Douthart believes that the main alternative to traditional religion, a faith in secular progress, has entered its own crisis of commitment and belief, with mysticism creeping back in around secularism's edges. He may be right. I would also argue that with the loss of Christian faith is seeing a concurrent rise in paganism.

"With apologies to the likes of Dawkins, Christianity's decline across the West doesn't mean that secular liberalism, much less atheism, will triumph, but that a new religious creed will take its place. And make no mistake: This new form of paganism will bring with it all the violence and oppression common to every pagan empire across the dreary ages of the world. Instead of citizens in a self-governing republic, we will find ourselves slaves in a pagan empire," writes John Daniel Davidson a senior editor at The Federalist.

Several recent articles suggest that a handful of serious intellectuals are returning or giving the Christian faith a first look. Richard Dawkins, Jordan Petersen, Tom Holland, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Peter Baltes, Anders Borg, Julie Burchill, Nicole Cliffe and Bruce Cockburn, to name but a few who are starting to go to church and humble themselves.

By 2050 Protestant denominationalism, Methodism, Presbyterianism, and Episcopalianism, will all for the most part be gone. Whatever minimal existence they have, they will no longer define religious life in America. Today most Gen Z's couldn't tell the difference between a Presbyterian and Episcopalian. Furthermore, they don't care. The differences are irrelevant to their lives consumed as they are by Tik Tok and Taylor Swift, AI, animation, and new forms of social media.

So, what alignments will take shape? How might an America in 2050 describe the country's key religious groups?

Liberal Protestants like liberal Catholics will have mostly vanished with thousands of church closings. When you have no faith to transmit, just a bunch of woke issues; who's going to church to hear that? Cafeteria Catholicism is as much compromised as liberal Protestantism. The RCC has been done no favors by the present pope. Many Catholics think he is a heretic and they might be right.

Douthat writes; "Then, the all-American pagans. This is a catchall for the emergent post-Christian forms of religious faith -- via New Age spirituality, astrology, U.F.O. fascinations, meditation and mind-altering drugs, magic and witchcraft, intellectual pantheism and old-school polytheism and even Satanism."

"These experiments won't have a singular institutional expression in 2050. But together they will be seen as a major American religion, not just a minor tendency or impulse -- potent in today's most secular regions (the Pacific Northwest, New England), supplying spiritual scripts for a lot of political progressives, infusing weird metaphysics into Silicon Valley's A.I. and technofuturist visions."

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE

Future churches will be non-denominational. Words like "Protestant," even "evangelical" will have little meaning. People will simply identify as Christians attending churches like Elevate and Rise and Resurrection or Barryville (fill in the blank) Community Church. They will have no denominational loyalty and their focus will be on Christ and community outreach.

They will be theologically conservative, but not doctrinally intense and minimally or not at all liturgical. It's doubtful they will even say the creed unless the pastor comes from a denomination that occasionally repeated it. As Douthart notes; "The Galilee Initiative" in big letters, "a Southern Baptist community" in tiny ones. For example, few knew that Rick Warren's churches were Southern Baptist in origin, the name never appeared in Saddleback. They were recently ousted from the SBC in a battle over women pastors.

Future pastors will no longer be fulltime. It's an expense new start-up churches don't have the luxury of. Tent-makers and rented space will be the order of the day.

Pentecostalism and independent churches with a charismatic flavoring will wax and wane. Their appeal to Generations Y1 and Z who have been raised predominantly on feelings and emotions, Tik Tok and Taylor Swift are the compelling forces in their lives. But there is little depth in Pentecostalism. There is not much call for discipleship, deep Bible studies or the necessary faith-sustaining long-term grind of life's ups and downs.

APOLOGETICS

The old evidential and philosophical arguments for the truth of the faith won't make much sense. Generation Z is not interested in neat formulas for belief or even arguments. They want to see reality in the proclaimer, not necessarily his views. Winsomeness and kindness will win the day, not nine arguments for the resurrection.

NEW (OLD) GROUPINGS

Mormons, orthodox Jews, Amish, some eastern Orthodox churches will continue to flourish because of in breeding, not new conversions along perhaps with small groups of Calvinists. Denominational start-ups like the ACNA, evangelical Presbyterians and Lutherans will survive and probably grow, but even they will need to adapt to a fast-changing culture. They will not dominate the culture, however. Orthodox Jews will probably outnumber their Reform and Conservative brethren.

Whichever form of Islam manages the ordeal of assimilation in America could have a similar trajectory, writes Douthart.

REVIVAL POSSIBILITIES

Nowhere could I see anything in Douthart's thinking about revival. That is a work of the Holy Spirit. People are hungry for reality. People want to touch and feel the faith. They will not be drawn simply by arguments. We have already seen small localized outbreaks of revival and they could be repeated, "the Spirit bloweth where it listeth" (John 3:8 KJV). "The revival will be the work of a small, seemingly insignificant but indomitable, remnant undergone a process or purification. Because that's how God works. A small flock withstands evil," wrote Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 1969.

REMNANT CHURCH

AMERICAN church liberalism will have run its course. Homosexual marriage, trans issues will be ho hum. No one will care. I don't see ex-evangelicals making much of an imprint or impact either. They will burn out. A new generation with no background in the faith or church won't be interested in yesterday's spiritual wars. By 2050 Christianity in America will be a minority religion. It will be a remnant church, beginning again.

What I see is handfuls of small faithful start-up churches committed to the gospel. They will be theologically orthodox, not particularly doctrinal, and loose liturgically. They will want to know how God works in their everyday lives. Yesterday's theological, wars are irrelevant. This is 2050 not 1950.

SEMINARIES will have run their course. Most will have died; conservative and liberal. Online learning will prevail, but it must tap into the zeitgeist or quickly become irrelevant.

People will be drawn to pastors who seem real to them. They will not be drawn to the church on issues, but they will be drawn to a church and pastor who has a life-changing message to proclaim; that it is visible in their lives, and is socially engaged in the community. A food pantry; looking for housing for the homeless; an AA Program. Young people will look for a pastor who can play 'holy hoops,' and talk about the meaning of life over pizza and draw people to Jesus with life, honesty and example.

An introverted pastor cannot relate. If you can't truly engage don't go into the ministry. Bible studies must come with meals and a time for open fellowship, where people can lament, talk of life's tragedies and joys. In my small group we are working through Tim Keller's book on Galatians. Simple, readable and relevant.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH will likely see a resurgence of small traditional parishes with new parish schools dedicated to teaching the faith. Most of this will be lay lead. If priests can't relate, they are history. Young people won't care if you are a bishop, cardinal, dress up like mother and wear a biretta or miter. The pope will be irrelevant. No one will care what he thinks or says. He might make five minutes on Tik Tok if only for his clothes.

What we might see is an influx of African and Asian pastors as they sweep in from Africa and Asia to re-evangelize America. We brought them the gospel and they are bringing it back to us. They will sweep away cultural Christianity because they know that hardline Islam will do the same if they ever get the upper hand. They have experienced it firsthand. They have no illusions about a militant Islam.

"Everything will seem lost, but at the right time, only in the most dramatic phase of the crisis, the church will be reborn. It will be smaller, poorer, almost catacumbal, but also holier. For it will no longer be a church that seeks to please the world, but the church of believers in God and His eternal law," wrote Cardinal Ratzinger.

Rod Dreher in his book "The Benedict Option" writes that "a church that looks and talks and sounds just like the world has no reason to exist. If there is going to be authentic renewal, it will have to happen in families and local church communities."

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