Across 22 countries, millions who reject organized religion still “believe,” a Pew survey found recently. In Peru, 65% of the unaffiliated believe in life after death. In Brazil, 92% of “nones” say they believe in God. In South Africa, 81% believe in ancestral spirits. Even in the United States, where 29% now identify as unaffiliated, 45% still believe in God or a “higher power.”
Why does faith persist, even when religion collapses?
Jewish tradition teaches that “the King is in the field” before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, celebrated from the evening of September 22 to 24. This metaphor reflects finding God and faith in the “field,” outside the structure of palaces and temples, much as the Pew study shows people finding belief beyond institutions.
I’ve grown bored of repetitive liturgy, wary of organized religion, of its pulpit politics, and of its hypocrisy. I fancy myself a rationalist, free from superstition. I study Maimonides’ Guide for The Perplexed to try and rationalize traditions that often seem irrational. But the sound of the ram’s horn on Rosh Hashanah still pierces me. It’s raw and wordless. You can’t distrust it. It is like the primordial cry of a child calling out for its parent.
Faith and feelings of transcendence, after all, are older than institutions, a deep part of our evolution that existed before priests built temples. This year, archaeologists uncovered a 100,000-year-old burial site with evidence of “ceremonies to honor the dead,” indicating belief in an afterlife long before organized religion.
Humankind needs religion
The human mind craves that transcendence. Studies show that awe reduces stress, makes people more generous, and strengthens social bonds. A forest, an eclipse, or a night sky can activate the same pathways as prayer. That is why even people who shun religion pause in reverence at these experiences.
Distrust in institutions built by human beings does not erase the need for meaning. Pew found that scandals, politics, and superstition also drive people away. But walking out of the synagogue or church does not erase the questions: Why am I here? What happens when I die? Why do we suffer? Those questions remain. So does faith.
We forget that humanity’s first encounters with the divine happened outdoors.
The Israelites got the Torah in the wilderness of Sinai before they had a Temple. The Buddha awakened under a tree. Mohammed received a revelation in a cave. Jesus preached on a hillside. The holiest encounters often happened outside walls. They still do.
Faith, like the shofar blast, persists not because of institutions, but because the human soul cannot help but cry out.
Others point to secular countries, such as Sweden, as proof that faith does fade. But history tells another story.
Revolutionary France tried to erase religion. It came back. The Soviet Union declared atheism the state creed. Yet underground worship survived, and revival followed collapse. Decades of repression in China have not stopped Christianity, Buddhism, and folk religion from thriving. Faith may retreat, but it does not disappear.
Some say that we do not need faith at all because love, art, nature, and science can supply meaning. And they do. But those very sources inspire the same awe and wonder that religion does. Pew this year found that a staggering 61% of Americans reported feeling spiritual awe in nature at least once a week.
Standing speechless at a sunset or mourning at a graveside are expressions that life holds more than what can be measured.
This persistence of faith matters. Too many leaders assume that the unaffiliated are secular rationalists. Pew shows otherwise. They still carry moral and spiritual convictions that guide how they vote, raise children, and imagine. To ignore that is to misread society and misunderstand the human condition.
Rosh Hashanah reminds us that the King is in the field. The sacred is not bound by palaces, temples, or institutions. The most enduring faith is not institutional but instinctive, not polished but primal, not liturgical but like the cry of a child. The Pew survey shows this is true worldwide. Religion may shrink. Yet faith, stubborn and restless, still thrives.
The author writes on society, religion, and law. X: @EliFederman