“I think it is very clear that, though great difference remained, evangelicals moved closer to Catholics, mainline Protestants and evangelical Protestants moved closer together, and this convergence coincided with greater institutional strength for all the Christian churches than, for the most part, you see today.” ThinkingTodayChristianTogetherDifferencesChurchClearGreaterCatholicMovedProtestantsEvangelicalChristian ChurchConvergence Author:Ross Douthat
“It's just silly to look at the incredibly steep decline in the mainline and the clear institutional weakening of Catholicism in the 1960s and 70s and pretend that something really big didn't change then. It did change. There really was a significant institutional decline.” LooksBigsClearSillySignificantCatholicismDecline1960sSteepWeakening Author:Ross Douthat
“It's not always clear where a healthy patriotism shades into a dangerous nationalism.” ClearDangerousHealthyNationalismShade Author:Ross Douthat
“Americans are an "almost chosen people," which is meant to suggest that there are clear parallels, literal, theological and everything else, between the American story and the Old Testament story of Israel and then the broader story of the Christian church. It's OK to recognize the parallels. It's OK to invoke them. But, you have to keep that "almost" in front of the "chosen." You can't go all the way and say, "America is Israel, America is the Church." That's where I think patriotism shades into, what I call, the heresy of nationalism.” PeopleThinkingWayStoriesChristianAmericaChurchClearFrontsIsraelChosenNationalismShadeTestamentParallelsHeresyLiteralTheologicalOld TestamentInvokeChristian Church Author:Ross Douthat
“Institutional Christianity has had clear secular benefits to American life for hundreds of years. It's played both a prophetic role in terms of generating moral critiques of American excesses, and so on, and also a communal role, in terms of building community as the country moved westward to the role my own Catholic Church played in assimilating generations of immigrants.” YearsCountryTermCommunityChurchMy OwnMoralChristianityRolesClearGenerationsBuildingBenefitsCatholicMovedImmigrantsExcessSecularCatholic ChurchCritiqueAmerican LifePropheticBuilding Community Author:Ross Douthat
