“One of the things I try to do is take seriously some of the forms of American religion that people consider to be shallow and try and figure out why they have such a strong appeal and tease out the theology they actually represent.” PeopleTryingFormStrongFiguresTheologyAppealsShallowTease 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
“Many things about American life, that even secular people consider good, have flowed from the presence of a robust, resilient institutional Christianity.” PeopleChristianitySecularResilientRobustAmerican Life Author:Ross Douthat
“The fact that institutional churches have gone into decline doesn't mean that we're going to enter some purely secular age. Secular people need to be aware of that.” PeopleNeedsMeanFactsAgeChurchGoneDeclineSecular Author:Ross Douthat
“What replaces Christianity isn't going to be Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and so on. It's going to be something else and something secular people may not like very much.” PeopleMayChristianitySecular Author:Ross Douthat
“The idea of universal human rights may not seem as weird to some people as the idea of a personal God, but it is still a metaphysical idea that liberalism, at least as we know it, couldn't really survive without.” PeopleKnowsHumansMayStillsIdeasSeemsRightsUniversalHuman RightsLiberalismMetaphysical Author:Ross Douthat
“Even secular people can't really escape from the need to rest their ideas on some belief, some sort of commitment that is not scientific commitment.” PeopleNeedsIdeasBeliefCommitmentSecular Author:Ross Douthat
