"Heretics": The Crisis of American Christianity

[Deleted]

www.npr.org/2012/04/14/150437554/heretics-the-crisis-of-american-christianity

The United States ranks as the most religious country in the developed world. And New York Times columnist Ross Douthat says that despite our politics, debates and doubts, this country is as God-besotted today as ever.

But in his new book, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, Douthat argues that religion has fallen into heresy (hence the feisty subtitle). Douthat recently spoke with NPR's Linda Wertheimer about why he thinks American Christianity has become distorted.

Interview Highlights

On the decline of institutional Christianity

"Institutional religion in the United States — institutional Christianity in particular — is much, much weaker today than it was 40 years ago. But religion itself is as strong as ever. ... But the eclipse of institutional faith, and the eclipse of what I would say was a kind of a Christian center that the country used to have, has created a landscape where religion divides us much more than it used to."

On heresies

"The heresies that I write about are what flourish in the vacuum that's left by institutional Christianity's decline. So if the country remains religious, but the institutional churches are weaker than they used to be, what steps into the breach?"

On the heresy of The Da Vinci Code

"I start with the project to basically go back into the gospels of the early church ... and to sort of fashion a Jesus who seems to fit the modern world better than the Jesus of the Nicene Creed. And this project is best embodied by Dan Brown and by The Da Vinci Code. ... Brown himself is very explicit that he has a theological, philosophical message about what direction Christianity — what direction religion — should go in. And that direction is toward this alternative Jesus that he's sketched out, who is ... a much more congenial figure for a lot of Americans than the Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John."
Ross Douthat's conservative commentary has been printed in The New York Times, The Atlantic and other publications. He is the author of Privilege and the co-author of Grand New Party.
Josh Haner/Free Press

On the heresy of the prosperity gospel

"From there I move toward heresies that are about money, basically, and about the idea that God wants you to get rich. This is the prosperity gospel. It's Joel Osteen. It's the televangelist you see on TV. All of these heresies I talk about speak to aspects of contemporary life, where traditional Christianity rubs up against the way we live now, and people don't like it. ... We're a rich country. We're a capitalist country. We're a country of strivers and go-getters. And the prosperity gospel says that's what God wants. God wants you to be rich. Which is not precisely the message of the New Testament."

On the heresy of Eat, Pray, Love

"From there I move to what I call the god within, which is the heresy of Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love, of Oprah Winfrey, of Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle. ... It's less that God wants you to be rich and more that God is there to make you feel happy about yourself. And that the point of spiritual wisdom is not necessarily strenuous prayer and fasting and moral transformation. It's more sort of blessing impulses you already have. ... This ends up putting a kind of Christian stamp on narcissism, where the things we already want to do, we tell ourselves, are things that God wants us to do, too.

On what Christians should do about these heresies

"I don't have sort of a five-point plan for rebuilding Christianity in America. ... The main point that I'm trying to make is that whatever happens to the institutional churches, individual Christians can try to essentially be better Christians, and honor the complications and paradoxes and tensions of this ancient faith a little better, and not just go as quickly to the easy answer."

On Christianity's staying power

"I'm not without hope. I mean, Christianity is a 2,000-year-old religion. And if you look back across these various crises in Christianity's past, there's again and again been an assumption: Well, the Roman Empire is falling and Christianity will fall with it. Islam is rising, and it's going to just erase Christianity from the map. Charles Darwin has just disproved Christianity, and nobody's ever going to hear from it again. And Christianity has been very resilient."

[AW]

I agree with a lot of what was copied here. I feel like the church has "sold out" in many ways. Churches will say that they have to do it in order to "save souls" and to keep the church fresh and hip. Shouldn't the gospel be enough?

But it isn't anything new. Culture has always had an influence on churches and denominations have split over it.

I feel like the problem now is that the "heretics" outnumber the "true" believers. More Christians subscribe to the prosperity stuff and the universalist stuff than those that have more fundamentalist views. So now the "fundies" are the ones labeled negatively - called legalists and anything else mainstream Christians try to call them in order to protray them as too extreme. The problem is that the things most churches preach today, or the ways in which they try to appeal to non-believers, don't resemble anything remotely Biblical, in my opinion. That's why fundamentalism is becoming more popular. Some Christians don't like where things are headed and there is a push to model things after the early church. Since we can't pinpoint exactly where we got off track, perhaps it's best to start over and look to the early church, and the lifestyles of it's members, as a model.

At least this is what I see happening around me.

[marynjoe]

On the heresy of the prosperity gospel
From there I move toward heresies that are about money, basically, and about the idea that God wants you to get rich. This is the prosperity gospel. It's Joel Osteen. It's the televangelist you see on TV. All of these heresies I talk about speak to aspects of contemporary life, where traditional Christianity rubs up against the way we live now, and people don't like it. ... We're a rich country. We're a capitalist country. We're a country of strivers and go-getters. And the prosperity gospel says that's what God wants. God wants you to be rich. Which is not precisely the message of the New Testament.

Do not get me started on Joel Osteen. I will not watch him and his popularity bothers me. He basically preaches that if you believe in God, you will make more and have everything you want. People who are desperate are following him because they're struggling financially, not because they want to turn their life over to the Lord. It they do become Christians, they'll probably become bitter later because it didn't turn out like Joel promised. I read one of his books and was shocked at a few things he said. Prosperity Gospel is so misleading. As a Christian, you may never have what you want financially while here on Earth; your reward comes later.

[Deleted]

I think its great - the more fragmented religion becomes, the more infighting it has, the more confusion within it, and the more ridiculous it looks, the weaker it becomes.

Sorry, I know thats not the point of the article, but from an atheist point of view - knock yourselves out guys lol!

[2vermont]

May 13, 2012 20:03:19 GMT -5 marynjoe said:

On the heresy of the prosperity gospel
From there I move toward heresies that are about money, basically, and about the idea that God wants you to get rich. This is the prosperity gospel. It's Joel Osteen. It's the televangelist you see on TV. All of these heresies I talk about speak to aspects of contemporary life, where traditional Christianity rubs up against the way we live now, and people don't like it. ... We're a rich country. We're a capitalist country. We're a country of strivers and go-getters. And the prosperity gospel says that's what God wants. God wants you to be rich. Which is not precisely the message of the New Testament.

Do not get me started on Joel Osteen. I will not watch him and his popularity bothers me. He basically preaches that if you believe in God, you will make more and have everything you want. People who are desperate are following him because they're struggling financially, not because they want to turn their life over to the Lord. It they do become Christians, they'll probably become bitter later because it didn't turn out like Joel promised. I read one of his books and was shocked at a few things he said. Prosperity Gospel is so misleading. As a Christian, you may never have what you want financially while here on Earth; your reward comes later.

I'm glad you wrote this because I really didn't know much about Joel Osteen and I thought that perhaps this article described him incorrectly. I thought he was just the latest and greatest televangelist. This sort of preaching blows me away because it is so clear that Christ speaks of choosing between God and money, blessed are the poor, etc.

[Deleted]

May 13, 2012 20:19:55 GMT -5 @reeve said:

I think its great - the more fragmented religion becomes, the more infighting it has, the more confusion within it, and the more ridiculous it looks, the weaker it becomes.

Sorry, I know thats not the point of the article, but from an atheist point of view - knock yourselves out guys lol!

I am with you. I think this guy was on either Colbert or Stewart a few weeks ago and I remember rolling my eyes a lot but can't recall the specifics.

[emmybean]

May 14, 2012 5:46:22 GMT -5 @mjmksb04 said:

May 13, 2012 20:19:55 GMT -5 @reeve said:

I think its great - the more fragmented religion becomes, the more infighting it has, the more confusion within it, and the more ridiculous it looks, the weaker it becomes.

Sorry, I know thats not the point of the article, but from an atheist point of view - knock yourselves out guys lol!

I am with you. I think this guy was on either Colbert or Stewart a few weeks ago and I remember rolling my eyes a lot but can't recall the specifics.

He was on NPR several weeks back, and I was so entertained by his panic over the fact that Americans screwing it up for all of Christianity. But then again, I'm a godless heathen already, so the only thing I worry about are those who really do think they need a god to guide their morality running amuck in a post-Christian nation.

[Deleted]

May 13, 2012 20:03:19 GMT -5 marynjoe said:

On the heresy of the prosperity gospel
From there I move toward heresies that are about money, basically, and about the idea that God wants you to get rich. This is the prosperity gospel. It's Joel Osteen. It's the televangelist you see on TV. All of these heresies I talk about speak to aspects of contemporary life, where traditional Christianity rubs up against the way we live now, and people don't like it. ... We're a rich country. We're a capitalist country. We're a country of strivers and go-getters. And the prosperity gospel says that's what God wants. God wants you to be rich. Which is not precisely the message of the New Testament.

Do not get me started on Joel Osteen. I will not watch him and his popularity bothers me. He basically preaches that if you believe in God, you will make more and have everything you want. People who are desperate are following him because they're struggling financially, not because they want to turn their life over to the Lord. It they do become Christians, they'll probably become bitter later because it didn't turn out like Joel promised. I read one of his books and was shocked at a few things he said. Prosperity Gospel is so misleading. As a Christian, you may never have what you want financially while here on Earth; your reward comes later.

I started watching Joel Osteen on television a few years ago after one of my church friends raved about him. I think that his message can be good for people like me who have a lot of anxiety and feel unlovable. But I started to grow uncomfortable with his "buddy Jesus" message. While I agree that the overarching message of the Gospel is that God is love, Jesus didn't come to preach puppies and rainbows.

Now Osteen's slick hair and the fact that he preaches at the Compaq Center give me the willies.

[marynjoe]

Read Joel Osteen's book "Your Best Life Now" or whatever it's called. It is totally a feel good book and some of it is ridiculous. I remember reading it and thinking, 'I can't believe he really wrote that!!" I remember one comment about a person desperately needing a car, so they should give away their car and God will bless them with a new one. Something like that. I was all WTF? I think Joel is very misleading. And what about that talk show when he refused to answer the question "Do you think non-believers will go to Hell?" Joel was too much of a wussy to say what he felt. He side-stepped the question with a "I'm not here to judge." No, he's not, but he could still honestly answer the question. He'll say whatever it takes to make people like him.

[zelda25]

I hate him so much. I can't read his byline in the paper without seeing Ross Douchehat.

[AW]

There is a series of youtube videos of Joel Osteen versus Paul Washer that shows the heresy of Osteen compared to the true Gospel (IMO). They are pretty enlightening.

[AW]

May 14, 2012 17:37:46 GMT -5 @AW said:

There is a series of youtube videos of Joel Osteen versus Paul Washer that shows the heresy of Osteen compared to the true Gospel (IMO). They are pretty enlightening.

Here is the best one - youtu.be/M7zcDFyUN_I

[druidp]

Gag me with a TV evangelist.

I used to work for one and had to edit this tripe into digestible segments of broadcast television. You could often feel the palpable tension in the studio while half of us were fuming and the other half were daydreaming about the riches they'd inherit if they just donate to so-and-so's ministry.

BLECH. Watch out, folks, I believe your tables are about to get turned by a freakin' crazy-angry dude named Jesus.

[stephiehun]

May 14, 2012 17:25:33 GMT -5 zelda25 said:

I hate him so much. I can't read his byline in the paper without seeing Ross Douchehat.

Seriously. I can't take anything he writes seriously b/c he is SUCH a douchebag. He makes me all stabby.

[Deleted]

Osteen makes me stabby. STABBY I SAY!

[basilosaurus]

May 14, 2012 18:57:29 GMT -5 stephiehun said:

May 14, 2012 17:25:33 GMT -5 zelda25 said:

I hate him so much. I can't read his byline in the paper without seeing Ross Douchehat.

Seriously. I can't take anything he writes seriously b/c he is SUCH a douchebag. He makes me all stabby.

No kidding.

Also, I'm pretty sure the anti-gay bits have more to do with Christian disillusionment than Osteen, at least according to some of the recent polls I've seen.

[IIOY]

This is where I would appreciate input from Black*Mamba. IIRC, she had a particular interest in the so-called prosperity gospel that basically encourages irresponsible behavior.