num_pages: 337
description: From the popular New York Times columnist a powerful and original critique of how American Christianity has gone astray  and the deeply troubling consequences for American life and politics. As the youngest-ever op-ed columnist for The New York Times and the author of the critically acclaimed books Privilege and Grand New Party Ross Douthat has emerged as one of the most provocative and influential voices of his generation. Now he offers a masterful and hard-hitting account of how American Christianity has gone off the rails  and why it threatens to take American society with it.In a story that moves from the 1950s to the age of Obama Douthat brilliantly charts traditional Christianitys decline from a vigorous mainstream and bipartisan faith  which acted as a vital center and the moral force behind the Civil Rights movement  through the culture wars of the 1960s and 1970s down to the polarizing debates of the present day. He argues that Christianitys place in American life has increasingly been taken over not by atheism but by heresy: Debased versions of Christian faith that breed hubris greed and self-absorption. Ranging from Glenn Beck to Eat Pray Love Joel Osteen to The Da Vinci Code Oprah Winfrey to Sarah Palin Douthat explores how the prosperity gospels mantra of pray and grow rich; a cult of self-esteem that reduces God to a life coach; and the warring political religions of left and right have crippled the countrys ability to confront our most pressing challenges and accelerated American decline.His urgent call for a revival of traditional Christianity is sure to generate controversy and it will be vital reading for all those concerned about the imperiled American future.
language: English
title: Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics
publisher: Free Press