America is losing its religion. Churches, mosques, and synagogues used to shape Americans’ ultimate beliefs, identity, and ethics. Today, though, the souls of citizens are formed through political confrontation. This is what religion without religion looks like. As it turns out, this is more of a problem than anyone had reason to expect. If there was a secular dream, it was that as religion retreated, our politics would become more rational, reasonable, and inclusive. Religion, after all, was to blame for backwardness, superstition, and various other social ills. If religion inflamed our political passions, then secularism would cool them.

But that’s not what happened. The dream of a post-religious America looks more like a nightmare. As Christianity’s cultural grip has weakened, political fragmentation and polarization have shot up. Tribalism is the new normal. A paradox has emerged within the heart of American political life—the more “secular” our culture becomes, the more it produces a politics that resembles a holy war. The public square has been transformed into an apocalyptic arena in which the ultimate forces of good and evil are locked in gladiatorial combat. Secularism has not extinguished our spiritual longings; it’s placed them at the heart of our politics.

America is at an impasse. Not surprisingly, we are increasingly lonely, exhausted, and angry. Despite a culture that elevates self-care and tells us that fulfillment comes from “being ourselves,” Americans say they are less happy than at any point in recent memory. Scholars have started to pay attention to a new and frightening kind of sickness—politically-induced anxiety, fatigue, and depression. Despite the explosion of self-help books, something about our political (and spiritual) lives isn’t working. It’s time for something new—or, perhaps, something rather old.

That something is, well, religion.

Co-written by liberal Muslim political scientist and Washington Post columnist Shadi Hamid, and conservative Christian theologian Matthew Kaemingk, AMERICA WITHOUT GOD will make a bold and provocative argument about the future of America. Our country’s twenty-year experiment with rapid secularization has not improved its democratic norms or institutions. It has put them on the brink of collapse. If democracy is going to survive and prosper, America will need more religion, not less.

Bracing and provocative, AMERICA WITHOUT GOD aims to be the most readable and influential work available on what may be the most fundamental question facing America today: whether—and how—to pick up the pieces after the decline of American religion. Long considered mortal enemies, the book will make the case that secular democracies require ancient religious wisdom to thrive.