We read stories all the time about the decline of organized religion in America. Around one-third of Americans answer “none” when asked on surveys about their religious affiliation. Self-identified Christians still make up a majority of the population — 63% — but that is down from 90% in the 1990s. And the number who regularly go to church is half of that.

America is rapidly becoming a secular society.

That is why it came as such a shock to nonbelievers, and such welcome news to Christians, when Ayaan Hirsi Ali recently announced that she had converted to Christianity.

Ali had been a secular hero and superstar. She was raised in Islamic Brotherhood fundamentalism in Somalia but courageously renounced its antisemitism, violence and ignorance. She served in parliament in the Netherlands and made a film that depicted the oppression of women under Islam. Ali faced death threats that were rendered all the more credible because her film collaborator, Theo van Gogh, was murdered in Amsterdam shortly after the film’s release. Ultimately, Ali became an American and embraced rational atheism.

So, what happened? Why did Ali return to organized religion?

Ali explained her reasons in a long statement.

At the level of politics, Ali found secularism inadequate to stave off the decline of the West and defend the liberal institutions of freedom and democracy against the rising worldwide tide of authoritarianism, militant Islam and woke intolerance.

At a more fundamental level, Ali found her new secular freedom to be spiritually empty. Secularism could not answer the ultimate question of human existence: What is the purpose of human life? Secularism has no existential story to tell about the meaning of life. As she wrote, “The response that ‘God is dead’ seems insufficient.” She now calls secularism a “nihilistic vacuum.”

Christianity answered both needs.

Politically, Christianity for Ali has left its dogmatic phase and now defends individual liberty. In terms of personal spirituality, Christianity tells the story of God’s love for humanity in the person of Jesus Christ.

So, is Christianity making a comeback, as its adherents hope? It is easy to answer no and to treat Ali as a special case. It now seems clear that Ali never ceased to believe in God. That is why, although she assented to rational arguments against the existence of God — she wrote in her statement that it “was a relief to discard my faith in God” — she was never convinced. That is why Ali could so readily embrace a different theistic tradition, Christianity.

That is not a criticism. I understand Ali’s situation. I left Judaism in the early 2000s, about the same time that she renounced Islam. But, unlike her, I did not leave because I found Judaism to be intolerable. In fact, I loved Judaism. I lost faith in God.

Ali , in contrast, lost faith in Islam and did not know how to seek God outside it — until now.

Ali’s religious journey, therefore, is likely to be relevant only to those who retained their faith but left their religion.

But on a deeper level, Ali has identified the glaring weakness of the most popular form of American secularism compared to the robust spirituality of Christianity. You cannot build a secular civilization without addressing the meaning of human existence. It is no answer to say that human beings make their own meaning.

Although not all secularists are nihilists, — there is a well-established tradition of secular moral realism — the overall tone of American secularism is materialism — the idea that only forces and matter are real and that values are just subjective assertions. From the perspective of materialism, even the claim that slavery was morally wrong ultimately rests on power — on the fact that anti-slavery forces won the struggle over slavery. Materialism is inadequate to lead us into the future, just as Ali claims.

This moral skepticism has broadly infected American public life. It is present on both the political left and right, among Democrats and Republicans. It is even present in many houses of worship. That is why so many so-called religious believers are angry and fearful about the future.

The question is, can a secularism exist that cultivates objective moral and spiritual community? When I left Judaism, I wrote a book, “Hallowed Secularism,” and founded a blog by the same title, that explored the possibility of a spiritually rich secularism that would be close to the religious traditions in its outlook without the supernaturalism that is so alien to modern life.

The jury is still out on whether this is possible. Ali’s abrupt departure from secularism suggests that maybe it is not. If that turns out to be the case, then Ali is right about secularism and we had all better hope that Christianity does make a comeback. Otherwise, the West is finished.

Bruce Ledewitz is a professor and the Adrian Van Kaam C.S.Sp. Endowed Chair in Scholarly Excellence in the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University. The views expressed do not represent those of Duquesne University.

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