himself the power to recreate the world. She will contain within herself the power to order and reorder the universe. The very mountains will obey them. What they bind on earth will be bound in heaven and what they loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. And all of creation will hang on their word of blessing.

Editor’s Note: This essay first appeared in Current. Reprinted with permission.