Getting the “Theism” Right in New Theism.
Not that long ago, a collection of voices such as Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali loudly proclaimed that God is a delusion and religion a poison. However, in a recent essay for the Claremont Review of Books, Matthew Schmitz argued that the New Atheism—which surged after 9/11 and decried religion as the source of conflict and cultural decline—has largely run its course. In its place, he contended, is a New Theism.
Schmitz highlighted two 2025 books as evidence. Ross Douthat’s Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious argues that faith is both plausible and personally necessary. Jonathan Rauch’s Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy defends religion’s social utility in sustaining liberal democracy. To that list could be added Charles Murray’s Taking Religion Seriously, which offers an empirical case for religion’s significance, and Rod Dreher’s Living in Wonder, which argues for the re-enchantment of secular society.
Taken together, these works represent an emerging theism which, though currently elite-driven, could have a broader cultural influence. The critical next question, of course, is which God are we talking about here? Dabbling with theism is not the same as encountering Yahweh, the God who actually exists.
C.S. Lewis once described his shock of encountering a living God after dabbling in vague spirituality.
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But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord . . . that is quite another matter. There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall? . . .Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us?
True faith is not merely belief in a “spiritual realm.” Rather, it is built on three baseline, eternal truths that ground the Christian worldview.
First, God exists. This assumption distinguishes theism from atheism, materialism, and agnosticism. Scripture begins with this assumption, that “in the beginning, God…” Beyond Scripture, a long line of thinkers—from Aquinas to Turretin to Shedd—have offered reasons to consider God’s existence.
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