A case for traditional faiths in an age of experimentation

A case for traditional faiths in an age of experimentation

Arguments for religious faith often serve as windows onto their times. In 1799, Friedrich Schleiermacher published a treatise to persuade the Enlightenment’s “cultural despisers” of the validity of religious experience. C. S. Lewis’s BBC broadcasts during the Second World War and Billy Graham’s postwar evangelical crusades drew on still widely shared concepts such as sin and salvation to help people embrace faith in Jesus of Nazareth. Early-twen…