Steven D. SMITH. Pagans & Christians in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2021. pp. 404. $29.99 pb. ISBN 978-0-8028-7880-9. Reviewed by Maureen Beyer MOSER, Greenwich Academy, Greenwich, CT 06830. 

In Pagans & Christians in the City, Steven Smith examines the way attitudes towards religion and spirituality interact to change the scope of church and state relationships in the United States today.  He takes as his starting point an insight that T. S. Eliot had in a series of lectures in the 1940s, in which Eliot predicted that Western societies would either be Christian or “pagan.”  Smith looks at what this means in terms of contemporary culture in the United States, challenging the overarching modern narrative, which sees history “progressing” from pagan to Christian to secular; he argues instead that history (both ancient and modern) shows a conflict between two different kinds of religiosity, one transcendent and the other immanent.

Like Eliot, Smith focuses specifically on the world of the Roman Empire, in which Christianity was sometimes tolerated, sometimes persecuted, and eventually victorious.   He notes the pervasive and public character of Roman religion, which played a role even in theatrical performances and gladiatorial games.  Smith looks at what it meant to be religious in the ancient Roman world, taking a nuanced approach to the discussion and looking at serious Roman thinkers like Balbus, Varro, Cicero, and Cotta.  In the end, he concludes that the central difference between pagan Roman religion and Christianity was that pagan religion was about this world, while Christianity was about the next world.  

The “triumph” of Christianity is historically complicated.  Smith points to the ways in which pagan culture was subsumed into Christian culture (e.g. names of days of the week and months) and also the obvious turning to pagan imagery and ideas in the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.  Imagery or language itself (either Christian or pagan) is not proof of religious identity.  To be truly “pagan,” a thinker must be oriented towards “a more immanent religiosity.”  Smith sees a wavering between transcendent and immanent religion throughout history, regardless of the language used or the identity claimed; even individual historical figures can exhibit both tendencies (e.g. Lorenzo de’Medici).

Smith emphasizes that modern use of the terms “sacred” and “secular” cannot be taken at face value.  As he says, “Nearly everyone continues to attach ‘sacred’ status to --if not to God and the angels, then to nature, or to the human person…, or to something else.  The political and cultural struggles of our time grow out of these competing sanctities.”  

Competing senses of religiosity are at the root of cultural conflicts in the contemporary United States.  Smith looks specifically at changing sexual mores; he sees issues around sex (contraception, abortion, same-sex marriage) as drawing a boundary in current cultural struggles.  He asks, in parallel, why Romans chose to persecute Christians, and why people choose to litigate against religious conservatives in lawsuits relating to sexuality.  Although Smith agrees that both appear to be “intolerance,” he argues that something else is at work.  What is actually happening, he says, is that the traditional accommodation of religion in this country, which is dependent on a sense of respect for the transcendent, is disappearing.  Instead, there is a respect for individual consciences--not protected by the Constitution in the same way.  There is a general shift from transcendent to immanent religiosity, seen in the public sphere where laws are made.  Religion is increasingly privatized, “outside the city walls”--but that is a very small space.

Pagans & Christians brings to the forefront the underlying clashes that are contributing to our very divided cultures in the United States today.  Smith very convincingly draws out the understandings of religion that lie behind different worldviews.  Like the Roman pagans and Christians, many today are speaking different languages, even if it seems otherwise on the surface.  This book, written in a very accessible way, is a way to begin an important conversation.