Douthat is on to something important.
Some of his conclusions match my own.
First, the % of Americans who can be reached by
Evangelicals is limited.
The era when "great revivals" --as in the 1850s or even
the 1950s--
could sway multitudes ( in the 19th century large
percentages of people )
is, if not completely a thing of the past, less and less
likely, and even
modest scale revivals are increasingly uncommon.
2nd, mainline Christianity has pretty much "collapsed."
Actually a better way to
think of it is to say that mainline Christians now follow a
different religion altogether
even though they still use the old vocabulary. Call it
"pious Leftism," or Christo-Secularism,
or Civil Religion but with actual traditions and property,
or in some cases call it a
synthesis of Bible-free Christianity with Political
Correctness / multi-culturalism.
In any case, that "half" of all Protestants involved is no
longer Christian as the term
was used historically. In the process, mainstream churches,
when I was growing up
maybe 2/3rds of all Protestants, maybe more, is now in the
40s somewhere and
declining year by year, inexorably. Now and then you hear
about a
mainline congregation that actually is growing, but all
such cases
are isolated and reflect local situations that are not
typical elsewhere.
3rd, heresy is normative throughout American "traditional"
religions, essentially
Christianity and Judaism. While Douthat doesn't say so,
this includes among
Evangelicals. It is less obvious among Catholics, who are
good at maintaining
the forms of their faith, but "cafeteria Catholicism" has
been a tradition of its own
since at least the 1960s or 1970s and, if anything, it is
more popular now than
at any time in the past. Judaism can almost be defined as
Jewish heresy,
it bears so little resemblance to Judaism of the past, a
trend that even exists
among the Orthodox even if not as pronounced.
But after this I part company with Douthat. He seems to say
that a return to
some version of Christian orthodoxy ( 'traditionalism' cie
vous plait ) is possible
if only the troops got psyched up for doing so and a few
resolute leaders
stepped up to the plate. To me that scenario is a pipe
dream.
Granted, exactly this can happen locally when circumstances
are favorable.
And I am not counting out the appeal of "identity
religion" --if you are Italian
surely you have feelings for "the" Church-- but in a
polyglot society, that is,
a religiously pluralistic society, this sort of thing
becomes more and more
difficult to promote and, once launched , to sustain --as a
religious activity.
What seems to me to be happening is a nationwide search for
a new kind of
religious perspective , one that makes sense in a
multi-cultural nation,
but not a viewpoint that accepts Leftist multi-culturalism
as valid,
or, anyway, as not more than one consideration out of
several.
Necessarily this will be unorthodox, necessarily it will
reaffirm many
past religious traditions, and necessarily it will be
American in very
basic ways. This has emerged nowhere on the scene but it is
what
seems to me to be the leitmotif of multitudes, where change
in
the spiritual marketplace is headed. Could be wrong, this
is
a conclusion based on a lot of reading and anecdotal
evidence
but with no comprehensive research study to support such a
view.
However, this does seem to be the road that we are
traveling.
Billy
==============================================
NYT Columnist at Q Conference: Bad Religion, Not
Atheism, Replacing Christianity
April 11, 2012|1:15 pm
The New York Times'
youngest-ever op-ed columnist and also one of the few
conservative Christians at the esteemed newspaper, Ross
Douthat, made the case at the Q Conference Tuesday evening
that it is not atheism that is replacing American
Christianity, but bad religion.
During an interview with Michael Cromartie, vice president
at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.,
Douthat presented key points from his soon-to-be released
book, Bad
Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics,
in which he examines the historical story of institutional
Christianity in America and then makes the case that heresy
– which includes the prosperity gospel – is threatening
American society.
"The overview basically makes the case that what has
happened in American religion over the last 50 years is not
that the country has grown more secular in any meaningful
way. And in fact, if you look at certain factors of
religiosity in American life – people reporting direct
experiences of God and spiritual experiences, even belief in
miracles and afterlife – there is evidence that America is
more religious now than in 1945 or 1955," said Douthat at
the Q event in Washington, D.C.
"But it is also less – I used the word heretics in my
subtitle because I think America is less orthodox Christian
than it used to be. And that is driven in large part by the
decline of the institutional Christian churches – both
Catholic and Protestant."
The mainline church has more or less collapsed and the
Roman Catholic Church is in a slow but steady decline,
observed the Catholic columnist. And while the evangelical
church has stepped into the void, there appears to be a
"ceiling" in its appeal and ability to bring people into its
fold.
Thus making room for heresy in America's religious
landscape, Douthat asserts. The author examines heresy in
America by looking at the prosperity gospel – the
relationship between money and religion in American life;
therapeutic religion – which includes Elizabeth Gilbert's
book that inspired the Julia Roberts-starring film "Eat,
Pray, Love," and the spirituality pushed by Oprah Winfrey,
Eckhart Tolle, and Deepak Chopra; and finally, Douthat looks
at politics and religion and the politicized heresy promoted
by both sides.
For the prosperity gospel chapter, Douthat revealed to the
Q audience that he starts with Joel Osteen and also talks
about Trinity Broadcasting Network.
And for the politics and religion chapter, the author noted
how different this presidential election looks from a
religious perspective. Obama previously attended a church
headed by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose "highly
politicized theology was self-consciously at odds with much
of historic Christian practice and belief," writes Douthat
in an April
8 op-ed based on his forthcoming book. And now, Obama
is an "unchurched Christian." Likely Republican nominee
Mitt Romney is a member of the Mormon church, which is still
looked upon with suspicion by most Americans regardless of
political affiliation.
Only Rick Santorum looks relatively similar to the
traditional Christianity of half a century ago, but "in a
nation as religiously diverse as ours, a staunchly orthodox
Christianity can seem like the weirdest heresy of all," he
writes.
Cromartie also steered Douthat into discussing same-sex
marriage, the sexual revolution and why Christians have a
hard time to articulate their case against homosexuality.
Christians have a hard time explaining why homosexuals
shouldn't marry because of the state of heterosexual
marriage, Douthat said, particularly in a culture where
no-fault divorces exist.
"Christians ended up in the position of basically saying,
well, we have a culture where marriage means whatever people
want it to mean," the New York Times columnist said. "And
heterosexuals are more or less going to do what they please,
but we are holding the line for this 2 percent of the
population that historically have been stigmatized and
persecuted."
The annual Q Conference, founded by young evangelical
leader Gabe Lyons, brings together some 700 Christian
participants from April 10-12 to the Andrew W. Mellon
Auditorium in downtown D.C. to hear prominent church and
cultural leaders give short presentations with the aim to
spur discussion and help Christians think of innovative ways
to shape the church's future role in culture.
The interview session between Douthat and Cromartie was
only 18 minutes long, the most given to any Q Conference
presenter or panel. The Q format only allows three-, nine-,
or 18-minute long presentations.
Douthat, who writes mostly on politics for the Times,
concluded with a warning note during an election year: "The
most important thing for Christians in my line of work or
who are directly involved in politics is to be always be
aware that it is staggeringly unlikely that the particular
policy positions, of a particular party, of a particular
time and place, matches perfectly with God's will for
humanity," Douthat stated. "And therefore, if you are a
Christian involved in politics, you have an obligation to
keep at the forefront of your mind that there must be at
least one place where you think God has a different view
from your party."
-- 