Tag Archives: Ross Douthat

Political Religion

In his book Bad Religion, Ross Douthat states: “Using the Word of God to support political causes has long marred Christianity.”

The interplay between Christianity and politics has long been discussed by both religious and secular thinkers. When Christianity began in the backwaters of the Roman Empire, it would hardly have been suspected of much influence. It came to the attention of Rome only after its rapid spread had disturbed the authorities by its devotion to another king, Jesus, called the Christ.

Few adherents of the new religion, however, advocated the overthrow of the Roman Empire. Indeed, the apostle Paul sometimes appealed to his Roman citizenship for protection. Roman roads meant the gospel could more easily be spread. Good government is indeed a blessing.

Roman authorities were mistaken in their belief that the Christianity of Jesus wished to overthrow the empire. When practiced, however, Christianity conquered the Roman empire, but by peaceful means. The government continued, but the practice of Christianity grew to become a major influence.

In its first few centuries, the interplay between government and religion continued. After Christianity became, not only tolerated, but ascendant, the temptation to use it for political purposes increased. However, the more that Christians attempted to use political power, the more they risked corruption.

Later, when religion and political power began to separate, Christianity grew. Those who chose a religion because they would be persecuted if they did not, now were free to leave. Many did. However, the new freedom meant that the remaining members were more committed to their faith. Their dedicated work drew in new members.

In areas like the southeastern United States (where I grew up), the general population was more “religious” in the sense of church membership. Religion became part of the general culture. That included a kind of civil religion.

For many, this meant choosing a political party which catered to religious beliefs. Even though you could choose your religion, you were more favorably accepted, including politically, if you were culturally Christian. Such societies, however, tend to ignore the hard parts of the gospel.

It’s not a coincidence that slavery and then segregation became embedded in southern culture, while the area was termed more “religious” than other parts of the nation.

However, it’s also not a coincidence that Christians have been among those fighting first slavery and then segregation. Stories are legion of southern children growing up in a segregated society who eventually took their Christianity so seriously that they become convinced that racial discrimination was terribly wrong.

The fact that such struggles continue should not surprise us. Those who take Christ seriously, while often a minority, often surprise us with the changes they ultimately birth.

Perfect in Weakness

Plough magazine devoted an issue (“Made Perfect; Ability and Disability,” Winter 2022) to those with special challenges: physically and mentally, as well as one person suffering from a mysterious, intractable illness. The articles remind us of Christ made flesh, experiencing human suffering as we do. He knew the shortness of life, the little time left to accomplish whatever we are here to do.

In his long struggle with what turned out to be Lyme Disease, Ross Douthat talked of faith surviving (“Hide and Seek with Providence”). “To believe that your suffering is for something, that you are being asked to bear up under it, that you are being in some sense supervised and tested and possibly chastised in a way that’s ultimately for good. . . . God brought you to it. He can bring you through it . . ..”

The articles are a blessing at any time, but especially as the Covid pandemic is reminding us of our vulnerability.

I don’t think we are being asked to overcome Covid just so we can buy more stuff. What we’ve lacked most in the recent past, I think, is community. If we have any ability to learn from our long Covid night, surely it’s the need to grow our communities.

We are all vulnerable, handicapped in some degree or another. We are all in need of family, neighborhood, and spiritual communities. When our acquisitiveness runs rampant, as seems often to be the case in these latter years, the pandemic can be a reminder of our more basic needs

Anti-family, Finance-dominated System?

In a column in The New York Times, Ross Douthat noted a Fox News commentary in which Tucker Carlson accused Republicans of building “an anti-family, finance-dominated economic system.” (“Tucker Carlson Versus Conservatism,” January 12, 2019)

Among Douthat’s comments on Carlson’s commentary, was his mention of the “family wage” of the 1940’s and 50’s—a wage that allowed “a single breadwinner to support a family.”

Today, women have followed men into employment, often a necessity since one wage no longer supports an average family.

However, it also has to do with women finding their way back into the economic sphere, where they always played a role until the industrial revolution began separating work and family.

Today we have need of different career models for men as well as women .

Careers, more often than not, require a major investment of time while workers are in their twenties and thirties—also the years when parenting is a vital job.

Writes Douthat: “Is there really nothing conservatives can do to address the costs of child care, the unfulfilled parental desire to shift to part-time work, the problem that a slightly more reactionary iteration of Elizabeth Warren once dubbed ‘the two-income trap’?

“If marriages and intact families and birthrates declined as the family wage crumbled, perhaps we should try rebuilding that economic foundation before we declare the crisis of the family a wound that policy can’t heal.”

Separation Without Withdrawal?

Rod Dreher, author of the much-discussed book The Benedict Option, commented on his book in Plough Quarterly (Summer, 2017). His book takes its name from Saint Benedict, a Christian monk in Italy during the Middle Ages. Benedict set up a religious order to, in Dreher’s words, “best serve the Lord in community during a terrible crisis.”

In commenting on his book, Dreher said, “Put all thoughts of total withdrawal out of your mind. That is not what the Benedict Option calls for.” It does, however, call for “a strategic separation from the everyday world.”

Following Dreher’s article, Ross Douthat, a columnist for The New York Times, continued a series of commentary on the book. Douthat seems less certain that the future is quite as bad as Dreher depicts.

“But,” Douthat writes, “I also don’t think it necessarily matters . . . because I think where we are right now is clearly a place where many of the things he calls for . . . are necessary and useful and important, no matter what happens in ten or twenty or thirty years.”

Douthat added, “Building resilient communities may not be the answer; . . . but it is an incredibly important answer to the challenges of our time.”

Not all communities are good. Nevertheless, even destructive communities like street gangs and the Islamic State illustrate the craving we all feel for identity and purpose.

The loss of community—the loss of belonging—fosters lack of purpose. Without purpose, we flounder.