This distinguished cultural historian (1889-1970) wrote many influential books in which he tried to rehabilitate religion as a driving force in western history. Among others he influenced T. S. Eliot and J. R. R. Tolkien. What was the challenge? As he wrote:

“The new secularized civilization is not content to dominate the outer world,..but claims the whole person. Once more Christianity is faced, as it was at the beginning, with the challenge of a world which will accept no appeal from its judgment…Indeed it would almost seem as though the prospect today was even darker than it was at the beginning. Then, at least, Christianity was a new thing in the world, and its possibilities were still untried; but now that Christianity has been in the world for 19 centuries, the modern world regards it as a thing of the past – a system that has been tried and found wanting, and that no longer has anything to offer modern man”:

Religion and the Modern State (1935) [see under Writings]