Secular and left-leaning thinking is leading to the West's decline

I live in India, a nation that is home to the faithful from all the majority world religions. While Islam, Judaism and Christianity originated elsewhere, India is the birthplace of several major faiths, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism.

Unlike many of my Christian counterparts in the West, I have spent years making the case that the world’s religions reflect something God has planted within the human heart.

This doesn’t mean that everything in every religion is true or that all paths lead to the salvation God desires for humanity. But I cannot deny the good I see in them. I do not align with Richard Dawkins, who saw religion as a source of evil and hatred — though I fully acknowledge the tragic role religious conflict has played throughout history.

That’s why it was a true blessing to recently interview Dr Lisa Miller, author of The Awakened Brain. A senior clinical psychologist at Princeton, she has been at the forefront of research exploring how spirituality and spiritual impulses affect the human brain.

Science on spirituality

One of the key insights Dr Miller shared on the Babel Undone podcast — which I co-host with Johnnie Moore on Premier Christian Radio  — was that every human being possesses a part of the brain uniquely wired for spiritual experience and expression. This spiritual faculty is present regardless of one’s ethnicity, religion, or nationality.

Could this be what the Bible means when it says that God created humanity in his own image — that he embedded within us an intrinsic capacity for the spiritual?

This helps explain the presence of faith and spiritual expression in even the earliest human tribes and cultures — the gods they created to worship, the moral codes they lived by, and their innate sense of right and wrong.

Dr Miller went on to share compelling evidence that individuals who cultivate a healthy spiritual life and maintain a connection to the divine are 80 per cent less likely to struggle with addiction, 80 per cent less prone to engage in socially destructive behavior, and 60 per cent more likely to lead personally fulfilling and socially constructive lives.

This research reveals how the rise of a secular, atheistic and increasingly left-leaning culture in the West may be contributing to its cultural and moral decline — particularly as it distances itself from its Christian roots.

And in the so-called clash of civilisations between Christianity and Islam, a secular, liberal and spiritually disengaged West cannot survive the onslaught of ideologically and spiritually driven Islamic extremism.

This is not to say that all Muslims are extremists. But it is important to acknowledge that true extremists are driven by deep spiritual conviction. As we know, the human spiritual capacity can be a force for great good — or great harm.

Every human being possesses a part of the brain uniquely wired for spiritual experience and expression

The solution cannot be an absence of religion. Since we are indeed created in the image of God with an innate desire for spiritual connection and transcendence, we must hold out something that meets those needs and satisfies those deep cravings of our hearts.

Everyone is a spiritual being. There is no escaping that fact. So the question becomes how to engage with that reality. This is one of the most consequential choices humans make and it has dramatic, far-reaching consequences, both for our world and for our experience as humans.

I believe that the Christian worldview, grounded in the Bible, nurtures human spirituality to be oriented toward the good rather than evil. After all, historically, the Christian church has been one of the leaders of medical care, providing for the poor and socially marginalised, and countless other humanitarian efforts. 

To hear the full conversation between Bishop D’Souza and Dr Lisa Miller about her book, The Awakened Brain, listen to the Babel Undone podcast