Forget unbelief. The bigger challenge today is belief in everything.

Your coworker might read the Bible and burn sage. Your neighbor might go to church and believe in karma. Your niece might believe in Jesus—and in astrology, crystals, and the Enneagram.

Jesus the sage. Cross and karma. Scripture and star signs. Historical church and horoscopes.

Welcome to the age of remixed spirituality.

Today’s new religious outlook isn’t atheism or Islam or even historic Christianity. It’s a highly personalized blend of borrowed beliefs and intuitive practices—a spiritual playlist assembled from self-help, social justice, therapy speak, and sacred tradition. Some call it à la carte spirituality. Tara Isabella Burton calls it “intuitional religion.”

If you’re a Christian trying to stay faithful to Jesus and share his gospel, these conversations are the new front lines.

From Inherited to Assembled

We used to inherit religion. Now we assemble it. For much of Western history, having a specific worldview passed down from one generation to another was a given. You received it from your family, your community, your nation. You were Catholic or Baptist or Jewish or nothing, and that affiliation shaped the contours of your life. But in the 21st century, spiritual identity has moved from the public to the personal, from the communal to the curated.

We used to inherit religion. Now we assemble it.

Burton calls this the age of the “Remixed,” where individuals construct bespoke spiritualities that borrow freely from multiple traditions. Charles Taylor, in A Secular Age, describes this shift as the triumph of expressive individualism and the emergence of the “nova effect”—a cultural explosion of spiritual options, where belief is no longer default but choice. And Carl Trueman reminds us that our era is defined by the inward turn, where the authentic self becomes the source of all meaning.

Today’s spiritual seekers want transcendence, ritual, and community—but without authority, exclusivity, or submission. They want the vibe of the sacred without the call to take up a cross.

Spiritually Open, Self-Curated

What makes this cultural moment particularly complex is that most people aren’t hostile to faith. They’re spiritually open but self-curated. Many have no problem with Jesus as a teacher or therapist, as long as he doesn’t claim to be King.

Burton notes that the Remixed aren’t rejecting religion but remixing it to suit their preferences. They want meaning, purpose, and belonging—but on their terms. Trevin Wax observes that this kind of intuitional faith reflects our cultural habit of self-definition: I am who I decide to be, and my spirituality will match. Alan Noble adds that in an age of constant digital mediation, we even experience God through the filters of our curated selves. The result? People blend Christian vocabulary with therapeutic slogans, new age practices, social activism, and personal vibes.

You might hear someone say, “I’m spiritual but not religious,” or “I believe in God and good energy,” or “I follow Jesus but not the church.” The theological lines have blurred. God is often treated not as a Lord to submit to but as a cosmic life coach.

Four Tips for Engaging Remixed Spirituality

So how do we engage our friends, family, and neighbors who live in this spiritual remix? Here are four practical and pastoral moves.

1. Be curious before corrective.

Jesus is the answer—but do you know what the question is? Too often, we rush in with preloaded responses, deaf to the cultural undercurrents shaping people’s longings and contradictions. When we skip listening, the gospel can come across as irrelevant or misdirected.

Curiosity honors the complexity of belief today. Identity is now assembled like a playlist, not inherited. Asking good questions—Where did that belief come from? What does it give you? What story are you living by?—opens hearts in ways declarations may not. John Stott calls this “double listening”: attending to both Word and world.

Jesus modeled this with piercing questions: “What are you seeking?” (John 1:38) “Do you want to be healed?” (John 5:6) “Who do you say I am?” (Matt. 6:15) Curiosity builds trust.

2. Name the longing.

Beneath every remixed belief system lies a longing—for connection, peace, identity, transcendence. Even the strangest spiritual cocktail is an attempt to make sense of life. As C. S. Lewis writes, unmet desires suggest we were made for another world. Desire isn’t the problem.

Wellness culture, fandoms, activism, and rituals all supply belonging and meaning—religious impulses that ultimately cannot give rest. Augustine was right: “Our heart is restless until it rests in [God].”

This is our opportunity. The church must name these longings with compassion and point to Christ. He offers living water for thirst (John 4:14), bread for hunger (6:35), and rest for weary souls (Matt. 11:28–29). Only Jesus satisfies human longing.

3. Expose the shortage.

Remixed spirituality is rich in aesthetics but poor in power. It curates beauty and affirmation but cannot deliver transformation. The self must endlessly perform, optimize, and signal worth. The hidden cost is burnout, comparison, and anxiety dressed up as empowerment. When you’re both the architect and the object of worship, rest is impossible.

Remixed spirituality is rich in aesthetics but poor in power. It curates beauty and affirmation but cannot deliver transformation.

False gospels are beautiful until they break. They dazzle with rituals and mantras but cannot cleanse a guilty conscience or heal the soul. They promise empowerment but deliver exhaustion. Tim Keller helps us identify the counterfeits: “Every false gospel under-promises and over-demands.”

Our task isn’t to sneer but to show their shortage. Only Jesus can forgive sin, restore the heart, and raise the dead. The cross isn’t a vibe—it’s salvation.

4. Share the better story.

Burton notes that remixed spirituality is more aesthetic than theological. The gospel, by contrast, isn’t a curated brand but a cruciform narrative that holds joy, justice, suffering, and salvation together. It isn’t self-optimization or identity decor. It’s cosmic news: “Christ died for our sins . . . was buried . . . [and] was raised on the third day” (1 Cor. 15:3–4).

Jesus cannot be one option among many. As Lewis says, he is Lord, liar, or lunatic—not life coach or guru. We proclaim a risen King.

Like Paul in Athens (Acts 17), we honor the search but announce the Savior. Evangelism must be tender yet clear: sin and grace, death and resurrection, judgment and mercy. The gospel doesn’t affirm our story—it invites us into his.

What We Need Now

Alex Fogleman’s Making Disciples reminds us that catechesis is the church’s past and future. If we want to survive the age of self-curation, we must recover our formative instincts or risk being discipled by everyone else’s liturgies.

We’re living in a time that needs theologically rooted, emotionally wise, and relationally present Christians. Not reactionaries who rage against the culture, nor retreatists who hide from it, but witnesses who can live and speak the gospel with clarity and compassion. We need “ambidextrous apologists”—followers of Jesus who can speak to both heart and mind, who confront cultural lies with conviction while also naming and addressing the soul’s longings.

In a world of curated feeds and cobbled-together creeds, the church mustn’t lose its song. The mash-ups may confuse, but the gospel’s melody is still strong. Let’s keep singing the classic in a remixed world.