Since the Enlightenment, a healthy contempt for religion and those who promote it has been widespread among those who cherish the powers of reason. But lately, in what is proclaimed as a secular age, atheism and anticlericalism have fallen very much out of fashion. Even—one might say especially—among those with no time for religion in their own personal lives there is a new respect for the prevailing religious superstitions. Intellectuals have lost the courage of their nonbelief.

Confirmed Marxists plead the case of the rebels in El Salvador by quoting nuns and archbishops. Secular Jews make alliances with anti-Semitic…