Although the
title sounds polemical, Ross Douthat's book is actually a thorough,
thoughtful and scholarly study of the ways in which the orthodox tenets
of Christianity are losing ground to the many popular heresies of the
day and the ways in which this phenomenon affects the church and the
social and political culture of the country.
My
IPad version of the book now is covered with yellow highlighting and
notes. This is not a quick and easy read because it is so
thought-provoking that I often put it away for a while in order to
digest a new insight.
Beginning
with the fundamentalist-modernist conflicts of the early twentieth
century in the mainline Protestant denomination, Douthat sets the stage
for his thesis that
"America's problem isn't too much religion or too little of it. It's bad religion:
the slow-motion collapse of traditional Christianity and the rise of a
variety of destructive pseudo-Christianities in its place."
These
pseudo-Christianities include accomodationism, the embrace of
Gnosticism, solipsism, messianism, utopianism, apocalypticism,
nationalism and the prosperity gospel. As Douthat trenchantly observes
in the prologue, heresies have always sought to simplify and eliminate
the paradoxical and difficult teachings of Jesus into something that
better fits the spirit of the culture and the age.
Historically,
orthodox Christianity has been strengthened when it is forced to
defining its beliefs against the popular heresies of the day. As Douthat
says "Pushing Christianity to one extreme or another is what Americans
have aways done. We've been making idols of our country, our pocketbooks
and our sacred selves for hundreds of years. What's changed today,
though, is the weakness of the orthodox response."
As
a Protestant I was unaware of the extent to which the cultural
conflicts which roil the mainline denominations have also affected the
Catholic church in America until I read this book. Douthat makes a
persuasive case connecting the decline of orthodox belief in all
denominations to the rise of the hyper-partisan gridlock in our
government that threatens the future of the country.
Douthat
is even-handed in his criticism. Readers will nod in agreement over
some passages and then squirm uncomfortably as their own presuppositions
are questioned.
The
concluding chapter notes that Christianity through the ages has
weathered other eras of decline and revived itself with reformation and
offers four opportunities for its recovery in the present age which
would make great discussion for study and book groups.
Bad Religion
is an excellent book. I highly recommend it to my Gentle Readers who
are interested in the intersection of Christianity with American culture
and politics.
