David Carlson’s Reviews > Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America > Status Update

Is it bad to lose Religion. Smith describes it as a kind of useful social resource among others that makes individuals, families and culture better, more moral, more nurturing more unifying. None of these are, for example, what the New Testament advocates. Was the gospel trying to make Roman society better? Smith is talking about the decline of civil religion.