Ross Douthat has miraculously brought social conservatism rooted
in Christianity onto the New York Times editorial pages
for perhaps the first time in several generations. His achievement
is remarkable, especially at only age 32. His new book
Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics was
deservedly featured at the National Press Club on April 17, hosted
by the Trinity Forum.
Initially raised Episcopalian, Douthat saw his parents take his
family through an evangelical and Pentecostal phase before becoming
Roman Catholic. So having experienced all three major legs of
traditional American Christianity, he is a well-equipped
commentator. He also personally experienced the increasing American
proclivity for “pin-balling from church to church,” unmoored from
any deep tradition.
America is not post-Christian, or secular or pagan, as too many
allege, Douthat insists. Christianity remains the overwhelming
“controlling influence,” and Americans are as religious, or more
so, than ever. But with traditional churches weakened, they are
also increasingly heretical in their faith understanding. Americans
have traditionally reinvented their religion, he readily
admits.
“We’ve always been a nation of heretics but they didn’t have the
field to themselves,” Douthat observed. The “shocking” collapse of
once dominant Mainline Protestantism has especially left American
religion divorced from institutional guidance. Growing evangelical
churches have not been sufficient to fill the cultural and
spiritual void.
Thanks to neo-orthodoxy, Mainline Protestantism did recover from
early 20th century liberalism in America’s post World War II
revival, Douthat recalled. Catholicism also left its ethnic ghettos
in the 1940s and 1950s to become a forceful public voice. Joined by
previously marginalized black churches, American Christianity
across two decades achieved a “convergence” that the 1960s
shattered.
Douthat faults the Sexual Revolution, Mainline Protestantism’s
slide into far left politics, divisions within Catholicism, and
surging American affluence, which challenged traditional Christian
notions of ascetic self-denial. The popular new heresies are
prosperity Gospels, self-actualized faith in the “God within,” and
American nationalism. Leftist Christian nationalists still believe
in building a New Jerusalem in America through political power.
Conservatives believe America’s Founders created the perfect
kingdom that liberalism has despoiled. Douthat acknowledges he’s
pessimistic about orthodox Christian revival. Previous revivals in
America had stronger institutional churches. Non-denominational
Christianity, buffeted by an increasingly hostile surrounding
culture, may not have the stamina for launching a
come-back.
In his response to Douthat at the National Press Club, former
George W. Bush presidential speechwriter Michael Gerson hailed
Douthat’s book for uniquely espousing Christian orthodoxy and even
concluding with an altar call, while still likely becoming a
New York Times best seller. But Gerson suggested at times
it lacked “charity” towards its targets. He defended evangelical
Christianity, especially Pentecostalism, which is the fastest
growing segment of global Christianity. And he warned against
romanticizing poverty while critiquing prosperity gospels. Millions
of evangelical Third World poor are not necessarily wrong to expect
that reformed living may rescue them from squalor.
Gerson also complained that Douthat unfairly accused President
George W. Bush of a “divisive public piety,” while also labeling
the Iraq War as “messianic nationalism,” which Gerson called
“nonsense.” That war was a “prudential calculation” about removing
a mass murderer, Gerson countered. He also defended evangelicals
from Douthat’s charges of tacky church architecture, absence of
liturgy, and a talent deficit in literature. Evangelicals
faithfully worshipping in school gymnasiums may leave few marks of
high culture but their faith has eternal consequence. Gerson
smilingly surmised Douthat envisions an ideal church full of
artistically sensitive, intellectual sophisticates. “I’d like to
visit that church but I’m not sure it would have a large
congregation,” Gerson concluded.
Douthat accepted Gerson’s critique graciously, acknowledging his
own perspective is Catholic and not evangelical. While celebrating
the rapprochement between American orthodox Protestants and
Catholics, he surmised: “It’s important for Catholics to be
Catholic and Protestants to be Protestant.” Gerson agreed with
Douthat’s premise that politicized faith can be damaging. But he
hailed evangelical/Catholic cooperation as a cultural “camaraderie
of the fox hole” that is “one of the best things to happen in
American religion.”
Despite his professed pessimism about American Christianity,
Douthat riposted, “Our faith is dependent on unexpected
resurrections.” In its earliest centuries, thriving Christianity
was countercultural. It may yet again sufficiently resurrect to
transform American culture.
Douthat’s sanguine view on the future of America and its faith
is itself deeply in keeping with American Christianity. Nearly
every generation of American revivalists across four centuries has
warned its contemporaries against spiritual laxity and impending
demise. And almost all American Protestant revivals have emerged as
a reaction against religious institutions, not because of them.
Meanwhile, liberal Catholicism seems to be ebbing, though Douthat
warned against the proclivity of some conservative Catholics to
assume they’re a faithful remnant within the church.
Somewhat in keeping with the late Richard John Neuhaus, who
insisted America remained exasperatingly Christian despite all
evidence to the contrary, Douthat’s underlying theme is still
hopeful. America’s “heretics” are still clinging fretfully to
Christianity. And sometimes heretics later become saints.
