{"id":17262,"date":"2018-03-24T00:46:54","date_gmt":"2018-03-24T07:46:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=17262"},"modified":"2018-03-24T00:46:54","modified_gmt":"2018-03-24T07:46:54","slug":"chalko-bad-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/chalko-bad-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"Chalko – Bad Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ross Douthat in His book Bad Religion[1]<\/strong><\/a> <\/em>clearly informs us of how America has become, as the subtitle says, a nation of heretics. Douthat walks us through American history, explaining how Going America started with an overwhelmingly Christian background, and experienced two great revivals and saw God in many places along the way, and yet somehow bring us to today, where the Christian voice of the nation has being minimized. Douthat in my opinion, is one of the more persuasive and writers we\u2019ve engaged with so far in this class. And Douthat is equally as persuasive when interviewed and debating with live like he did when he was a panelist on Bill Maher\u2019s HBO \u201cnews\u201d show. Douthat hits this topic of the rise and fall of American Christianity from many angels and ends with a helpful and hopefully prophetic word for how the Church can redeem it\u2019s place in our nation\u2019s conscious.<\/p>\n

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One of Douthat\u2019s strongest (and most painful) points came in chapter three where he talked about the Church\u2019s unfortunate accommodation tendencies. For over the half the 20th<\/sup> century the public grew and a certain type of awareness and began witnessing the church, reinterpret centuries of Christian tradition and theology to accommodate the new consensus of the culture. This had huge repercussions for the public\u2019s general attitude toward the church, most of all a lack of confidence that the Church holds all the truth. This lack of credibility was multiplied by the church being racked with scandal, which then lead to even more scrutiny from every variety of the elite and leading voices in America. With all of this our nation lost its dominant voice that it took for granted for many centuries. This process that Douthat enlightens his reader with is sobering. Among many things I am convicted first and foremost to to buckle down and really consider what I believe. We all obviously have lenses and backgrounds, and how much of how<\/u> I read the Bible is due to the fact that I have been influenced by a \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/u>\u00a0(fill in the blank) culture.<\/p>\n

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Another rather enjoyable part of this book for me actually came from Samuel Chand in his book Leadership Pain[2]<\/strong><\/a><\/em> which we will be reading shortly. I have gotten a head start into this book because it is what the leadership team at my church has decided to go through with together. Sam Chand summarizes much of this book in chapter 2: External Challenges. Chand <\/em>summarizes that Douthat identifies \u201ca number of ways Christianity positively influenced America up to the last decades of the twentieth centuries.\u201d Then he lists the five major social catalysts that happened somewhat simultaneously to produced a combined effect that greatly stunted the strength of the church.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Political polarization<\/li>\n
  2. The sexual revolution<\/li>\n
  3. Globalization and modern communication<\/li>\n
  4. Rising prosperity<\/li>\n
  5. The elite of each communities are most affected by these previous four problems and have lead the masses further away from Christianity because of this.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    On a side note, one of my highlights of this year has been to see how these books have interacted together and how each any of the books have referenced each other. Chand references Douthat, and Douthat referenced Hunter[3]<\/a>, and there have at least a handful of other connections as well.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Toward my dissertation topic, I highlighted some of the sections of the book that talked about clergy and seminary trends and statistics. Because of shift of culture in America, Seminaries began experiencing huge drops in attendance. Those were in interested in pursuing full time vocational began finding more appealing callings. With the dropping of perceived respect\/admiration of clergy and the rising frequency of scandals, skepticism, and suspicion of the public to the pulpit, many seminaries began facing serious enrollment problems. This led to budgetary concerns and many institutions began to water down their admission process or grow hybrid programs to try and attract more students. Still many decided to pursue \u201csecular work\u201d in the social sector, where they could be on the front lines and still actively doing the same type of work that they might have been in ministry. Ie. counseling or teaching. that came with minsiteral work. What also exasperated this migration was America\u2019s reaction to it\u2019s families and its new desire to prefer therapy over theology, and counseling over pastoral care. \u00a0Douthat writes, \u201c”As [the philosopher] Ronald Dworkin pointed out … the United States has witnessed a hundredfold increase in the number of professional caregivers since 1950. Our society boasts 77,000 clinical psychologists, 192,000 clinical social workers, 105,000 mental health counselors, 50,000 marriage and family therapists, 17,000 nurse psychotherapists, 30,000 life coaches–and hundreds of thousands of nonclinical social workers and substance abuse counselors as well.\u201d[4]<\/a> This helps me hone in my on my writing, as I consider other reasons why perhaps there was a nation wide migration away from ministry degrees. Is there anything I can do to make it a \u201chybrid\u201d in a good way that will better equip more saints and ministers.<\/p>\n

    I was surprised that this book became one of my favorite reads. Me ending question was Douthat right? I like what Randall Balmer said in his NY Times Review of Bad Religion \u201c<\/em>Finally, the fact that we are having this conversation at all (much less in the pages of this newspaper) is testament to the enduring relevance of faith in what sociologists long ago predicted would be a secular society.\u201d[5]<\/a> Many have shouted for decades that the US will become post-Christian as Europe did decades ago, but perhaps they were always wrong, and perhaps as Douthat prays, it can become the majority voice again.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Works Cited<\/u><\/p>\n

    “Book Review: To Change the World, by James Davison Hunter.” 9Marks. Accessed March 18, 2018. https:\/\/www.9marks.org\/review\/change-world\/.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Chand, Samuel R. Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth<\/em>. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2015.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Douthat, Ross Gregory. Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics<\/em>. New York: Free Press, 2013.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Elmore, Tim. Generation IY: Our Last Chance to save Their Future<\/em>. Poet Gardener Publishing, 2010.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Hunter, James Davison. To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World<\/em>. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    [1]<\/a> Ross Gregory Douthat,\u00a0Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics<\/em>(New York: Free Press, 2013).<\/p>\n

    [2]<\/a> Samuel R. Chand,\u00a0Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth<\/em>\u00a0(Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2015).<\/p>\n

    [3]<\/a> James Davison Hunter,\u00a0To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World<\/em>\u00a0(New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010).<\/p>\n

    [4]<\/a> Ross Gregory Douthat,\u00a0Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics<\/em>(New York: Free Press, 2013).<\/p>\n

    [5]<\/a> “Book Review: To Change the World, by James Davison Hunter,” 9Marks, accessed March 18, 2018, https:\/\/www.9marks.org\/review\/change-world\/.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Ross Douthat in His book Bad Religion[1] clearly informs us of how America has become, as the subtitle says, a nation of heretics. Douthat walks us through American history, explaining how Going America started with an overwhelmingly Christian background, and experienced two great revivals and saw God in many places along the way, and yet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[870,7,1213],"class_list":["post-17262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bad-religion","tag-douthat","tag-lgp8-dminlgp-douthat","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17262"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17263,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17262\/revisions\/17263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}