American politics after Christianity, with Ross Douthat

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, News, Politics, News Commentary, Philosophy

4.6 • 10.8K Ratings

🗓️ 21 March 2019

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

I’m Vox’s interviews writer, Sean Illing. Lately, I’ve been interested in the following question: Is the decline of institutionalized Christianity making our politics worse? The answer may be yes, but I’m not convinced it’s for the reasons many people suppose. Ross Douthat is a conservative columnist for the New York Times who has been one of the more thoughtful writers on this topic. Douthat believes that Christianity’s collapse has not only helped destroy civic bonds in America, it’s also amplified our tribalism problem. As more and more Americans lose any connection to a shared religious or moral worldview, he argues, they’re increasingly drawn to transgressive movements like the alt-right or to the vulgar politics of Donald Trump. My sense is that Douthat’s view of Christianity is somewhat nostalgic and overlooks the racial hierarchy that undergirded previous eras of American politics. But I’m open to his point of view, and admit I might be mistaken. In this conversation, we discuss the forces behind the decline of Christianity, how it’s fueling tribal politics, and why he thinks the left should really be worried about the post-Christian right. Book recommendations: Religion: If There Is No God-- : On God, the Devil, Sin, and Other Worries of the So-Called Philosophy of Religionby Leszek Kolakowski Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis We are conducting an audience survey to better serve you. It takes no more than five minutes, and it really helps out the show. Please take our survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3X6WMNF Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Christianity, like other religions, but especially Christianity is making a claim that cuts
0:06.8	against the grain of human nature in certain profound ways. And it's not surprising that that claim
0:12.8	is not always and everywhere fulfilled and often it just sort of becomes a gloss on tribalism.
0:30.1	Hello, welcome to the Ezra Klein show on the Vox Media Podcast Network. I am Sean Elling
0:37.6	filling in for Ezra Klein. I'm really excited to share this conversation with Ross Douthat,
0:42.4	who of course is a conservative columnist at the New York Times and the co-host of a new podcast,
0:48.4	the argument. One of the things I appreciate about Ezra's show is that it's a genuine space for
0:54.0	conversation, not debate, which is a very, very different thing. And Ross is a thoughtful conservative
0:59.6	with whom I rarely agree, but almost always learned something when I read one of his columns.
1:05.1	And our topic today is intentionally broad. And it's around a question Ross poses often in his
1:10.4	columns, and that is, is America experiencing something like a spiritual crisis? And
1:16.4	relatedly, is the decline of institutionalized Christianity making our politics worse, more tribal,
1:23.9	more violent, more combustible? This isn't really about Ross and I disagreeing, although we certainly
1:30.0	do at points. I just think it's a really interesting way to get at some of the cultural
1:35.6	roots of our political problems at the moment. And I hope you feel the same way after hearing it.
1:41.2	As always, you can email the show at Ezra Klein show at Vox.com. Here is Ross Douthat.
1:47.2	Ross Douthat, welcome to the podcast. It's great to be here, thanks for having me.
1:51.3	So there are a hundred different ways we could dive into this conversation, but I think I'll just
1:57.6	start with a paradox that you pointed to in one of your columns. You right. Our unusual president
2:04.8	couldn't have been elected and couldn't survive politically today without the support of religious
2:09.8	conservatives, but at the same time, his ascent was intimately connected to the secularization of
2:14.8	conservatism. And his style gives us a taste of what to expect from a post-religious right.
	...

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