The Decline of the Family and the Death of Faith

Mary Eberstadt

Traditional theories of secularization maintain that religious decline led to the deterioration of the family. Not so, argues Mary Eberstadt in her new book How the West Really Lost God: A New Theory of Secularization (Templeton Press, 2013). Eberstadt is a leading cultural critic and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC. Her books include Adam and Eve after the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution (2012); The Loser Letters: A Comic Tale of Life, Death, and Atheism (2010); and Home-Alone America: The Hidden Toll of Day Care, Behavioral Drugs, and Other Parent Substitutes (2005). Recently, Catholic World Report caught up with Eberstadt and discussed the book and the theory of secularization it presents.

CWR: Why did you set out to write this book—what initially triggered your thinking on secularization in the West?  (more...)

The Decline of the Family and the Death of Faith