The Collapsing Secular Cathedral
How Progressive Ideology Mimics Religious Dogma and Why Its Demise Is Inevitable
There’s an old saying that nature abhors a vacuum. What it doesn’t tell you is that when one god is cast out, another takes his place, often dressed in the old god’s robes, wielding the old god’s staff, but curiously lacking the old god’s grace. I have seen this firsthand, not from the ivory tower of academia but from the trenches of human experience. As a chaplain, I walk among people of all backgrounds: believers, skeptics, the indifferent, and the devoutly irreligious. And yet, I have noticed something peculiar: those who claim to have left religion behind are those who merely trade one creed for another.
Modern progressive ideology, especially in its most fervent, moralizing form, has become a new kind of faith. It has its saints and heretics, its sacred texts and rituals, its inquisitions and indulgences. Its adherents demand conversion, recite their doctrines with liturgical precision, and impose their excommunications with righteous fury. But here’s the rub: unlike Christianity, which is anchored in a transcendent God who forgives, redeems, and restores, this new faith offers no redemption. Only judgment. Only unending penance. Only the ever-tightening ratchet of ideological purity.
Yet even the most imposing cathedrals can collapse when their foundations rot. This new secular religion is built on borrowed moral capital, propped up by ideals it cannot sustain. It demands justice while rejecting the very source that makes justice possible. It preaches dignity while denying the Imago Dei that gives humanity inherent worth. It calls for love, but absent grace, it can only wield shame. And so, like all human-constructed towers that reach for heaven, it is doomed to crumble under its own contradictions.
In this essay, my argument is that the modern progressive moral order is a cathedral without Christ. It is fervent in its ambition, towering in its proclamations, but already showing deep fissures in its foundation, or should I say, lack-there-of. I want to show how it mimics the structure of religious faith while simultaneously sawing off the branch upon which it sits. And finally, I will explore why, despite its inevitable collapse, the longing for meaning will not disappear because the heart of man, as Augustine reminds us, is restless until it rests in God.
So, let us step inside the grand and crumbling edifice of the Secular Cathedral. Mind your step, the floor is cracking.
How Progressive Ideology Functions Like a Religion
I have often found that those most eager to tell me they are “not religious” are, in fact, among the most religious people I know. They may scoff at the idea of ancient creeds and sacred texts, but they will solemnly affirm the latest manifesto from their preferred activist or philosopher. They may laugh at the idea of sin and salvation, but they live in perpetual fear of saying the wrong thing, thinking the wrong thought, or supporting the wrong cause. They may insist that they have cast off the shackles of dogma, but woe to the heretic who dares question their orthodoxy.
You see, while traditional religion builds cathedrals, progressive secularism has built its own: a towering edifice of moral proclamations, complete with saints and sinners, sacraments and rituals, and inquisitions that would make Torquemada blush. This, I suspect, is because human beings cannot help but be worshippers. The only question is what—or whom—we will worship.
One of the first things one notices in this new secular faith is that it, too, has a doctrine of original sin. Christianity teaches that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But in the Secular Cathedral, some are born into guilt while others are born into righteousness. Sin is no longer a universal human affliction, but a condition imposed by one’s identity or status.
The doctrine is simple: If you belong to the wrong group, you are ipso facto a sinner. You must confess your privilege, acknowledge your complicity, and do perpetual penance. There is no escape from this condition, no baptism that washes it away, no atonement that truly satisfies. One must live in a constant state of self-abasement, hoping that the high priests of the movement will accept your contrition (they won’t).
And just as there are sinners, there are also saints. Those who, by virtue of their identity or ideological zeal, are considered morally unimpeachable. To question them is blasphemy. To critique them is sacrilege. They are, in effect, the new canonized figures of this faith, untouchable and beyond reproach.
I have met many a Christian who, in confessing their sins, has found peace in the absolution of Christ. But I have never met a progressive moralist who has truly found rest. Their gospel has no grace, no forgiveness, only the ceaseless demand to do better, be better, and apologize more profusely.
Every religion has its sacred rites, and the new secular order is no exception. There are public confessions, often televised or posted to social media, where one acknowledges their complicity in systemic injustices. These confessions do not, of course, result in forgiveness, but they are a necessary display of one’s piety.
Then there are the high holy days of the movement: Pride Month, Earth Day, and an ever-growing calendar of awareness weeks and activist events. These function much like religious feasts, complete with prescribed prayers (statements of solidarity), acts of penance (reparations, corporate pledges), and public processions (parades and protests). To abstain from participation is to risk suspicion. To criticize them is outright heresy.
And let us not forget the most sacred of all modern sacraments: the ritual of cancellation. This is the secular version of excommunication, wherein a person is declared irredeemable and cast into the outer darkness of social and professional ruin. Unlike Christian excommunication, which historically carried the hope of repentance and restoration, secular excommunication is final. The condemned are never allowed back into the fold.
Every faith needs its teachers, and in the Secular Cathedral, these roles are filled by an odd mixture of media figures, celebrities, academics, and activists. The universities have become the seminaries of this movement, churning out young zealots trained in the intricacies of progressive dogma. The media serves as its magisterium, determining what is orthodox and what is anathema. Social media influencers function as street preachers, shaming the unconverted and calling for public repentance.
And just as ancient Israel had its prophets of doom, so too does this new faith have its doomsayers, constantly warning of impending catastrophe. Whether it is climate apocalypse, systemic collapse, or the ever-looming specter of oppression, the message is always the same: unless you heed our warnings and obey our decrees, disaster will befall you. The world will end, and it will be your fault.
But unlike the prophets of old, who called people back to a transcendent God who could save, these modern prophets offer no salvation. There is no hope in their message, only perpetual guilt, ceaseless activism, and a demand for total, unquestioning compliance.
And so, in every way that matters, progressive secularism is not the absence of religion but the emergence of a new one. It has doctrines, it has sacraments, it has saints and sinners. It even has eschatology, except in this case, the apocalypse is entirely man-made, and the only salvation is an impossible standard of moral purity.
But here’s the problem: this religion, unlike Christianity, is built on sand. It has no foundation beyond the shifting whims of culture and power. It borrows all of its moral capital from Christianity but refuses to acknowledge the source. And in rejecting grace, it has doomed itself to exhaustion, bitterness, and inevitable collapse.
The Secular Cathedral may stand tall for now, but the cracks in its walls are widening. And before long, even its most fervent adherents will begin to wonder: Wasn’t there supposed to be more than this?
Why This New Religion is Doomed to Collapse
Every great man-made tower eventually crumbles. Babel, Rome, the Soviet Union, whenever humanity builds an edifice of pure human ambition, detached from divine reality, it inevitably collapses under its own weight. The Secular Cathedral is no exception. For all its high-minded rhetoric and grand moral proclamations, it is teetering like an ancient structure whose foundation has long since rotted away. It will not last, because it cannot last. It is attempting to do what no human system can do: construct a coherent moral order without a transcendent source.
The reason for its impending collapse is simple. It is a religion that preaches justice but cannot ground it. It demands dignity while rejecting the only foundation for human worth. It enforces morality while denying objective truth. And worst of all, it requires penance but offers no redemption.
This is not speculation. It is a slow-motion implosion that is already underway. Let us examine why.
The most tragic irony of the Secular Cathedral is that it cannot even claim originality. Every virtue it champions—equality, human dignity, justice, love—was first proclaimed by Christianity, the very faith it despises. Like a rebellious son who still spends his father’s money while cursing his name, the secular moral order is living on borrowed capital.
Where did the idea that all humans have equal worth come from? Certainly not from nature, where the strong devour the weak with ruthless efficiency. Nor from history, where power, not principle, has so often determined morality. No, the notion that every human being (regardless of status, race, or ability) possesses inherent dignity comes from the biblical doctrine that all people are made in the imago Dei, the image of God.
Strip away this foundation, and the edifice collapses. Without God, what basis is there for universal human rights? Why should justice matter if life is nothing more than the accidental collision of atoms? The Secular Cathedral has no answer. It demands the fruits of the Christian worldview while hacking away at the tree that produces them.
It is a tragic but predictable pattern. The further this new moral order moves from Christianity, the more arbitrary and unstable it becomes. It clings to justice but has no fixed definition of good and evil. It demands dignity but cannot explain why human beings should have it. It proclaims love but lacks the grace that makes love possible. It is like a vine severed from the branch, green for a while, but inevitably withering.
This is not a new story. The French Revolution, the Soviet Union, and every other attempt to construct a moral order apart from God has ended in ruin. The Secular Cathedral will be no different. If a movement is built on contradictions, it will eventually collapse under their weight. And the contradictions of progressive secularism are legion.
On the one hand, we are told that morality is fluid, that truth is relative, that we must “live our own truth.” But on the other hand, those same voices demand absolute obedience to a rigid moral framework that shifts at dizzying speed.
Which is it? Is truth subjective, or must we all conform to the latest ideological decree? If morality is socially constructed, why should anyone be held accountable for violating an ever-changing code? This contradiction cannot hold indefinitely. Eventually, people begin to realize that a system built on both relativism and moral absolutism is simply incoherent.
The Secular Cathedral loves to preach tolerance, but in practice, it has no patience for dissenters. The slightest deviation from the prevailing orthodoxy results in public shaming, de-platforming, and social excommunication.
This is not sustainable. A movement that requires total conformity will eventually turn on itself, as no one can ever be pure enough. We are already seeing this happen. Yesterday’s progressive heroes are today’s ideological criminals, guilty of insufficient zeal or failing to keep pace with the latest demands of the movement.
A system that eats its own will not last. People will grow weary of the fear and the performative obedience. And when enough people have had enough, the entire structure will collapse.
All religions offer a vision of the future, a final hope that makes sense of the present struggle. Christianity promises a redeemed world, where justice and mercy meet, where sin and suffering are no more, where Christ reigns and all things are made new. This is not mere wishful thinking; it is a vision that has sustained millions through suffering, persecution, and hardship.
The Secular Cathedral, by contrast, offers only perpetual crisis. There is no final redemption, no restoration, no ultimate hope. There is only the endless demand to “do the work,” to struggle for an ever-receding utopia that never arrives. This is why so many of its adherents are exhausted, bitter, and disillusioned. They are chasing a kingdom without a king, longing for heaven while rejecting God.
The human heart was not made to live in perpetual penance. Without grace, people will either burn out or rebel. They will grow weary of the shame, the fear, the endless moral performance. Some will embrace nihilism. Others will look for a better way. Either way, the movement will collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.
And when it does, people will begin to ask: What were we missing?
The cracks in the Secular Cathedral are already visible. Surveys show that increasing numbers of people, especially young people, are rejecting Secularism’s dogmas. They see through the contradictions. They recognize the joylessness. They are tired of the empty virtue signaling, the performative guilt, the lack of grace.
And where do many of them go? Some descend into apathy, but others, often to their own surprise, find themselves drawn back to Christianity. They begin to realize that the justice they long for, the meaning they crave, the dignity they hope to preserve, all make sense only if there is a God who made them, loves them, and redeems them.
I have seen this happen firsthand. I have spoken with those who, after years of progressive activism, have found themselves exhausted and hollow. When they finally encounter the grace of Christ, the freedom to confess sin and truly be forgiven, the relief of knowing their worth is not self-created but given by God. It is as if they have been starving without realizing it.
The collapse of the Secular Cathedral will not mean the end of moral longing. It will only mean the end of a failed attempt to satisfy that longing apart from God.
In the end, the story of the Secular Cathedral is the story of every human attempt to build a kingdom without God. It borrows from Christianity but cannot sustain what it has borrowed. It demands obedience but cannot offer grace. It preaches justice but cannot define righteousness. It demands penance but offers no forgiveness.
A house built on sand will not stand.
And so, as the foundations crack and the great tower teeters, we need not fear. The hunger for justice, dignity, and meaning will not vanish. It will simply turn elsewhere, back to the only foundation that has ever truly endured.
The world does not need another collapsing tower. It needs the unshakable kingdom of Christ.
What Comes Next?
I am not a prophet, nor the son of one. I have neither a crystal ball nor a hotline to the future, and if history has taught me anything, it’s that human predictions tend to age about as well as unrefrigerated milk. However, what I can do is observe, reflect, and recognize patterns both from history and from my own encounters in the trenches of human experience.
The Secular Cathedral is crumbling, but its collapse will not be instantaneous. Ideas, even bad ones, die slowly, lingering like ghosts in the minds of those who still wish they were true. Yet as the contradictions grow more apparent, as the exhaustion sets in, as people find themselves disillusioned by a movement that promised justice but delivered only perpetual guilt, the exodus will continue.
So, what comes next? Here are a few possibilities, some concerning, some hopeful, but all worth considering.
If history teaches us anything, it’s that human beings do not simply abandon religion; they replace it. The question is not whether people will worship, but what they will worship. The collapse of the Secular Cathedral does not mean that people will suddenly become rationalist materialists, content to live without transcendent meaning.
We are already seeing a reaction against secular progressivism among younger generations. Some are turning to traditional forms of religion: whether Christianity, Orthodox Judaism, or a revival of other premodern belief systems. Others are gravitating toward new forms of spirituality: paganism, astrology, esoteric mysticism, and various flavors of “manifesting your destiny.” The great irony, of course, is that in rejecting Christianity, many are simply reviving the very superstitions and idolatrous practices that Christianity once displaced.
A post-secular age does not necessarily mean a return to Christianity. It may instead mean a fragmented, chaotic spiritual marketplace, where people pick and choose their beliefs like items on a buffet, creating a designer faith that suits their personal preferences. But as history also shows, civilizations built on syncretism and self-invented spirituality rarely hold together for long. Sooner or later, they collapse into disorder, or they find their way back to a more rooted, substantive faith.
that brings me to what I believe is the most likely long-term outcome: a return to Christianity, not in the tired, lukewarm, consumer-friendly way that much of the Western Church has been operating, but in a rediscovery of its deeper, richer, and more ancient biblical roots.
Why? Because as people grow weary of performative activism and ideological puritanism, they will begin searching for something that offers what secular progressivism could not:
• A coherent moral vision that does not change with the winds of culture.
• A true doctrine of human dignity, rooted in the Imago Dei rather than arbitrary social constructs.
• A justice that is righteous, but also merciful.
• A vision of redemption, rather than just perpetual guilt and shame.
I have already seen this happening in my own conversations as a chaplain. Those who once embraced secular progressivism with near-religious fervor are finding themselves burned out, exhausted, and disillusioned. Some are discovering, often to their own surprise, that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not what they had assumed it to be. It is not a tool of oppression, nor a relic of superstition, nor a system of moral control. It is the only real answer to the longing they have felt all along.
I am reminded of C.S. Lewis’s own journey. He once saw Christianity as a dead myth, only to later realize that it was the true myth, the one that fulfilled all the fragmented longings of humanity. I suspect we will see many such conversions in the coming decades. People who, having seen the Secular Cathedral collapse, begin searching for a house that will not fall when the storms come.
But let’s not be naive. The collapse of one ideological empire does not guarantee the triumph of truth. If history has a darker lesson, it is this: when one utopian project collapses, it often gives rise to something even worse. The French Revolution’s rejection of Christian monarchy led to the blood-soaked rule of Robespierre, which in turn led to Napoleon’s empire. The collapse of Soviet communism left a vacuum that was soon filled with oligarchs and nationalist strongmen.
As the Secular Cathedral collapses, there will be those who seek to replace it with something equally unmoored from grace. Perhaps a harsher, more cynical ideology, one that is just as legalistic but in the opposite direction. Already, we see reactionary movements emerging, some of which, rather than returning to Christianity, are embracing forms of nationalism, authoritarianism, and grievance politics. They recognize the failures of secular progressivism, but instead of turning to Christ, they turn to men’s answers, which are often fueled more by personal desire than transcendent truths.
This, too, is a dead end. A civilization built on resentment will not last any longer than one built on self-righteousness. The only lasting alternative is neither the secular utopianism of the left nor the reactionary impulses of the right, but the gospel of Jesus Christ—a vision that transcends political tribes and speaks to the eternal condition of the human heart.
So, what should we do as the old order collapses? Simply watch from the sidelines, shaking our heads at the spectacle? No. If anything, now is the time to be planting and building. To be offering something better, something truer, something that will endure when all else crumbles.
The Church must be ready. Not with shallow cultural accommodations, not with platitudes, and certainly not with fear-mongering, but with real, substantive faith. We must be prepared to show the world that Christianity is not an old relic of a bygone era but the only foundation on which a lasting civilization can be built.
This means:
• Recovering the depth and richness of Christian thought. Not the thin gruel of therapeutic deism, but the robust faith written in the Scriptures and built upon by the great Christian teachers of our history.
• Living lives of radical grace and truth—showing the world that Christianity offers both justice and mercy, righteousness and compassion.
• Refusing to be either culture warriors or passive spectators. Instead, we are called to be faithful witnesses who embody the beauty of the gospel.
The world is starving for meaning. It is desperate for something real. And when the dust of the Secular Cathedral finally settles, those who have spent their lives searching for truth may finally be ready to hear the words that have stood the test of time:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
The age of the Secular Cathedral is ending. But the kingdom of God remains, and will remain, unshaken and eternal. The only question is: when the secular collapse is complete, will we be ready like our Father who in Heaven is, to welcome the prodigals home?