Ross Douthat - Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics

AS THE YOUNGEST-EVER op-ed columnist for the New York Times , Ross Douthat has emerged as one of the most provocative and influential voices of his generation. In Bad Religion he offers a masterful and hard-hitting account of how American Christianity has gone off the railsand why it threatens to take American society with it.

Writing for an era dominated by recession, grid-lock, and fears of American decline, Douthat exposes the spiritual roots of the nations political and economic crises. He argues that Americas problem isnt too much religion, as a growing chorus of atheists have argued; nor is it an intolerant secularism, as many on the Christian right believe. Rather, its bad religion: the slow-motion collapse of traditional faith and the rise of a variety of pseudo-Christianities that stroke our egos, indulge our follies, and encourage our worst impulses.

These faiths speak from many pulpitsconservative and liberal, political and pop cultural, traditionally religious and fashionably spiritualand many of their preachers claim a Christian warrant. But they are increasingly offering distortions of traditional Christianitynot the real thing. Christianitys place in American life has increasingly been taken over, not by atheism, Douthat argues, but by heresy: debased versions of Christian faith that breed hubris, greed, and self-absorption.

In a story that moves from the 1950s to the age of Obama, he brilliantly charts institutional Christianitys decline from a vigorous, mainstream, and bipartisan faithwhich acted as a vital center and the moral force behind the civil rights movementthrough the culture wars of the 1960s and 1970s to the polarizing debates of the present day. Ranging from Glenn Beck to Barack Obama, Eat Pray Love to Joel Osteen, and Oprah Winfrey to The Da Vinci Code , Douthat explores how the prosperity gospels mantra of pray and grow rich, a cult of self-esteem that reduces God to a life coach, and the warring political religions of left and right have crippled the countrys ability to confront our most pressing challenges and accelerated American decline.

His urgent call for a revival of traditional Christianity is sure to generate controversy, and it will be vital reading for all those concerned about the imperiled American future.

PRAISE FOR BAD RELIGION

Not only is Ross Douthats account of orthodox Christianitys decline provocative, but his critique of todays ascendant heresies is compelling. This volume is a sustained proof of Chestertons thesis that when people turn from God, they dont believe in nothingthey believe in anything. Everyone who is interested in why the church is faring as it is in U.S. culture today needs to get this book.

Timothy Keller, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York City

Bad Religion is superb: sharply critical of the amazing variety of American religious pathologies, but fair; blunt in diagnosis, but just; telling a dark tale, but telling it hopefully. For those trying to understand the last half-century or more of American religion, and to strive for a better future, it is an indispensable book.

Alan Jacobs, author of The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis

Ross Douthats thoughtful, articulate, wide-ranging, sometimes contrarian, and always provocative new book asks a tough question: Why has Christianity been so misunderstood, and so misused, in the past few decades? From those who (foolishly) watered down the most basic Christian beliefs to those who (falsely) promised worldly success to the followers of Jesus, the values of orthodoxy (literally, right belief) have often been blithely set aside. With an impressive command of both history and contemporary social trends, Douthat shows not only how we ended up with a Christianity of our own making, but also how we can reclaim an adherence to the teachings of the real Jesusnot just the convenient one.

James Martin, SJ, author of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything

Bad Religion is nothing short of prophetic. In a time of religious, political, and cultural upheaval, Ross Douthat tells the American faithfulliberals, conservatives, and everybody in betweennot what we want to hear, but what we desperately need to hear. With this provocative and challenging work that no thoughtful Christian can afford to ignore, Douthat assures his place in the first rank of his generations public intellectuals.

Rod Dreher, author of Crunchy Cons and senior editor of The American Conservative

ROSS DOUTHAT is an op-ed columnist for The New York Times . He is the author of Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class and coauthor of Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream . Before joining the Times he was a senior editor for The Atlantic . He is the film critic for National Review , and he has appeared regularly on television, including on Charlie Rose, PBS Newshour, Real Time , and The Colbert Report .

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ALSO BY ROSS DOUTHAT

Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class

Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream (with Reihan Salam)

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Copyright 2012 by Ross Douthat

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Douthat, Ross Gregory.

Bad religion : how we became a nation of heretics / by Ross Douthat.1st Free Press hardcover ed.

p. cm.

1. ChristianityUnited States. 2. Catholic ChurchUnited States. 3. Theology, DoctrinalUnited States. 4. United StatesReligious life and customs. I. Title.

BR526.D68 2012

277.3'083dc23

2011043081

ISBN 9781439178300

ISBN 9781439178348 (ebook)

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