What’s The Real Truth About Religion? - Alex O’Connor
Chris Williamson (host), Alex O’Connor (guest), Narrator
In this episode of Modern Wisdom, featuring Chris Williamson and Alex O’Connor, What’s The Real Truth About Religion? - Alex O’Connor explores cultural Christians, New Atheists, And The Search For Meaning Today Chris Williamson and Alex O’Connor explore whether there is a genuine Christian revival or merely a rise in ‘cultural’ or ‘utilitarian’ Christianity, especially among right‑leaning public intellectuals. They contrast people who love Christian “fruits” (ethics, community, aesthetics) without believing the “tree” (God, resurrection) with traditional believers who insist on the truth of core doctrines. The conversation ranges through New Atheism’s legacy, the political use of Christianity and Islam, and the psychological pull of religion for people facing nihilism and depression. They also dive into Gnostic gospels and biblical scholarship to show how contingent and constructed the Christian canon is, and how that complicates modern appeals to “Judeo‑Christian values.”
Cultural Christians, New Atheists, And The Search For Meaning Today
Chris Williamson and Alex O’Connor explore whether there is a genuine Christian revival or merely a rise in ‘cultural’ or ‘utilitarian’ Christianity, especially among right‑leaning public intellectuals. They contrast people who love Christian “fruits” (ethics, community, aesthetics) without believing the “tree” (God, resurrection) with traditional believers who insist on the truth of core doctrines. The conversation ranges through New Atheism’s legacy, the political use of Christianity and Islam, and the psychological pull of religion for people facing nihilism and depression. They also dive into Gnostic gospels and biblical scholarship to show how contingent and constructed the Christian canon is, and how that complicates modern appeals to “Judeo‑Christian values.”
Key Takeaways
Many prominent figures are ‘cultural Christians’ who value Christian ethics but don’t believe its truth claims.
O’Connor points to Douglas Murray, Konstantin Kisin, Richard Dawkins and others who praise cathedrals, Christian morality, and social cohesion while openly rejecting doctrines like God’s existence or the resurrection. ...
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New Atheism helped create a spiritual vacuum that other ‘sacred’ ideologies rushed to fill.
The New Atheist message that religion is both false and unnecessary eroded traditional faith without replacing humans’ deep need for the sacred, leaving space for environmentalism, ‘wokeism,’ nationalism, or identity politics to take on quasi‑religious roles.
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Conservative interest in Christianity is often more political than theological.
O’Connor argues that many right‑wing thinkers see Christianity as a bulwark against Islamism, woke progressivism, and authoritarian regimes, tying it to ‘Western civilization’ rather than to personal encounter with Jesus or careful doctrinal belief.
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Belief can be shaped indirectly by what you choose to immerse yourself in.
While you can’t just will yourself to believe in God, you can choose to live among believers, consume only religious content, and attend church, which over time often nudges people toward actual belief—similar to how immersion in vegan communities tends to produce vegans.
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Christianity’s canonical shape was a historical and theological selection, not an obvious given.
The discussion of Gnostic gospels (e. ...
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Islam’s view of scripture makes piecemeal reinterpretation harder than in Christianity.
In Islam, the Qur’an is seen as the literal, final word of God, while in Christianity Jesus himself is ‘the Word’ and scripture is mediated through human authors. ...
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Narrative, ritual, and symbolic ‘truth’ often matter more than propositional accuracy.
O’Connor and Williamson note that many people are drawn back to religion not because they’re convinced by historical arguments, but because the story, liturgy, community, and moral vision alleviate nihilism and provide a lived framework that rationalism and self‑help haven’t matched.
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Notable Quotes
“We’ve been seeing this strange reverse phenomenon where you’ve got people who like the fruits but don’t even believe in the existence of the tree.”
— Alex O’Connor
“New Atheism threw off religion and promised secular humanism, but the secular humanism isn’t really cutting the mustard seed.”
— Alex O’Connor
“It’s just a bunch of right‑wingers getting upset about Islam and wokeism, basically, in my view.”
— Alex O’Connor
“You don’t try on nihilism so much as you take off all the clothes and you’re not wearing anything for a while.”
— Alex O’Connor
“The internet is not the real world.”
— Chris Williamson
Questions Answered in This Episode
If a large share of ‘Christian revival’ is cultural or political rather than theological, should it still be welcomed by practicing Christians—or resisted?
Chris Williamson and Alex O’Connor explore whether there is a genuine Christian revival or merely a rise in ‘cultural’ or ‘utilitarian’ Christianity, especially among right‑leaning public intellectuals. ...
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How much moral authority can Christianity credibly claim in public life once the messy history of canon formation and texts like the Gnostic gospels are widely understood?
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Is it intellectually honest—or ethically acceptable—to ‘choose’ to believe core doctrines (like the resurrection) primarily because the faith feels meaningful or useful?
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Could a similar ‘cultural Islam’ movement emerge in the West, or does Islamic theology make that kind of loose affiliation impossible?
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Are we heading toward a future where many people live by religious narratives and rituals while openly admitting they don’t think the supernatural claims are literally true?
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Transcript Preview
Three, two, one.
What? (laughs)
What are you laughing about?
It's really funny the way he's like, "You're the only person that does it like..."
Turning the game face on?
It's, it's not like someone else doing, it's not someone else going, "Three, two, one, right, right." It's like you just, you're sort of like, "Right." You said like deep into the soul, "Three, two, one."
Well, you don't have a soul.
Alex O'Connor.
So it's easy for me to do it.
Yeah, so I'm told anyway.
Alex O'Connor, welcome to the show.
Chris Will-X, how are you?
(laughs) I'm good, man. I'm good. Are we seeing a Christian revival at the moment? What's going on?
Gosh, I love this. I, this is something I've adopted too, the sort of just straight in with the question, you know, none of this, none of this gallivanting around.
Farmer.
How are you? How's your day been? Tell us about yourself.
You've been in Austin for a week, I don't need to know how you are.
Yeah, I mean, the- these- these fair people don't know how I am, but they also don't care. So you've struck a sort of perfect balance there.
Ah.
Um, I- I'm writing an article about this at the moment, which should be out by the time this episode is out, who knows? Not, not I, not this reviewer. But, um, I'm opening with this quote from the Gospel of Thomas, the Apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, one of those ancient gospels that didn't make it into the New Testament, and yet is filled with these wonderful and bizarre stories about Jesus. And at one point in this Apocryphal Gospel, he condemns some of his followers. He says, "You've become like the Jews who either love the tree and hate the fruit, or love the fruit and hate the tree." Some similar imagery in the canonical gospels of like, "By their fruits, you shall know them," you know? A good fruit doesn't produce bad... Uh, a good tree doesn't produce bad fruits. But interestingly here, you know, people get this criticism all the time, like, you claim to be a Christian, um, but you don't really act in accordance with it. You're like nominally a Christian, but, you know, you're not displaying the sort of radical compassion of Jesus or something like that. It's a very common criti- criticism that you're not acting in, in accordance with your beliefs. But we've- we've been seeing this strange reverse phenomenon emerging, where you've got people who like the fruits but don't even believe in the existence of the tree. So, usually the criticism is like, "Look, you love the tree, but you- you- you're not producing the right fruits." But in this case, you've got a- a- a- an emerging class of thinkers who are unwilling to say that they believe in the actual truth of Christianity, and yet are at least Christian adjacent or sympathetic to Christianity, or kind of a bit depressed about the fact that everyone isn't Christian anymore. This is your Douglas Murrays, Constantin Kissens, um, Jordan Peterson to a- to some degree, To-
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