TV Note: Ross Douthat on C-Span Book TV: "How We Became a Nation of Heretics"

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David Shasha

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May 21, 2012, 8:19:42 AM5/21/12

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Friends,

I would like to recommend a program on C-Span’s Book TV featuring New York Times’ columnist Ross Douthat.

http://www.booktv.org/Program/13398/quotBad+Religion+How+We+Became+a+Nation+of+Hereticsquot.aspx

I previously made note of Douthat’s appearance on the Bill Moyers PBS program where he showed himself to be an intelligent and thoughtful analyst of religion and culture in America. In this Book TV presentation he appears at Washington’s National Press Club discussing his new book Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics.

While Liberals will find some of what Douthat says – especially in his New York Times’ columns – to be doctrinaire Right Wing talking points, in his discussion of American Christianity he is once again quite thoughtful and insightful. He represents a refreshing change from much of the standard blather about religion that passes for wisdom in our time. From a Jewish standpoint, Douthat’s trenchant analysis of the often deflating pretentions of Conservative religious life stands in stark contrast to mindless pundits like Dennis Prager and Michael Medved, whose rigid partisanship undermines any possible insight they might be able to provide.

Douthat seems to be grasping for the concept of Religious Humanism, though he has not seemed to find that phrase in his lexicon. But he is one of the few critical analysts of religion today who is taking on many of the sacred cows of the Right Wing in the name of a more humane and authentic religious vision. It is interesting that one of the two respondents to his talk, George W. Bush advisor Michael Gerson, basically shreds many of Douthat’s central positions. One by one, Gerson in his response aggressively tries to reject Douthat’s Religious Humanism, instead affirming the reactionary positions held by Bush and his promotion of a heartless form of religion which sought to affirm the most primitive instincts in Americans – greed, violence, arrogance, lack of concern for other human beings – and which has led us to our current malaise.

The Douthat talk is sure to captivate those interested on what is happening with religion in America and how politics have been affected by these troubling trends, trends that Douthat has marked as “heretical.”