Meet the Author
Ross Douthat is an op-ed columnist for the New York Times, and the film critic for the National Review. Previously, he was a senior editor at the Atlantic. He is the author of Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class (Hyperion, 2005) and Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics (2012), and the co-author (with Reihan Salam) of Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream (2008).
Book Basics
Douthat effectively argues that America’s religious problem is one of bad religion rather than one of too much or too little religion. Rather than focusing on the declining numbers of those affiliated with religious denominations and traditions known for their orthodox beliefs, he opts to explore the rising number of heretics within a country that continues to be the “most religious country in the developed world” (p.4). These heretics are changing the religious landscape like never before because the orthodox response to and ability to control their heresies has waned dramatically in recent decades.
Writing as a conservative Christian who was raised as a Pentecostal then converted to Catholicism, Douthat suggests that the best way forward is restoring orthodoxy as normative. He imagines institutional Christianity as having the ability to achieve this outcome. While one can find significant reasons to question the assumptions underlying the path he proposes leading toward the “recovery of Christianity,” it should be noted that his historical analysis of how the American religious landscape has shifted as the result of increasingly diverse beliefs is worth reading.
So What?
While there are significant differences of opinion about what the changing religious landscape means today and how this will impact the future, there is no disagreement that America continues to be an incredibly religious country.
- Do you believe increases in Christian religious beliefs that would have been viewed as heretical centuries ago are problematic? Why or why not?
- Do you agree or disagree that “cafeteria Christianity” dominates American religion today? Regardless of your position, how has it influenced your beliefs? your congregation’s ministry and mission? (speaking of the current dominance of “cafeteria Christianity,” Douthat writes, “No account of Christian origins is more authoritative than any other, ‘cafeteria’ Christianity is more intellectually serious than the orthodox attempt to grapple with the entire New Testament buffet, and the only Jesus who really matters is the one you invent for yourself” – p.181).
Ross Douthat. Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics (Free Press, 2012). ISBN: 9781439178300.