The Times Gets Religion

A Review of Ross Douthat's Believe

In his new book, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious, former Salient editor Ross Douthat '02 reprises his role as the professional-managerial class’s guide to tradition, one he has honed well as a columnist at The New York Times. The book is published by Christian publishing giant Zondervan, though it is not definitively Christian until the very end. Instead, Douthat tries to give his predominantly secular audience a permission slip to wade back into the waters of religious experience in general. More than simply encouraging his readers to try going back to church for its social benefits—Douthat notes that there have already been plenty of books and thinkpieces along these lines in recent years—he argues that faith should be taken seriously, on its own merits, as an intellectual matter. Put otherwise, the book intends to show that atheism is less compelling than theism as an explanation for the existence of the universe and of man, and then to propose some guidelines for the exploration of the variety of religious traditions.

Douthat’s deeply familiar tone is a welcome respite from the overly academic posture adopted by many other apologetic works. This conversational approach is appropriate, given the goals and intended audience of the project; it invites us, through further research, into a dialogue about its claims. He also strikes a careful balance between faith and works, as it were. While the bulk of the book is dedicated to defending faith as something that the educated person should consider deeply, he also offers frequent reminders that one can begin participating in a faith without committing to all of its doctrines. Indeed, Douthat concedes objection after objection one might raise against entering a religious tradition, only to still find his way back to the idea that man must take the supernatural seriously.

As with many books of this kind, what one walks away with is likely to depend on what one brings to the text. Committed “New Atheist” types like those Douthat opens the book by discussing might be unlikely to be convinced by his summary of the ways in which modern science points toward the viability of religious faith (though they might be struck by his commentary on prominent skeptic Michael Shermer’s matrimonial run-in with a phantom radio). But that says more about their character than his prose; it seems unfair to demand of Believe that it be “all things to all men."¹ More curious readers will probably not walk away satisfied—but then, that’s the point. Douthat intends not to satiate curiosity but to inspire it—not to bring nonbelievers to their destination but to start them on a very long journey. Between his scientific arguments and his descriptions of mystical experiences and encounters with supernatural forces, he gives those readers plenty to chew on.

Nor is the book fruitless for those already committed to a religious tradition. It suggests, of course, certain lines of apologetic outreach that such people might find useful in evangelizing, though most probably will not follow Douthat in encouraging their friends to explore religion in general rather than their own particular faiths. But while Douthat is at pains to remind us that his book is about “mere religion, not mere Christianity,”² it is often more reminiscent of a different C.S. Lewis work; his emphasis on the interrelatability of all major religions seems drawn from The Abolition of Man. While Douthat is attentive to some of the most significant theological differences between those religions (chiefly Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism), he treats them all as sincere attempts to understand the nature of the divine and as likely inspired, though to different degrees, by divine influence. He also emphasizes the similarities between the ethical programs of each, thereby arguing that following any of them sincerely will draw one closer to truth, moral and otherwise, than secularism can.

This focus on the similarities between what are in many ways wildly divergent faiths comes close to a self-defeating relativism. One could be forgiven for questioning at times how certain Douthat is of his Roman Catholicism, or indeed whether he, despite his claims to the contrary, is more interested in religion for its social value than for its truth. The book’s final chapter, however, in which Douthat explains his journey to Catholicism, makes his sincerity unquestionable. It is then that an additional category of truth claims made by Christianity not yet discussed in depth are addressed: the historical questions of whether Jesus of Nazareth really was born of a virgin, performed miracles, died, was buried, and rose on the third day. Casting the Resurrection as a matter of history and not just blind belief should not be new to Christians, but it might be to others, whom Douthat invites to review that history by the same standards we use to judge other accounts of ancient history. It is only in light of this unhesitating faith in the Gospels that Douthat’s great openness to other traditions becomes comprehensible—if Jesus Christ is God, then He can use even Islamic or Buddhist practice as a starting point to eventually reveal Himself to mortal minds.

Beyond Douthat's individual arguments, Believe works because its quiet confidence assures us that it is possible to keep asking the questions that bedevil the modern secular mind—that it is essential to do so, in fact—while experiencing the comfort of trusting that God, in His goodness, will, step by step, open our eyes to Truth. In this way, Douthat’s book is a promise that that ancient prayer will still be answered: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”³

MARCUS PORCIUS CATO

A version of this article originally appeared in City of God, the March 2025 print issue of the Salient.

1. 1 Corinthians 9:22

2. Ross Douthat, Believe, Zondervan, 2025, p. 7.

3. Mark 9:24