Bad Religion by Ross Douthat

Author interview

Last night one of my book clubs discussed this book. I must confess I did not read the entire book. I got about halfway through. As our meeting drew near, the leader of the discussion told us that if we had not finished the book yet, to read the final chapter where the author outlined some of the author's conclusions and suggestions, and I did that.

My dad also read the book and he remarked it had a lot of numbers. He quoted the line, "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics." True words, but it is pretty evident that church attendance, at least in North America is shrinking.

A big part of our discussion centered on the demise of institutional Christianity, or even more specifically, of denominations. One member, a pastor, said that when he is leading classes for new Christians he includes a discussion of why we should be thankful for the institution of denominations. One reason is that there is someone to appeal to beyond the local church or minister. There won't be a Jim Jones when you're in our denomination. I also am grateful for the ability to do more than a single church could do. Our denomination has a few colleges, a seminary, and many ministries throughout the world.

It was interesting, though, to talk about the future of denominations. Another member said that he had been personally saddened by the, what he feels is, the impending demise of his denomination, not only because of shrinking numbers but also theological divides. He talked about churches doing ministries on a micro-scale, more one-on-one, training each other and holding each other accountable to live out our lives, no matter what we do, as Christians.

In the book, Douthat gives a kind of history of Christianity in the US. He talks about how churches and Christian scholars had authority and influence in the past. He brings up renowned Christians such as C.S. Lewis, Reinhold Niebuhr and others who were looked at and listened to as people who had some authority and credence, but now we don't really have that kind of thing anymore.

Douthat talked about the "accommodationists," who try to figure out ways to make Christianity more accommodating to the general society. I can see his points but I don't really think that those kinds of changes are what caused people to stop going to church in as large of numbers as they did before.

I have a friend who was brought up in a mainline Christian church, he was active in the church's young people's group and his parents are still  active in church. But my friend married a woman who has no desire to participate in a church and, seemingly, no faith. Their life is taken up with family activities, their kids' sports and work and the feeling I get is they feel that their life is fine and they just don't need church life. My friend and I have not talked a whole lot about our personal beliefs but he doesn't have anything against religion or faith and I think he even prays and feels he does believe in God. I look at them and I have no idea what could cause them to desire to increase their faith and become a member of a church community.

Douthat, at the end of his book, talks fairly optimistically about the future of Christianity. He says:

...Christian witness needs to be public and evangelistic as well as intimate and personal....The future of American religion depends on believers who can demonstrate, in word and deed alike, that the possibilities of the Christian life are not exhausted by TV preachers and self-help gurus, utopians, and demagogues. It depends on public examples of holiness, and public demonstrations of what the imitation of Christ can mean for a fallen world...Only sanctity can justify Christianity's existence; only sanctity can make the case for faith; only sanctity, or the hope thereof, can ultimately redeem the world.

(If you, like me, need a reminder of what sanctity is, the definition is, "The state or quality of being holy, sacred, or saintly.")