The subject of the research in this article is the peculiarities of the coverage of the problem of the religious crisis with the United States at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries in the work of one of the most famous realist writers, Theodore Dreiser. He depicted in detail in his works various aspects of the life of Americans of this period, including the religious aspect. The religious crisis in American society is closely connected with the destruction of the ideological ideals of the past. In the artistic heritage of Theodore Dreiser, one can single out a whole system of images, with the help of which he showed the crisis of the religious and moral component of the spiritual life of American society of this period. The scientific novelty of the research is determined by the need to consider the religious aspect in the writer's creative heritage, which for various reasons often fell out of the field of view of earlier critical works. The purpose of the presented work is to study the artistic images in Theodore Dreiser's novel "The Bulwark" in a religious and moral way as a manifestation of the spiritual crisis common to Americans of that time. The following conclusions were presented during the study: 1) Theodore Dreiser is a witness to the crisis in the spiritual and moral life of the USA at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, which is one of the main themes of the writer's creative heritage; 2) This crisis is connected with the destruction of the fundamental ideological categories of American society (the "great American dream"); 3) In the novel "The Bulwark" T. Dreiser examines the moral and religious picture of American society on the example of the Quaker-Barnes family. He depicts the collapse of religious beliefs in the perception of both the older generation and the younger; 4) The beginning of the XX century was a transitional period. When the forcible imposition of religious norms became a tragedy for many young people; 5) The new age requires new forms of interaction between man and religion.