This week’s edition of Coffee & Markets features New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, author of Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, and a discussion of American religion and its impact on public life. Listen here.
Ross Douthat on Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics
I am glad to see this; I have long noted that there seems to have developed over the last generation or so something that can be called “American Christianity” or even just more generically an “American Religion” that’s sort of Jesus-y, but really centered either on the self or on a pseudohistorical, tribalist idea of America–an America that never really existed.
When I abandoned atheism and Christianity called to me, I chose a most orthodox form of Christianity, and from an orthodox view much of what passes for Christian in America these days looks mighty strange.
I am glad to see this; I have long noted that there seems to have developed over the last generation or so something that can be called “American Christianity” or even just more generically an “American Religion” that’s sort of Jesus-y, but really centered either on the self or on a pseudohistorical, tribalist idea of America–an America that never really existed.
When I abandoned atheism and Christianity called to me, I chose a most orthodox form of Christianity, and from an orthodox view much of what passes for Christian in America these days looks mighty strange.