View this post on the web at [link removed]

I have been returning for a while to one of the unappreciated challenges of our era: What happens as traditional religion fades?
I’ve written about the growth of unbelief and the need for alternative sources of meaning [ [link removed] ] and moral guidance. In a recent follow-up, I looked at how secular culture, particularly certain big pop culture entertainment franchises [ [link removed] ], are taking over some of the spiritual functions that used to be performed by religious denominations. And for all the bluster about how we need to return to the church, plenty of the most religious Americans seem to be following the lead of some on the left and finding meaning and purpose in politics [ [link removed] ] instead, investing a great deal of spiritual energy in the Trump Cinematic Universe.
If we’re entering a new era of secularism—and we are [ [link removed] ]—we had better figure out how it is that people can get by without religion. This is the big question of our era, and it is increasingly dominating our politics and defining our culture war.
A lot of people are having trouble visualizing a viable alternative to religion—yet that alternative is already here, and not just in the form of an unhealthy obsession with politics.
Love and Death
Let me start by addressing a direct response to one of my earlier pieces, from one of the editors here at Discourse. In a thoughtful and very honest essay, Christina Behe argues [ [link removed] ] that she can’t find in mere popular entertainment the spiritual answers we need to confront the need for love and the fear of death.
Tracinski talks about our spiritual need for meaning, purpose and identity, and I do recognize all those needs inside myself. But at my core—though this feels embarrassingly personal and difficult to admit—I discover an even deeper, more fundamental need: the need to be loved. All of us, I think, seek love and acceptance from the people around us—and if we’re lucky, we get it in some measure. But no imperfect human being can fully satisfy our endless hunger for love. As C.S. Lewis points out in his seminal work “Mere Christianity,” “The best of them will make mistakes; all of them will die.”
But traditional religions teach that our infinite desire for love can be satisfied by an infinitely good and loving God ... . And the shared secular narratives of pop culture are a poor substitute: The Force doesn’t love you, and neither does Captain Kirk or Captain America.
There are a few slight corrections I want to make about the rest of the piece. I did not mean to imply that pop culture would be the only source of spiritual meaning—just the most widely known. Christina also keeps emphasizing that entertainment fandoms are “online” connections and contrasts them with the real, in-person communities one might find at a church. But look, people get married [ [link removed] ] because they met at “Star Trek” conventions. There’s a good case to be made that Americans should be doing fewer things online and more things in person. But that’s not a case for why we have to choose a religious venue for it.
But it’s the part about love and death that I really want to address, because there is a perfect answer to this.
Other Denominations
In my previous article, I referred to the “Star Trek” franchise as a possible source of meaning because it’s my own personal denomination of pop culture fandom, and because it’s the most highbrow and deals with these issues in their most elevated form. It’s no surprise that “Star Trek” has dealt seriously with this very question of mortality and what we leave behind us when we die.
The most memorable example is the 1992 “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episode “The Inner Light,” widely regarded as one of the best episodes in the series. I should stop to warn you there will be spoilers ahead, so if you have never seen that episode, I beg of you, please go do so [ [link removed] ]. It’s a classic, so don’t let me ruin it for you.
The plot involves Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s encounter with an alien probe which puts him into a coma-like state, inducing a long hallucination of his life on another planet among a race of aliens whose sun exploded a thousand years earlier. In this hallucination, Picard has a family and friends and lives an entire life. The climax of the episode—I did give you a spoiler warning, right?—happens when Picard wakes from the hallucination—back on his ship—and discovers its purpose: the effort of a doomed people to leave behind some trace of themselves. As a virtual representative of the long-dead aliens tells him [ [link removed] ], “If you remember what we were and how we lived, we will have found life again.”
This is obviously an answer, and a secular answer, to the religious question of the fear of death. It’s not a particularly new answer—that we live on in the memories of those who love us—though it has the advantage of being told in an especially moving way. And if you don’t think this can be powerful or fulfilling, well, let’s just say there are some “Star Trek” fans out there who clearly had a different experience. A distinctive prop from this episode went on sale a few years back and surprised everyone by selling for $48,000 [ [link removed] ]. A limited edition of replicas quickly sold out and can now be bought online for $600 apiece. Meanwhile, symphony orchestras have performed [ [link removed] ] this episode’s haunting and distinctive music, and there are reports of people having it played at their funerals. I might request it at my own, when the time comes; anyone who knows me would know exactly what I’m trying to say.
That’s the kind of secular spirituality, secular devotion and even secular ritual that I’ve been proposing will take the place of religion, and it’s not just speculation. It’s already happening. People who are used to more traditional forms may have difficulty accepting this as an alternative—but people out in the world are actually adopting it.
Life, the Universe and Everything
You might also notice that if you penetrate beneath the glossy outer coating of action and adventure, most of our popular culture stories are actually about love and friendship. The two best “Indiana Jones” movies, for example, are not really about finding the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail. They’re about Indy reconnecting with the love of his life and with his estranged father. And anyone who has watched one of the “Star Trek” series will remember that each show has a well-established cast of main characters whose camaraderie is as much the running theme of the show as any adventure through space.
We know that “The Force doesn’t love you, and neither does Captain Kirk,” as Christina puts it. Of course, none of these things is literally real. But we take the friendship and support between the main characters and their way of working together as a model for how real people should treat each other and the kind of community we’re looking for. Secular art and fiction can have plenty to say about life, the universe and everything [ [link removed] ].
But this isn’t just about popular culture—nor is it something new and unprecedented.
Before the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there was the Biblical literary universe. But before that, there was the Classical universe: the pagan myths and legends, the stories of heroes—and the writings of Greek playwrights and philosophers who inquired into all of these same questions.
Greek philosophers confronted the fear of death—and taught their followers how to dispel it. The most succinct summary is probably from Epicurus, who asked “Why should I fear death? Where I am, death is not. Where death is, I am not.” The Stoics wrote reams of philosophy about how to react to the vicissitudes of life with equanimity, and there has been a recent resurgence [ [link removed] ] and fascination with their ideas, specifically as an answer to the loss of religious faith, and also as a more highbrow alternative to Hollywood.
As for love, Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics” devotes a crucial chapter to the question, delves into the nature of friendship and makes it a central part of Aristotle’s answer on what constitutes the good life. There is not a topic, from the origin of the universe to the bonds of family to the nature of the state, that has not been dealt with by the pre-Christian Greek philosophers, and by those who have revived and extended their ideas over the centuries.
In short, Christianity is not the only source of answers to the big questions and needs of life—nor was it the first. That was true in the Classical world, five centuries before Christ, it’s true today and it will continue to hold true in the post-Christian era we appear to be headed toward.

Unsubscribe [link removed]?