By David Warren. According to the Pew Research Center, and several other samplers of public opinion, the extended decline of Christian belief, and especially of the "traditionalist" kind, has come to a stop. These are polls, and they display what people think on a question, at the moment when asked. There is not, and cannot be, any predictive value in this; and I don't think even the present can be predicted by polling, or the past. Only shallow impressions may be had. But the impressions are themselves significant for public attitudes. People, I have noticed, act quite differently when they think they are in a small minority, or in an overwhelming majority. This may inspire humility, in some transactions, and arrogance in others; or, depending upon unique psychologies, the opposite may occur. But response "in the main" is usually predictable. The statistics, so far as I follow them, are not dramatic, except in one respect: that the collapse of the Christian religion in the West (where polls are conducted) has stopped, or slowed, for the last several years. In the absence of an obvious explanatory event, my own guess is that people, or at least a small proportion, have got bored with living meaningless lives. The same thing happens with war, which at first seems exciting and full of possibilities. But after a while, perhaps some years, the people grow pacifist again. An increasing likelihood of death or discomfort also tends to reduce the popularity of military campaigns. But as in the analogy, the change tends to be gradual. Societies don't "turn on a dime," and even socialist planners must use torture and coercion to make the people change more promptly. And if force isn't used continuously, the most ardent revolutions and revolutionaries fade. The Church makes all the difference, on the religious side. That is where the priestly equivalent of revolutionaries perform. That is where their efforts continue to be impressive, or they impressively tail off. This, I insist, is a universal property, exhibited throughout Church history and in many elsewheres. Sleepy leaders put congregations to sleep: but as minor recent indications confirm, the people cannot sleep forever. They may wake, under some terrible, un-Christian bang, and then will need time to go back to sleep again. Or they may, improbably, begin to remember how human life is meant to be dealt with, in the Christian dispensation - and perhaps that is happening, now. America has taken the lead in improbability, for two-and-a-half centuries now. The proof of this is that there are still Christians here, publicly admitting their beliefs, whereas that sort of thing seems to have died in Europe. (I fear that I am not exaggerating.) Although fluoride is going out, revival seems to be still in the water here, as one noticed during Mr. Trump's speech to Congress this week. There was genuine enthusiasm, for something, and that something seems to be friendly to Christian, even to Catholic, belief. But can this belief outlast the political enthusiasm, on which it seems to be riding? This is rather like saying, will the war remain popular? For Christian belief necessarily resembles war, although not the conventional kind waged with spears and missiles. To double back on my metaphors, one needs good officers to keep a frontline moving, and good discipline that fine officers have instilled. They are the masters of morale, who can sometimes do the impossible, and rouse a nearly-defeated army into making a stand. History is replete with examples. But without such officers, the rank and file will not merely lack direction, but fall into chaos and disorder. They will quickly lose their reason to fight, when faced with the threat of an actual enemy, and will, individually, cut and run. Lent, which remains an annual affair, I like to compare to NATO exercises. They are not warfare, and fewer soldiers get killed than would happen if live ammunition were flying both ways. But they are a n...
