In some ways the earliest chapters of the book reminded me of Bottum\u2019s fellow Catholic writer of an earlier generation, Flannery O\u2019Connor. She is known in part for her distinctive ability to make Protestant self-righteousness come to life, especially its rural Southern variety. Bottum\u2019s focus is also self-righteousness, but not among the usual suspects. His focus is not the right-wing religious fundamentalists of O\u2019Connor\u2019s rural Georgia, but the left-leaning, city-dwelling, well-educated and well-off descendants of the social gospelers.<\/p>\n
These folks aren\u2019t self-consciously religious, though they may consider themselves \u201cspiritual.\u201d They blame the Protestant Christianity of their parents for much of what\u2019s worst in the world. But if they\u2019ve cast off their parents\u2019 theological and ecclesial commitments, they have inherited a robust confidence in their own \u201cessential moral rightness\u201d (13). In fact, without the work of Christ or the fellowship of the church to fall back on, their sense of moral enlightenment becomes all the more crucial. It\u2019s how they know their lives are justified; it\u2019s how they know they belong among those who \u201cget it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Conservative pundits have referred to this class as the new \u201celites.\u201d But Bottum\u2019s main argument is that we\u2019d understand them better if we see them as they see themselves. \u201cThey do not feel themselves elite in any economic or political sense of real personal power. What they do feel is that they are redeemed\u201d (130). They\u2019re set apart as a class by their ability to recognize and personally reject the forces of evil\u2014especially bigotry, militarism, oppression, and (sexual) repression. And they enjoy calm assurance that they\u2019re insiders to a better world coming just around the corner. They saw a vote for Obama in 2008 as an important step toward that new world. And they move closer to that world every time they buy a pair of Tom\u2019s shoes or tote their organic groceries in reusable bags. . . .<\/p>\n
He contends that the post-Protestants emerged to fill a void in American public life that opened with the collapse of mainline Protestantism. Until the 1960s\u201370s, Bottum argues, American society held together as a sort of three-legged stool\u2014there was democracy in politics, capitalism in economics, and Protestantism in ethics. Protestant Christianity supplied a certain moral vision for the nation that helped support and held in check the contributions of democracy and capitalism to the American experiment. By celebrating America\u2019s values and rebuking America\u2019s failures, Protestant Christianity made sure that America followed a different course from the nations of Europe.<\/p>\n
Mainline Protestantism lost its place as America\u2019s moral center in the turbulence of the 1960s and \u201970s. But Bottum argues the crippling damage was done long before the sexual revolution, the Vietnam War, or legalized abortion. In Bottum\u2019s account, the figure who best represents what happened to mainline Protestantism and best explains the shape of post-Protestant sensibilities is Walter Rauschenbusch. . . .<\/p>\n
First, according to Bottum, Rauschenbusch redefined sin and redemption. Sin is not an offense against God but an anti-social force, \u201cthe evil of bigotry, power, corrupt law, the mob, militarism, and class contempt\u201d (66). Redemption is not peace with God by faith in Christ, but \u201cessentially an attitude of mind,\u201d a \u201cpersonal, interior rejection\u201d of the forces of evil in society (66). To quote Rauschenbusch, this \u201credeemed personality\u201d is the \u201cfundamental contribution of every man\u201d to what he called the \u201cprogressive regeneration of social life\u201d (70).<\/p>\n
Second, Bottum highlights what J. Gresham Machen and Richard Niebuhr recognized about the social gospel, what ultimately undermined the usefulness of mainline Protestantism, and what put the \u201cpost\u201d in the post-Protestant class: Rauschenbusch\u2019s view of sin and salvation left little room for Jesus. Jesus\u2019 teaching may have clarified the nature of evil and the kingdom of righteousness. But, in Bottum\u2019s excellent image, \u201cChrist seems to be only the ladder with which we climbed to a higher ledge. And once there, we no longer need the ladder\u201d (67).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
You can buy the book here<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We have the post-moderns and the post-Christians; now we have the post-Protestants.\u00a0 Referring mainly to post-mainline Protestants, these are the children of those liberal denominations who have preserved their parents\u2019 self-righteousness, individualism, millennialism, and sense of being chosen\u2013except without Jesus and any kind of Biblical faith. Catholic author Joseph Bottum explores this new WASP establishment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,12,39],"tags":[1290,1361,3286],"class_list":["post-19598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church","category-culture","category-religions","tag-liberal-theology","tag-mainline-protestantism","tag-post-protestants"],"yoast_head":"\n
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.\u00a0 After the jump, a link and an excerpt to a review of the book by Matt McCollough.<\/p>\n