Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look, and an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

According to a recent article in psychology today, those who describe themselves as spiritual but not religious,

which is over one in five Americans, are at a higher risk of mental illness compared to the religious

and the non-religious. Two different studies that span the past couple decades found that those

who claim to be spiritual but not religious have higher rates of anxiety, irrational fear,

general neurotic disorders, and depression. Now, of course, TikTok and YouTube influencers, among others,

constantly assure us that it's by looking inside that we find the true path to confidence and to

inner strength, including when it comes to religion. However, this expressive individualism,

a faith of you be you, follow your heart, be true to yourself, doesn't deliver what's been promised,

at least not as well as traditional religious practices do. As it turns out, it's by turning

outward and upward that we find a healthier spirituality. Apparently, all of the incessant

demands for authenticity have come at the cost of wholeness. In his 1998 book, The Way of the Modern World, or why

it's tempting to live as if God doesn't exist, theologian Craig Gay offered a prophetic

explanation for what we are now seeing. He argued that practical atheism, not to be confused with

philosophical atheism, was a defining feature of modern life. Practical atheism

is less about God's existence than it is about God's relevance to life. In the modern world of

penicillin and airplanes and in vitro fertilization in the internet, Professor Gay argued that God had

become increasingly less relevant, even for people who claim to believe that

God exist. This view of God has necessarily shaped the modern view of the world, and of people.

And so life in this modern technological age is really about extending human control over nature

and maximizing human choice. The world, in this view, is ours for the making.

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