I recently listened to an intriguing conversation on NPR’s podcast It’s Been a Minute. The episode, titled Goodbye, Church… Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!, launches a series called Losing My Religion, which explores a revealing question: “For all the people who are spiritual but not religious, what’s replacing organized religion?”

The question itself is telling. Even as traditional religious participation declines (though recent research suggests Christianity’s decline is now leveling off) people can’t shake the sense that reality extends beyond the material world. Something is out there.

But beyond being a revealing question, it’s an important one. And the answer might surprise you.

What’s Replacing Organized Religion?

Ironically, it’s new forms of organized, quasi-religion. That’s the claim (one I find plausible) made by the guests in the conversation: Alyssa Bereznak of the LA Times and Rina Raphael, author of The Gospel of Wellness: Gyms, Gurus, Goop, and the False Promise of Self-Care (2022).

Raphael describes the phenomenon this way:

“There’s almost this secular salvation of: ‘I will make myself fit. I will make myself well. I will make sure that I have all these incredible values about tending to myself.’”

And so, she continues:

“Wellness acts like a deconstructed religion. It’s a regulated framework instructing us how to live our lives. It dangles this hope—almost this salvation—that if you work out enough, eat right, and meditate, you’ll feel good and manage whatever threatens you. It offers the illusion of control. And especially when it comes to gyms, we end up fetishizing health and, I’d say, worshiping the self or the body.”

To illustrate this, the podcast played a clip of Peloton founder John Foley suggesting that instead of wearing a cross or a Star of David, people could wear a SoulCycle tank top as their religious emblem: “That’s your identity. That’s your community. That’s your religion.”

The Problems with the Religion of Wellness

Of course, there are differences between wellness culture and traditional organized religion. Many wellness practices don’t explicitly take on religious or transcendent qualities. But the parallels are striking, revealing Americans’ deep hunger for the transcendent.

Raphael—rightly, I believe—has serious concerns about this new form of religion. “It’s a false certainty because you will age.”

Hm. Valid!

But the problems run deeper. As both Raphael and Bereznak point out, wellness spiritualities tend to be inherently self-serving. They are “often more internally and personally focused and less externally and community focused.” They can foster conspiracy theories or orthorexia. (I had to look that up. It’s an obsession with eating only “healthy” foods).

And, crucially, wellness spirituality is driven by profit. “There is a capitalist motive in sound baths, yoga, spiritual card decks, or crystals,” Bereznak observes. “You’re investing in companies selling these things, not donating to a church on Sunday.”

“Spiritual but Not Religious” Becomes . . . Religious

From a biblical perspective, the replacement of one religion with another is entirely expected. Humans may not always be Homo sapiens (wise man), but we are certainly Homo religiosus (religious man). As Paul wrote 2,000 years ago, “Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks” (Romans 1:21).

For those who identify as “spiritual but not religious,” it appears to be only a matter of time before their religionless spirituality begins to take the shape of organized religion. They will articulate truth claims, establish rituals, form communities, identify an object of ultimate devotion, and invest time and money into that cause. The basic elements of religion—deity, dogma, rituals, community, and financial commitment—inevitably emerge.

The Irony of Wellness Spirituality

One of the great ironies of the wellness movement, as Raphael notes, is its relationship with shame. Many leave traditional religion to escape the shame associated with people or institutions telling you your behavior is wrong. (Raphael mentioned that this was the reason her mother eventually distanced herself from the Catholic Church). But in wellness culture, people encounter a new form of shame—the shame of bodily decline and the realization that willpower has limits. Even “radical acceptance” is paradoxical, requiring adherence to a specific program or purchase of a product.

As it turns out, people are fleeing one set of crushing expectations only to embrace another.

The religion of wellness is legalistic and autosoteric (self-saving). It offers salvation on the condition of personal effort. When adherents succeed, they feel superior, leading to elitism, judgmentalism, and division. When they fail, they feel inferior, leading to despair and self-loathing. This religion has law but no gospel.

Better News

Compare the “gospel of wellness” to the gospel found in the Bible. It tells of a holy and loving God who offers radical acceptance—not based on personal effort, but on the accomplished work of his Son, Jesus Christ in his life, death, and resurrection. God offers forgiveness to those who repent and believe in his Son, places his own Spirit within believers, thus enabling them to live as he desires—not out of fear or shame, but through a vibrant relationship with him as Father.

Christianity also directly addresses the problem of bodily decay: Christ’s resurrection guarantees that his people will one day receive indestructible bodies like his. What the religion of wellness seeks to achieve through self-effort, Christianity offers as a gift of grace.

The most important question about any faith—whether the religion of wellness or Christianity—is this: Is it true? The good news is that the evidence for Christianity is open for investigation. Start with the evidence for the resurrection—because if Jesus truly rose from the dead, that’s better news than anything wellness culture can offer.