"Bad Religion" by Ross Douthat

[Jane]

"Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics": Has anyone else read this yet? It's a recent release, and it looks interesting.

Here's an excerpt from the book description:

Quote: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 rails—and 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 nation’s political and economic crises. He argues that America’s problem isn’t 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, it’s 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.

[dramaturge]

I don't always agree with Douthat, but I always find his articles well-articulated and thought-provoking. Sounds like a thoughtful book.

[Historian]

Based on that quote, it sounds like he has some excellent points.