\n\nboth books come around to a similar argument: this month\u2019s ubiquitous carols and cr\u00e8ches notwithstanding, believing Christians are no longer what they once were \u2014 an overwhelming majority in a self-consciously Christian nation. The question is whether they can become a creative and attractive minority in a different sort of culture, where they\u2019re competing not only with rival faiths but with a host of pseudo-Christian spiritualities, and where the idea of a single religious truth seems increasingly pass\u00e9.<\/p>\n
Or to put it another way, Christians need to find a way to thrive in a society that looks less and less like any sort of Christendom \u2014 and more and more like the diverse and complicated Roman Empire where their religion had its beginning, 2,000 years ago this week.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ross Douthat\u2019s latest op-ed in the New York Times begins by addressing the strange role of Christmas in America and ends by offering up two books considering the broader topic of the relationship between Christianity and culture: Robert Putnam and David Campbell\u2019s American Grace and James Davison Hunter\u2019s To Change the World (which I\u2019ll be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1236,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asides"],"yoast_head":"\n
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