Old friends from my early career days recently found me through social media, and each time one of their greetings has arrived, I have been whisked back 25 to 30 years, when we first got to know each other.
Then I discovered just how much has changed over time – not just in the way they look but also in the fact that some of them now have a strong, outspoken interest in spiritual and religious matters. Nothing even close to religion had ever surfaced in all the previous years that we knew one another and worked together.
Their interest in living a more spiritual life and connecting with a church was surprising news for another reason. It’s coming forward in a world that we have been told is witnessing the twilight of religion. Over the past decade, statistics have shown a rise in the number of unaffiliated religious people. Commentators have often pointed to religion’s uncertain future and an increasingly secular society.
My friends are unmoved by that viewpoint. They simply and naturally want to be more selfless and compassionate, feel more secure and less materialistic, be a lot happier and healthier. And they’ve found that the path that has most directly gotten them there is a spiritual one.
What brought about the change? I suppose there’s a lengthy list of possible factors: maturity, education, parenthood (and grandparenthood), life experiences, and the few solutions offered by a secular world.
But I believe even more is going on.
In conversations with my friends, I sense a higher, more spiritual nature and outlook on life emerging. For some, it comes across as having more patience at times when they used to be in a rush. For others, it’s letting go of long-standing grudges and forgiving. Some have resolved to spend more time praying. Still others have become devout Christians and take seriously the need and opportunity to heal suffering in society.
Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, likens the impetus for such change to an inherent, childlike willingness to progress. In her book “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” she writes, “Willingness to become as a little child and to leave the old for the new, renders thought receptive of the advanced idea” (pp. 323-324).
As this relates to character growth, such changes can be subtle. But over time, they can add up to a profound transformation – to what a New Testament writer described as “put[ting] on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:24).
That “new” man is actually our true, spiritual identity as Spirit, God, created each of us. Mentally “putting on” this true identity prompts us to stop thinking of ourselves in bland, matter-based ways. Even with just a glimpse of the fact that, despite appearances, we aren’t material but entirely spiritual, we can feel completely new.
That newness may show itself as an increasingly brighter outlook; a sense of having a higher, more spiritual selfhood; and a growing realization that the old way of thinking of ourselves as materialistic mortals is not merely superficial or a thing of the past, but has never actually been accurate.
Do my friends’ examples of spiritual renewal call into question the larger data trend of recent years regarding religion? Not necessarily. But they suggest to me that while the tendency of some might be to buy into the perception that religion’s influence is diminishing, that’s not the full picture.
When experiences like those of my friends come to our attention, I believe we’re glimpsing something powerful and enduring at work. It would be a mistake to overlook the divine influence – the eternal and ever-active Christ, Truth – stirring and uplifting human thought and transforming hearts and minds. People who see themselves in this new light are happier and healthier and are likely to see and treat others in a better way.
Although you’ll not find the word “religion” used anywhere in the Bible’s Old Testament, there’s no shortage of references to light, and according to the Bible, the source of that light is God, who saw it as purely good. Religion, at its best, is a lot like light. It’s the illuminating and transforming power of divine Spirit that comes with spiritual discoveries.
Some, catching only occasional glimmers of this light, might have concluded that we’re drifting into twilight. But others, like my friends and me, are seeing these glimmers differently – as the promise of a new day. To us, religion’s future looks bright.
Adapted from an article published in the Sept. 29, 2025, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.
