Ross Douthat: "Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics"
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-04-19/ross-douthat-bad-religion-how-we-became-nation-heretics
In the years following World War II, traditional religious institutions flourished: more than half of all Americans attended weekly church services, and 70 percent were formally affiliated. Religion dominated public discourse and helped propel the civil rights movement. But the culture wars of the 1960s triggered a downward spiral for mainstream Christianity that has continued to the present day. In a new book, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat argues that this loss of a traditional, Christian center is at the heart of America’s current crisis. He says we’ve become a nation of heretics and explains what that means for our future.
Guests
Ross Douthat
Op-Ed columnist, The New York Times.
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Program Highlights
Polls consistently show that large majorities of Americans classify themselves as religious, but the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled since 1990. In a new book, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat argues this rejection of traditional religion in favor of so-called pray and grow rich churches and spiritual journey-seeking has dire consequences for American society. Douthat's new book is titled "Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics."
More Americans Don't Identify With A Specific Religion
Douthat said that the social scientist Robert Putnam has called this phenomenon of Americans not identifying with a specific religion "the rise of the nones." Some people see this as a real sign of secularization. "This is a sign that more and more people are just post-religious," Douthat said.
Is Politicization Of Religion A Reason For Alienation?
There's a perception now that "...to be a Christian is to be a Republican, right. Or that to be involved in the Episcopal Church means having endless fights over homosexuality and property disputes and so on," Douthat said. The real challenge for religious people is that it's not enough to say, "Let's get religion out of politics," he said. There has always been and always has to be room in American life for healthy expressions of religion and politics "that challenges making sure that religion influences partisanship rather than partisanship influencing religion," Douthat said, which he believes is a "tricky thing to pull off."
A Failure Of Institutional Religion
Institutional churches must "get their houses in order," Douthat said. That being said, it's too simplistic to point the finger at corrupt clergymen, the corrupt hierarch, and so on, he said. Diane pointed out that going to church won't solve the economic and social problems the U.S. is having right now. Douthat countered that going to church "can provide a useful corrective to the idea that the best way to live out your spiritual life is to sort of match your spirituality to your own impulses," he said.
You can read the full transcript here.
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And let's not overlook the role Tele-Evangelists had.
I wonder what his response would be to Barry Goldwater, who said:
"Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the (Republican) party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankley these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise." -Barry Goldwater, Nov. 1994, from John Dean's Conservatives Without Conscience.
Many religious texts warn of the power of the dogma. Many encourage people to reach beyond the standard teachings. An ancient example comes from the Bhagavad Gita.
2.48-52
"When your understanding has passed
beyond the thicket of delusions,
there is nothing you need to learn
from even the most sacred Scripture."
The issue with organized religion is that their goal is to make one feel guilty for being a human being. And, if you do that long enough, people will loose faith, stop going to the church, and stop paying the organization.
Interesting, that he is not responding to the number of scandals uncovered about the Catholic Church over that last 3 decades.
People in this country have been misled to think that if you are a Christian you have to embrace conservative views. These conservative views are not from Christ, but from hierarchical "strict father" Catholicism or fundamental literal conception of Scripture taken out of context.
There is also a liberal Christianity that has been largely silenced, but is based on Christ's exhortations to look after the poor and heal the sick, the very things the conservatives repudiate.
Spending a fair amount of time in a nursing home north of Dayton Ohio which had formerly been a Catholic convent. Many older nuns in their 80's and 90's spending their older years in the very place that they were novices and teachers. Lots of time talking with them about the private wars that went on between the male patriarchal system embedded in the Catholic church and the Catholic nuns of many orders in the 60's. Was witness to the exodus of many nuns during this period as a student in Catholic schools.
I believed as a young person and still believe now that many of the Catholic churches problems had to do with the inability and refusal of this embedded patriarchal system to move over. Acknowledge that the bulk of the work of the Catholic church was being done by nuns. Male dominated church with men in fancy expensive ropes and hats conducting ceremonies and allegedly channeling the power of spirit. Move over fellas never happened
In 'Losing My Religion', former L.A. Times religion reporter Bill Lobdell left his Catholic faith when he encountered the institutional cover-up of the priests and monks who raped children for decades. If you want to understand this problem from the inside out, read this book.
Why instituional religion is better than my personnel experience?
Many folks saying no need to have a Religious institution claiming to be the intermediary between the individual and spirit
I wonder how the guest can reconcile his resistance to combining the teachings of multiple religions when his own faith - Catholicism - is a conglomerate of beliefs and rituals borrowed from many other religions (including Judaism, Paganism, etc.)
Institutional religion also gave us the Crusades, Pogroms, persecution of witches (even when they didn't exist), and rationalists like Gallileo, and many, many more. When do we stop accepting this misery?
It is interesting to hear all the conversation that is centering around the word "heretic." Historically the concept of the Christian heretic surfaced in Rome circa 325 A. D. in the aftermath of the Council of Niceae and the Nicene Creed. The Council created what is today the Roman Catholic church centering around a statement of beliefs the Nicene Creed which were woven from a number of Roman state religious beliefs (the trinity, the son of god, the sabbath occurring on Sunday, the resurrection after death, etc. all came from Roman paganism and not from Christian teaching of the first 325 years after Christ. This creed became a mandated new Roman state religion and their were in those days Christian believers who resisted the combining of these pagan beliefs/traditions into what was to become Roman Christianity. Those who resisted were called Choice Makers....they chose not to accept the new mandated state religion. There was a Latin (Roman) word "Hereticus" that was the label they were given. It is the root of the modern word Heretic. Heretics were not accepting the new Roman religion. Oddly the true heretics of that age were the founders of the Nicene Creed.
Today many of us are heretics in the true linguistically historical sense of that word. We choose not to accept religious orthodoxy and search for and find meaningful expressions of our innate human spirituality.
I am a veteran. I went in the Army as a true believing Christian, but left despising my faith and its complicity in the horrors of war. The chaplains were officers and they blessed us as we went to war doing things that were so anti Christian. They should have been telling us to be consciecious objectors. But they just blessed us on our return and sent us off the next day to kill again.
I eventually became a Quaker because they practiced what Christ preached
i'm going to go straight out and buy that book. i guess this is diane's rehm obligation to her handful of conservative listeners.
even though diane's views are completely biased on the lib side, i want to say thanks for having him on!
Douthat wonders (I don't remember his exact words) how outside of institutional Christianity one finds a standard by which to critique oneself. Ones religion becomes whatever one finds to affirm oneself.
As a lifelong serious Christian I find that is precisely what has happened to evangelical and Catholic Christianity. It has become identified with a particular American cultural viewpoint (southern, nationalistic, and racial "conservatism"). Within evangelicalism historic Christianity and the Bible are cherry-picked to justify this point of view and contradictory data are ignored.
The burden of proof is on anyone who wishes to justify the ongoing legitimacy of either of these groups (evangelicals and the catholic church).
I'll tell you why the Catholic orders have been shrinking is the fact that the white generally privileged males in the Catholic church have been unwilling to move over to the fact that the Catholic nuns have done the bulk of the heavy lifting in the Catholic church. I watched this for 12 years in Catholic schools, Nuns across the alley and priest across the street. The male dominated Catholic church is losing and will continue to lose until they get this
The point is not "going" to Church to first, the world's problems, but the "leaving " "missa" to be sent, I.e. the mass. It is taking our faith from the religion to the world.
I think a central problem is the concept of God, how we see God. Many anthropromorphize God and, even if not quite the wise, bearded old man, at least somewhat of a puppet master behind the scenes and beyond us. When God becomes an amorphous divine creativity within the universe, not so cognizant of itself but through the collective of some divine fabric that includes us, a different "story" or starting point can be achieved. Objective absolutism transforms to a developing adaptation with relativism more sensible than absolutism.
Thanks for the great discussion.
Greg Boyd's books Myth of a Christian Nation and Myth of a Christian Religion seems to touch on similar themes. Any thoughts on that?
What does Mr. Douthat think of Robert Funk Of the "Jesus Seminar"comment about needing to end the "brokerage" system in the churches today? and would he consider himself benefiting from it ?
Nothing irritates me more than hearing a Catholic apologist like your guest carry on about how personal faith based on internal meditation, a study of the various diverse spiritual traditions, and every person's God-given ability to know truth when it appears, is somehow inferior to accepting 2000 years of distortions, sexism, prejudices, and outright hypocrisy being peddled by the Catholic Church's out-of-touch leadership.
As an adult who was raised in the Catholic traditions, attended Catholic schools from first grade to the University of Notre Dame, and who is a seeker of truth by nature, I became increasingly disgusted by the b.s. being spouted by the Church regarding women's rights, pro-life vs pro-choice issues, and the abandonment of neutrality in the political arena in favor of mindless support for right-wing politics...I remain a recovering Catholic, and the recent Church decision to attack the American nun's organization for so-called "errors of doctrine" is just one more example of the conservative political agenda being foisted off as faith.
I choose to think on my own, and some of my thoughts are diametrically opposed to your core values. I'm not a communist, socialist, progressive, or conservative (I am not that easily pigeon-holed); but I do hold firm to the belief that at no time was there any thing in this country that resembles individual liberty. Everything this country has achieved in 236 years has not come one guy, but of many. One individual didn't win freedom from Britain, individual individual didn't create this government system, one individual didn't survey the Louisiana purchase, one individual didn't build the railroads, one individual didn't win the west, one individual didn't win WWI, one individual didn't invent the automobile, one individual didn't win WWII, one individual didn't put a man on the moon, one individual didn't invent the internet and one individual didn't create the debt.
American has always been and always will be a cooperative effort, and I find libertarians hold the opposite view. I support the view that I should, and I do, have the opportunity to pursue happiness in whatever form I want. However, this being the richest country in history, should have safety nets for when I fall or come up short. Please note I said it is a safety net not a way of life but if I have to choose between helping someone get out of the gutter and maybe supporting them for the rest of their lives, or helping someone make $15 million instead of $14 million because of a tax loophole, I will choose the former; it's cheaper in the long run and it's the right thing to do according to The Bible.
I was disillusioned very early on in life twords structured religion. I have tried a few different faiths, mostly monotheistic, and none really spoke to me, especially Western faith as represented in the USA. I veiw most Christian sects and churches and being hypocritical and money grabbers. I feel at this point in my life (I am nearly 27) that I have a very strong personal spirituality, and absolute faith in God, however I can not find a church that doesn't come across as high and mighty and self-serving. I believe in charity, helping our fellow man, truth and honesty, etc... I feel this personal empowerment of spiritualism has led me to be a better person, as I had to find my own way instead of just listening like a sheep at a church and then not following the principals taught to them anyway (as many of the Christians I know personally do). I think this "heresy" of America is not what is wrong with our current situations. I think that the main problem if anything, could stem from those church-goers who feel high and mighty and justified in there wrong doing BECAUSE they have the "backing of God." Who is to say what God wants? Certainly not me, and certainly not them.
I agree with your guest about how we're looking at what is religious thought. When I am too much inside my head, I call that 'reading from the Book of Kathy' and that's when I know I'm off base...
Listening to this nonsense makes me proud to be agnostic.
Instead of this shallow view of religion I would like to hear someone with philosophical or theological background. He provides very good arguments why one should stay away from institutions and megachurches.
Yes, God talks to institutions only…..
God is unlimited.
Any and all words are by definition limiting. Therefore, god does not manifest through words!
God is within--we are all god. When we become clear and free of stress and toxins, we know our godliness and our oneness with all that is.
Anything, including religion that intervenes by prescribing unnatural rules, pronouncements, directives in words separates man from god.
Being free of stress and toxins, being clear and rested, allows the human nervous system to be open to oneness and to see through "God's" eyes.
She sees that all is one. On the subtlest level, she sees that all is good and beautiful.
This is not taking one bit of dogma from here and one from there cafeteria style. It is finding the ways to god based on natural law. Not through foreign substances, including words of religions or media
There is nothing "outside" oneself. All things are perceived through one's own self either clearly or not. Therefore, one just needs simple natural ways to become clear.
One such set of techniques can be seen on Oprah's recent special on OWN about Fairfield Iowa and Transcendental Meditation, which she practices.
Mr. Douthat fails to recognize that for many of us, the advances of scientific knowledge have forced us to choose between living on faith or accepting the reality of observable fact.
I have chosen to conclude that observable fact is a better basis for decision making than continuing to believe in a faith I have reluctantly come to recognize is based on myth. I am sure I am not alone in this, and that many others have dropped from church membership for similar reasons.
What would Jesus do? Founding Father Jefferson -- did not care. To be a true United States there is no place for a national religion. But America is a religious nation with many religious colonies from the days of yore. I wish i could offer more.... .
Ross Douthat makes me happy I quit going to church. :-)