Ross Douthat on "Post-Christian" America

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Among his choice tidbits:

Trump’s ascent was a testament to the strength of key heresies — prosperity theology, self-help religion and a jingoistic Christian nationalism — within the religious right. Notably, Trump’s main institutional connection to Christianity was his long-ago attendance at Norman Vincent Peale’s church in Manhattan, at the time when Peale was famous as the guru of spiritual self-actualization, the author of “The Power of Positive Thinking.”

Social justice progressivism has many influences, of course. But it has to be understood, in part, as a spiritual descendant of Puritanism, occupying the locus of Puritan power (the old Protestant citadels of the Ivy League and the Northeastern establishment), adapting the old spirit of moral perfectionism to a new set of issues and demands.

Opinion | The Americanization of Religion - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Discuss amongst yourselves.

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I don’t have a NYT subscription so can’t open the article but just a friendly reminder that since this is in the cafe, and not the political forum, please refrain from turning this political or it will get closed and moved. Thank you!

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Agreed. I should emphasize that the overall tone of the piece is agnostic in terms of which political party is the more “heretical”, to use his term. It’s just a series of observations, that’s all.

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Thanks—that was interesting. I’m not sure I agree with Douthat that progressive orthodoxy is heresy, though. I see the Puritan cultural influence in the element of social control, and constant policing of your own group. It’s very Scarlet Letter, with new definitions of behavior that deserves shunning. But it doesn’t seem to have any Christian foundation or overtones. Can they be heretics to Christianity if they are completely secular? I think Douthat’s point is that very “woke” progressives behave like religious revivalists—confessing, evangelizing, and banishing. But they are not claiming to be Christians, in fact they usually hold Christianity in contempt. This is different from Christian Nationalism and far-right politicians showboating as “Christians”. Among the kids I know in their teens and twenties, the second phenomenon has done far more damage to the image of the Church than the first. Thanks for pointing out the article!

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I think you’re correct in the technical sense; woke progressives aren’t going to reverse the fall in church attendance that Douthat predicts. But I think his overall point is that these quasi-revivalist movements may be taking the place of church attendance. I certainly wouldn’t underestimate the role of online communities that stack true believers together and do rely on a kind of universal sense of The Golden Rule, kindness to strangers, and some version of “the poor will always be with us.”

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If the first link is firewalled, this one shouldn’t be as I chose to “gift” the article from my subscription:

Now off to read it to see what I think…

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I would argue that Post-Christianity is a centuries-old reality and not a recent phenomenon.

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Interesting article and one area where I disagree with him is that the percentage population of Christian Americans was 90% in the 70s and 80s - or any time period. Sure, if they had to choose many would pick Christian, but they were no more so in their lives than my mom and dad were when both suddenly opted to go to church to show they were “good parents” in a custody dispute. Prior to that they just let my neighbors take my sister and I to Sunday School so they could have some time to themselves.

In today’s age it’s more accepted to be agnostic or atheist than it was in those days. The actual beliefs of people haven’t changed that much from what I see. Many more just don’t feel the need to go to or belong to a church for society’s eyes.

More recently, I fully agree with @3SailAway that Christian Nationalists have driven many of the younger generation off from any sort of Christian faith.

Incidentally, if one doesn’t cherry pick Bible verses, there’s nothing at all supporting Christian Nationalism - most who still claim the faith don’t actually read the Bible, esp New Testament. They just listen to leaders and agree with them - as has happened throughout history. The New Testament spends far more time telling folks to be “good” people in all their actions and doesn’t once call for human judgment of the world. Quite the opposite.

And… reading through the Bible, esp New Testament letters, there was plenty of heresy going on back then - quite similar to now. One thing I remark time after time in my “read through the Bible in a year” group is how much humans don’t change. Our species was the same in history as it is now. I predict it will remain the same in the future.

A true “life changing” faith is always going to be a small number of people, not high percentages. Some will follow good speakers who say what their itching ears want to hear and others will take their lead from various texts (both can be life changing faith in something). This isn’t limited to Christians. Many won’t care to put any sort of faith high in their lives, except maybe for special occasions.

It was true way back whenever and it will be true in the future. The only thing that will change is the number who claim anything, but don’t really “feel” it.

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Is it necessarily true that “woke” people (those who pay more attention to racial injustices and the like) are necessarily those who hold Christianity in contempt? “Woke” came from the AAVE dialect, whose main users (Black people in the US) tend to be more churchgoing than other people in the US.

This does appear to be the case to some extent, where “Christian” is sometimes used and seen as synonymous with “politically conservative on social issues, often with a veneer of (usually Protestant) Christianity or religion”.

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Douthat’s view on almost any issue is colored by his unusually high level of religiosity. I mean this guy is not just plain religious, or even deeply religious, this is a guy who has converted religions twice in his life (first to Pentecostalism, later to Catholicism); questions of religion are his lifelong obsession. So he can’t understand that for many people, theological questions just don’t take up any mental space. He struggles to see today’s non-believers in any other framework than as “heretics.” He can imagine people who would rebel against Christian “truth” by replacing it with religious thinking that is “wrong”, but he can’t wrap his head around people replacing Christianity with “meh, whatever.”

His other weakness is a bad case of “both sides-ism.” He is a Conservative, and it pains him so much to criticize his political party that any time he does so he has to immediately jump to spend equal column space criticizing the Liberals.

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I see. And I agree with you that this is not a recent phenomenon. Maybe everything after the small settlements of Pilgrims and Puritans is post-Christianity :thinking:. I do think that if you’re looking for a worldview with good basic values, tradition/history, some mysticism and paradox, and truly wonderful music, Christianity is a solid choice. Belief in a higher power, repentance and forgiveness, compassion for the suffering, mercy, humility, hope…Of course there are many problems in the interpretations of Christianity, and the various ways for leaders and congregations to be wrong/unhealthy.

I see your point that there are plenty of accessible choices outside of church attendance if you want to follow a spiritual path and belong to a community of believers today. There’s everything from support groups to yoga to all kinds of activities. Politics may not be fulfilling or positive as a spiritual calling, especially if you aren’t working in government, community organization, or law, but I don’t think it’s heretical unless groups/candidates are misusing religion.

I agree. The same percentage of people are likely to be devout, spiritual, extremist, secular, atheist, agnostic etc. as have always been. You’re right that we are just less inhibited by expectations about religion in society today. I do think that most human beings do better in families, whether blood-families or found-families, and in smallish communities. Church congregations can play the community role well, but so can schools, neighborhoods, some work places, and all kinds of groups—volunteer, activist, interest, sports, even online.

I wan’t clear on my definition of “woke,” which is not Black Evangelicals, who are definitely traditional Christians. What I am thinking of, and what I think Douthat means, is youngish, white, wealthy, college educated, very online people, many of whom are aware of systemic injustices in America (which is good progress). But they don’t seem to have realized that bringing about lasting change is long-term, complex work requiring far more than language policing and social media activism. From what I’ve experienced, this group does not hold Christianity in high regard, even though the roots of social justice and the Civil Rights movement lie in Christianity.

I don’t think these people are a threat to our democracy, or bad people—they are just young, passionate, and sucked in by the drama of culture warring. I wish them well, and I hope most of them will find real life callings to make a concrete difference in the lives of individuals, or even on a societal level.

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Yes. But also, various denominations or sects might define “Post” as the After of any point of religious or cultural change. I think Douthat himself hearkens to a 20th Century notion of Christianity, perhaps even a pre-Vatican II notion since his conversion to Catholicism.

Ultimately, I would argue that you have to define Christianity before you can refer to Post-Christianity. There are many, many kinds of “Christians”, and there have been for 2000 years. And guess what? They disagree with each other. Sometimes a lot! So who’s “Post” is he referring to?

When Douthat says “the Christian percentage of the U.S. population… hovered around 90 percent in the 1970s and 1980s,” I think he is romanticizing that most of them believed in the specific Christian tenets that are important to him.

I don’t think Douthat is referring just to the younger woke generation. One of the reasons “wokeness” has grown is because enough of the older generation (White and non-White), as well as Corporations, have joined. This is threatening to someone who longs for the comfort of a majority of Americans self-identifying as Christian.

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As people often do when they refer to, “The good old days” with any topic, not just faith based. Norman Rockwell’s world.

I hear people lamenting all the sex in everything now and want to tell them to look at the artwork from ancient days (Biblical days) if they think it was “better” then.

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True “Christians” follow the teachings of Christ. I know a lot of people who do not identify as Christian, but they live their lives in a manner that reflects the teachings of Christ. And many that identify as Christian do not live their lives in a way that reflects the teachings of Christ. As it was, as it is, and as it will be. I prefer to keep religion and politics separate because of this reality.

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Agree. I had a classmate whose philosophy was like Douthat’s. He liked sparring with a strident atheist. But he had no idea what to do with my agnostic philosophy of “if there is a God, how could that all powerful, all good entity possibly care wherever I believed in him, her, it, so long as my actions showed kindness and compassion to my fellow human. Caring about that seems terribly small and petty.”

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Your argument that “Post-Christianism” is a centuries old reality, and not a recent phenomenon, is correct. It dates back to 380 AD, with the Edict of Thessalonica, which made Nicene Catholicism the state church of the Roman Empire, and most importantly, condemned other Christian cults as heresy (and of course the Jews, too) and AUTHORIZED THEIR PUNISHMENT.

The use of religion as a means of uniting one large group of people in order to gain power, and oppose (and eliminate) other groups of people is as old as religion itself. Why should we be surprised that the White Christian Nationalist movement in the US is any different?

What is most disturbing to me is that, since we do not have a universal draft, our military (and other important, influential government agencies) has been heavily infiltrated and and is increasingly being dominated by adherents of the White Christian Nationalist movement, largely out of proportion to their numbers in the population. If this is allowed to continue, we are facing a military coup overthrowing US democracy. Look at the example of Syria. Alawites were a persecuted, relatively small religious minority there. Because other avenues were closed to them, and because no one wanted their sons to serve in the military, the Alawites wound up comprising a significant proportion of the military, with an Alawite commander (Hafez Al Assad) seizing control via a series of military coups. That small religious minority brutally dominates Syria to this day.

The solution to the rising influence of White Christian Nationalism in our military is instituting a mandatory, across the board draft of ALL our young people, male and female, to serve two years of national service, be that military, or in other non-military national service, no exemptions allowed. This would serve to homogenize the population, and would facilitate the representation of a much broader cross-section of our population in the military, and thus serve as a bulwark against White Christian Nationalists dominating the military. It would be even better could we mandate public K-12 education, with all religious education being held outside of normal school hours, but I don’t think that’s ever going to happen in this country.

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And most importantly for today’s current events, never quite reached the Eastern Orthodox branch.

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The current US military considers only about 29% of young Americans suitable for US military service, and needs nowhere near that many to meet its recruiting goals.

So a universal draft would mean selection or self selection into military service for a small percentage, and finding civilian work for the vast majority in other national service.

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Being ex military and ex homeschooling parent myself, I hope neither happen. I’d switch away from “whatever side” if it were even on a politician’s platform.

No, we don’t need everyone in the military and no, public schools don’t suit everyone’s needs.

And no, I’m not worried about a military coup.

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It’s not for the purpose of populating our military that we should have a universal draft/national service for our young people. It’s so that we get a representative broad cross section of society in our military, and also for the sake of many of the young people, too, who would serve in some capacity of national service for two years. The ones considered unsuitable for military service would probably benefit greatly from two years of work experience in national service.

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