Thoughts on the Prologue

I have to admit, Ross Douthat had me from the beginning.  I’m accustomed to the idea that America’s decline might be the result of straying form religion but that it might be the result of not too little faith, but too much of the wrong kind, was a new idea to me.

On reflection, it only makes sense.  Mankind is hard wired for belief—the only question is in what or whom.  Douthat (and Dylan) get it right: you gotta serve somebody—but who and how is the defining question.

One thing that Douthat’s book places squarely at issue even in these opening pages is the claim of Christian faith that it is the way, a claim of exclusivity that does not sit well in modern life.  Of course, understanding the nuances of that claim takes more work than the average jingoist is willing to invest, and it doesn’t mean what most of us think it does—but there’s still the claim that there really is a preferable way to relate to God and each other and that not all ways work equally well.  In other words, that what Douthat calls a River of Orthodoxy really does exist.  Some readers, I think, will have a hard time getting past that first proposition.  As a society we have begun to lose—if we have not yet lost altogether—the idea that there really is something called truth that is defined outside ourselves, something we serve rather than define, something that makes demands on all of us and something we have a hard time understanding completely because we all see different aspects of it.  Perhaps it is this latter characteristic that leads to the underlying heresy that there is no truth.  If truth is so hard to define, perhaps it's just easier to proceed by assuming that it doesn't exist at all.

If, however,  one accepts the proposition that both truth and orthodoxy exist, the first pages of the book provoke some interesting and disquieting thoughts.  I often hear discussions of how far American has slid into decadence and very often the discussion is couched in terms of “others.”  The emphasis is always on how politicians, Hollywood, the media—just to name a few—have facilitated the slide into chaos that so many of us see around us now.  The abortion issue is a pretty good example of how easy it is to fall into the us-them dichotomy.   Discussion often devolves to how some particular group is at fault for the plague of abortion: radical feminists, politicians (especially wimpy Catholic ones), the secular society, Planned Parenthood.  Get a discussion on abortion going and it won’t be too long before some participant finds someone else to blame.  Rarely do I hear thoughtful examination of how one’s own behavior might be found wanting in this area—in part because we look only at grand ideas (does one support abortion or not) rather than how we got to the place where supporting late-term abortion is not only a plausible idea but a fact of modern life.

But the reality is that society is made up of us all, and it is only in community that our communal self that is manifest.  It’s a bit like water—individual molecules of water themselves are not wet.  Wetness is only manifest when a bunch of water molecules get together—and suddenly this otherwise hidden property becomes really, really evident.  So it is with the character of society.  If we are a nation of heretics, it’s because we as persons carry heresies that become manifest when we all get together and they become really, really obvious.  An example: once well meaning Christians decided that matrimony was no longer essentially tied to procreation and accepted artificial contraception as licit and desirable, it is no particular surprise that other, less desirable conclusions followed whether we meant to imply them or not and whether we accept them personally or not.  It’s a hidden aspect of our internal being that becomes manifest only in community.  It’s how a society in which the majority (a seemingly slim majority but a majority never the less) still stands intellectually against abortion paradoxically has real-life Kermit Gosnells in its midst.

So I think it’s important to read this book not just looking at where we are as a society but as individuals as well, to look at the heresies that we find comfortable as well as the ones we do not, for they all have broader implications when we as persons join together to make communities.  If nothing else, the contemporary fix we find ourselves in should demonstrate that heresies that seem minor in persons have a way of being unpleasantly amplified in communities.  I have read this book as a personal examination of conscience as much as an interesting social commentary.  The most important parts are the ones I find myself disagreeing with...I want to examine why more closely.

Douthat points out that it is unreasonable to expect a heresy-free life, and that the chariot of orthodoxy always careens between competing falsehoods seeking to overturn it.  Jesus himself told us as much in the parable of the wheat and the tares.  In the Church, in society, and in persons, heresy and truth will live side by side until the end of time.  It is unrealistic to expect otherwise.  We can never be rid of sin—or heresy—on this side of eternity.

But Douthat’s point is that the weeds have begun to overcome the wheat, in part because we as individuals can no longer distinguish between them, perhaps because the weeds are more attractive.  We’ve been feeding the weeds rather than the wheat for along time now (communally and personally) and in ways we neither recognize nor understand because those particular weeds seem so reasonable and so appropriate and so comfortable and are so familiar.   

Returning to the contraception analogy:  The first concession to the use of artificial contraception by the Lambeth Conference in 1930 explicitly stated that it was aimed at exceptional, unusual use only when dire circumstances made it necessary for a couple for good and serious reasons to avoid conceiving a child—and good and serious reasons were considered few and far between.  The compromise was seen as a narrow exception to an otherwise sound rule that forbade artificial contraception in married life.  Today to suggest to a married couple that they not routinely use contraception (or to suggest that having more than two children is a positive good) is considered laughable because it makes life so much easier to contracept and to limit family size to one or two children and it is a reasonable thing to do these days.  

Easy and reasonable are wonderful things, but they are neither of them modifiers that I see particularly applicable to a religious life lived out with enthusiasm.  In fact, if life is too easy, it might be a warning that I’m wandering astray from the River of Orthodoxy. 

Pope Francis’ homily today contained the following:

A Christian is a person who opens up his… heart with this spirit of benevolence because he… has all: Jesus Christ.  The other things are “nothing.”  Some are good, they have a purpose but at the moment of choice he…always chooses all …to live like this is not easy…

My challenge to myself is this: to read the coming pages not just as commentary but as personal inquisition.  What quiet compromises with the demands of orthodoxy have I made in my life—and how does it play out in community?  Where am I making heretical choices that I do not even recognize?  What is wheat, what is weeds?  What in this book is about me rather than about others?

Martha

Prologue --- Another Viewpoint

I admit that I was confused by the book title:  Bad Religion; How We Became a Nation of Heretics.  From the title, I thought the book was about the decline of orthodox religion and perhaps what to do about it, but the Prologue quickly puts that to rest.  No, the book is about the decline of America, which was brought about by the decline of orthodox religion.  In the opening sentence, the author defines this fallen America as “spendthrift, decadent, and corrupt.”

As I continued reading, I was looking for further definitions and proofs for these two coincident declines, the focus of the book, and the relating causality.  Thus far, what I have read are either the unsupported assumptions of the author, or truths offered because “some people have said..”.   I hope things get better.

For example, early on he states that the Christian right “insists that the United States was founded as an explicitly ‘Christian nation’”.   Insists?  Explicitly?  I know many people who would define themselves as part of the Christian right, but none who insist the United States was founded explicitly Christian.  Nor would they agree that de Tocqueville implies that “the eclipse of Christian belief (leads) inevitably to the eclipse of public morality and private virtue alike.”  These are assumptions of the author, as is his huge conclusion:  “To the extent that there’s an ongoing crisis in American culture, the excesses of the faithful probably matter more than the sins of unbelievers … because America’s problem is … bad religion.”

Defining “bad religion” as heresy, the author goes on to state that “Americans … take it for granted that orthodoxy without room for heresy is dangerous.”  Really?  That’s news to me.  Facts, please??  Rolling through more assumptions, he concludes that “competing heresies may be precisely the thing that keeps the edifice of Christian faith upright.”  I guess that’s kind of like the old adage that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” but that’s just an adage, not a truth.

Some other assumptions for which I’d like supporting facts are:

“What’s changed today is the weakness of orthodox response.”  Could he cite some strong orthodox responses in the past which stemmed the tide of decline?

“Christian tradition … confronts believers with the possibility that the truth about God passes all our understanding.”  So I guess that Christian tradition also believes that we CAN possibly understand God.  That’s news to me.

“The Church had the opportunity … to make it more consistent and less mysterious” by agreeing with Gnosticism or Marcion or Pelagius.  Those were “opportunities” to take or not, kind of like a coin flip, or taking off daisy petals and saying “she loves me, she loves me not?”

“Christian heresies … almost all have in common a desire .. (to produce) a more reasonable version of Christian faith than orthodoxy supplies.”  So, orthodoxy is not reasonable?  The author needs to read the catechism section on the relationship of faith and reason.

“Christianity in America, where the faith is uncorrupted by state power … resembles the climate of the early Church.”  This is such a stretch, I almost can’t comprehend his point.

In years past, “In the nations of Europe where orthodox belief was backed up by force of law” the faith declined, but “in America, because orthodoxy couldn’t be taken for granted, orthodoxy came alive.”  This assumption should be shown to Cardinal Dolan.  Apparently we shouldn’t worry about the HHS mandate or religious freedom, because if our faith is outlawed, it will thrive, because backed in law it declines.  So, I imagine that the Christians in Iran should be thrilled that their faith is outlawed, and Muslim faithful should be worried about their faith declining under sharia law.

I admit that all my comments above are colored by two facts:  I am an analyst by nature, and I distrust anyone associated with the New York Times.  And those aren’t assumptions.  While I agree in general with the tone of the author, religion and America are in decline, and that is a bad thing, he gives no weight to those who would say they are not in decline --- and there are many, and those who would say that if they are, this is a good thing --- and, unfortunately, there are many of those also. 

And I guess at this point I have one more thing which bothers me about the topic.  IF orthodoxy is in decline, and IF this somehow is causing a decline in America, I strongly suspect that the general “heresy” cause needs to be further broken down.  All heresies can’t have equal weight in their impact on the culture.  Which one(s) are the weightiest, or the foundation of the decline?  If we are going to “fix” something, a New Evangelization, what do we focus on?          

Joplin