The God that failed: A review of Ross Douthat's 'Believe'

The traditional God of the theologians has failed, but the God of the poets is still viable.

Written by Bo Winegard.

Is God dead? Ross Douthat doesn’t think so. His latest book, Believe, a genial and unexpectedly ecumenical defense of faith, arrives at a propitious moment. The fervor of New Atheism has faded, its trust in science and reason having failed to eradicate superstition. Meanwhile, the decline of institutional faith—fewer men and women attending church—has not lifted the dark clouds of partisanship and irrationality. If anything, the light of charity, compromise, and reasoned discourse seems more obscured now than in the supposedly benighted days of the early 2000s when New Atheism flourished.

Perhaps religion was never the scourge its critics claimed. Perhaps man possesses a religious instinct—or instincts—that cannot be eliminated, only distorted. Perhaps religion is inevitable. If not Christianity or Islam, then fascism, communism, or some other perverted cult of personality.