E.J. Dionne: Christianity is struggling with itself, and that suggests it's on the path to rediscovering its true calling
[E.J. Dionne, Jr. is the author of the recently published Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right. He is a Washington Post columnist, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a professor at Georgetown University.]
...Will Herberg wrote an important piece of religious sociology in 1955 called Protestant, Catholic, Jew. If he were here now, his book would have to be named Protestant, Catholic, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Confucian. And even that ungainly title wouldn't exhaust the possibilities.
In fact, the United States has gone through many periods in which religious enthusiasm and affiliation waned, only to be renewed in a subsequent revival. Christianity is a rather durable faith. Many believers would ascribe this to the power of its truth claims, but its resilience also speaks to the adaptability of its core message.
But, yes, something is changing, and that change will strengthen rather than weaken the Christian church over the long run. For nearly a quarter-century, Christianity in the United States has been defined to a large degree by the voices and the ideas of a very conservative strain of evangelical Christianity that, over time, became highly politicized and closely allied with a single political party.
These conservative Christians had as much right as any other group to bring their core concerns to politics. But in doing so, they narrowed the Christian message. They sometimes became apologists for politicians whose behavior and attitudes could not easily be called Christian and forgot that Christ himself became a victim of injustice at the hands of a mighty empire.
As James Carroll notes in his lovely new book, Practicing Catholic, the idea that there is no "light of Easter dawn" without "the darkness of the Good Friday noon" is at the heart of the Christian message. It entails the "exaltation of servanthood over lordship" and a Resurrection that turns "defeat into a kind of victory."
Religion is always corrupted when it gets too close to political power. It's possible to win a precinct caucus and lose your soul, to mistake political victory for salvation itself.
It is this approach to Christianity that is decidedly in decline, thank God, in part because conservative Christians themselves are rediscovering the Church's mission to the poor, the sick, the strangers and the outcasts. This augurs new life, not decay....
Read entire article at New Republic
...Will Herberg wrote an important piece of religious sociology in 1955 called Protestant, Catholic, Jew. If he were here now, his book would have to be named Protestant, Catholic, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Confucian. And even that ungainly title wouldn't exhaust the possibilities.
In fact, the United States has gone through many periods in which religious enthusiasm and affiliation waned, only to be renewed in a subsequent revival. Christianity is a rather durable faith. Many believers would ascribe this to the power of its truth claims, but its resilience also speaks to the adaptability of its core message.
But, yes, something is changing, and that change will strengthen rather than weaken the Christian church over the long run. For nearly a quarter-century, Christianity in the United States has been defined to a large degree by the voices and the ideas of a very conservative strain of evangelical Christianity that, over time, became highly politicized and closely allied with a single political party.
These conservative Christians had as much right as any other group to bring their core concerns to politics. But in doing so, they narrowed the Christian message. They sometimes became apologists for politicians whose behavior and attitudes could not easily be called Christian and forgot that Christ himself became a victim of injustice at the hands of a mighty empire.
As James Carroll notes in his lovely new book, Practicing Catholic, the idea that there is no "light of Easter dawn" without "the darkness of the Good Friday noon" is at the heart of the Christian message. It entails the "exaltation of servanthood over lordship" and a Resurrection that turns "defeat into a kind of victory."
Religion is always corrupted when it gets too close to political power. It's possible to win a precinct caucus and lose your soul, to mistake political victory for salvation itself.
It is this approach to Christianity that is decidedly in decline, thank God, in part because conservative Christians themselves are rediscovering the Church's mission to the poor, the sick, the strangers and the outcasts. This augurs new life, not decay....