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Insights
What Replaced Church?
Amanda Baudier
07 May 25
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I’d bet money that your Great Grandma talked directly to God.
I couldn’t say for sure which God(s) or in which language — but she was talking.
And not because she had “special powers” or had gone through a priestess initiation or drank ayahuasca in the jungle and connected with star-beings who anointed her as a divine channel.
Communing with God is just what the vast majority of humans did until very, very recently.
In 2020, for the first time in over 80 years, less than half of American adults (47%) reported belonging to a church, synagogue, or mosque — down from 70% in 1999.
As of 2025, 29% of U.S. adults identify as religiously unaffiliated — comprising 5% atheists, 6% agnostics, and 19% who describe their religion as “nothing in particular.”
At the same time, we’ve seen a dramatic rise in mental health struggles.
In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General declared loneliness an epidemic. Nearly 1 in 2 adults report feeling lonely on a regular basis.
CDC data from 2023 shows that over 40% of adults reported symptoms of anxiety or depression in the prior year — a sharp increase from about 10% in 2019.
Rates of depression and suicidal ideation among Gen Z have skyrocketed, with over 60% reporting persistent sadness.
Now hold on hold on — I’m not claiming that religious affiliation alone is a cure for mental health struggles. As someone who descends from a long line of hard-core Catholics who also has a multi-generational family history of mental illness & suicide, I know that is fundamentally untrue.
Religious affiliation and feeling supported, connected, and part of a greater whole do not always go hand in hand.
But when they do — the effects can be truly transformative and dare I say, life-saving.
There’s a reason why Karl Marx said, “religion is the opiate of the masses.” I know of nothing else that offers such an embodied sense of peace & hope in the midst of deep suffering than faith in a higher power (though to be fair, I was always more into uppers than downers).
In my teen and young adult years, I experienced deep waves of depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and various forms of self-harm. Therapy & medication didn’t help me much.
Reawakening my faith — and committing to a regularly scheduled faith-based practice — did.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that my devotional practice saved my life.
And when true tragedy struck — in the wake of heart surgery and pregnancy loss — I experienced what I can only call two punctuated, “come to Jesus” moments.
In the depths of that despair, my heart compelled me deeper and deeper into spirituality.
Without much conscious thought, I found myself in a Catholic church lighting candles — after more than a decade away from mass. I didn’t think rationally, “hey — this will help me feel better.”
But something in my soul just knew.
Your Brain Was Built for God
In The Awakened Brain, Dr. Lisa Miller shares that the human brain has a natural, biologically hardwired capacity for spiritual awareness.
She and her research team at Columbia and Yale used fMRI scans and clinical data to identify what she calls the “awakened brain” — a neural network that lights up during moments of spiritual connection, awe, and deep meaning.
Have you felt this? Like a long-forgotten muscle group that fires and knows just how to support you during one particular form of movement?
It was that part of me that walked my mourning body into church — a kind of spiritual muscle memory.
And not only are we wired for spirituality — it appears we can’t, or at least shouldn’t, try to live without it.
Dr. Miller’s research shows that people with strong personal spirituality have an 80% lower risk of recurring depression, and that a spiritually active brain is significantly more resilient to trauma and anxiety.
MRI scans show that spiritual practices physically strengthen areas of the brain associated with empathy, emotional regulation, and meaning-making.
Spirituality Was Never Meant to Be Special
Let’s go back to your Grandma talking to God — or even better — your ancestors, way, way back.
Praying over their children.
Praying over their crops.
Praying for — no, dancing for — rain.
Making offerings to the land.
Gathering with their community to mourn the dead.
Their spirituality was special — meaning it was all-encompassing.
But it was also not special — meaning everyone took part, and it was woven into everyday life.
Spirituality was not something you dipped in and out of on special occasions. It was simply how you moved through the world.
It wasn’t on a pedestal — it was in the rain that sustained us, the soil we tilled, and the warmth of the fire on a cold winter night.
We Are Spiritual Animals
We are spiritual animals. Without a regular spiritual practice, we start to wither…
I’ve felt it.
I think we — as a society — are feeling it on a mass scale.
And listen — going to religious services alone is not the answer.
Plenty of folks attend mass every week without ever truly establishing a connection to a higher power.
Plenty of folks NEVER step foot in a church and are infused with divine energy that you can feel just by being near them.
But if you’re feeling lost — and you’ve done all the things: therapy, plant medicine, even a gosh-darn yoga retreat…
Might I suggest taking a cue from Grandma?
Speak with God / source / nature / The Great Mystery every single day.
Invite spirit into every aspect of your life — the sacred & the mundane.
Connect with other spiritually-inclined humans and let their faith buoy your own.
Create rituals with your family. You can find ones you resonate with — or make your own.
Carve out time consistently for prayer, contemplation, or meditation.
There are no gatekeepers.
Teachers, guides, celebrants — sure.
But your connection can and SHOULD be wholly yours — sacred in its simplicity.
Remember that you are a spiritual being, living a human existence.
And none of this is new.
Sure, spirituality of a certain flavor is trending on social media — but humans have been doing this since the dawn of time, in every corner of the world.
And if Great Grandma were alive today?
She might be charging $444 for her channeled downloads on TikTok.
All the more reason to develop a consistent — and life-alteringly simple — spiritual practice that is all your own.
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