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How We Became a Nation of Heretics
Free Press
April 2012
On Sale: April 17, 2012
352 pages
ISBN: 1439178305
EAN: 9781439178300
Kindle: B005FLOGC2
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction Religion
As the youngest-ever op-ed columnist for the New York Times, Ross Douthat has emerged as one of the most provocative and influential voices of his generation. In Bad Religion he offers a masterful and hard-hitting account of how American Christianity has gone off the railsโand why it threatens to take American society with it. Writing for an era dominated by recession, gridlock, and fears of American decline, Douthat exposes the spiritual roots of the nationโs political and economic crises. He argues that Americaโs problem isnโt too much religion, as a growing chorus of atheists have argued; nor is it an intolerant secularism, as many on the Christian right believe. Rather, itโs bad religion: the slow-motion collapse of traditional faith and the rise of a variety of pseudo-Christianities that stroke our egos, indulge our follies, and encourage our worst impulses. These faiths speak from many pulpitsโconservative and liberal, political and pop cultural, traditionally religious and fashionably โspiritualโโand many of their preachers claim a Christian warrant. But they are increasingly offering distortions of traditional Christianityโnot the real thing. Christianityโs place in American life has increasingly been taken over, not by atheism, Douthat argues, but by heresy: debased versions of Christian faith that breed hubris, greed, and self-absorption. In a story that moves from the 1950s to the age of Obama, he brilliantly charts institutional Christianityโs decline from a vigorous, mainstream, and bipartisan faithโwhich acted as a โvital centerโ and the moral force behind the civil rights movementโthrough the culture wars of the 1960s and 1970s to the polarizing debates of the present day. Ranging from Glenn Beck to Barack Obama, Eat Pray Love to Joel Osteen, and Oprah Winfrey to The Da Vinci Code, Douthat explores how the prosperity gospelโs mantra of โpray and grow rich,โ a cult of self-esteem that reduces God to a life coach, and the warring political religions of left and right have crippled the countryโs ability to confront our most pressing challenges and accelerated American decline. His urgent call for a revival of traditional Christianity is sure to generate controversy, and it will be vital reading for all those concerned about the imperiled American future.
 Media BuzzOn Point - February 18, 2014
Diane Rehm Show - NPR - March 14, 2013
Diane Rehm Show - NPR - April 19, 2012
Weekend Edition Saturday - April 14, 2012
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