Ross Douthat

question about possible sources of revivalism.

Let's make it a little weirder, right?

Let's talk about sort of non-Christian and post-Christian spiritualities, because it definitely seems like whatever is going on with the vibes, some of it has people newly interested in

astrology, the paranormal, witchcraft, UFOs.

I tell this story a lot, but I go into my local Barnes and Noble and it used to be that there was, you know, one shelf that you would call like paganism or witchcraft or something.

And now it's like four or five shelves of tarot cards and magic and all of these things.

Now I, you know, live in New England haunted by witchcraft for hundreds of years, but still something there has shifted.

What do you make of sort of

non-Christian or post-Christian religion or spirituality as sort of a source of cultural significance for religious belief?

So does that mean that those shelves in my Barnes & Noble reflect mostly syncretism?

Like it's just more people who are sort of defining themselves officially as Protestant or Catholic, maybe going to church, but they're also suddenly interested in...

Two things I would say to that.

So there is potentially a kind of potent version of American paganism.

It's just numerically pretty small.

Let's talk about that big number, because the big story of the last two generations is one of decline.

Some big parts of American religion have declined to a point where it's hard to imagine them coming back in a big way.

The biggest of them all is the Protestant mainline, which is the set of denominations

Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, basically the dominant religious force in American life for a very long time.

And my own theory, and it's obviously not mine alone, is that the decline of the mainline is itself an underrated part of our present polarization and derangement that we used to have this set of sort of centering religious institutions.

that don't exist to the same degree and on the same scale anymore.