Reviewing two books by conservative authors who see the decline of Christianity as contributing to our country’s current political disquiet, Jack Butler writes:
You Shall Be as Gods: Pagans, Progressives, and the Rise of the Woke Gnostic Left by the talk-radio host Erick Erickson and Pagan America: The Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come by the Federalist’s senior editor John Daniel Davidson . . . confront two pressing, related problems: the weakening of Christianity in America and the rise of a competing belief system. The authors themselves, though both on the right, differ on much (having recently disagreed on, for example, the viability of Reaganite conservatism). But their books are strikingly similar in diagnosis. There is much wisdom, both in their agreements and in their disagreements.
While the politics of the radical, post-Christian left certainly tend toward hostility to Jews, would American Jews really benefit from the political arrangements Erickson or Davidson would prefer? Butler addresses this question, if only indirectly:
Intra-Christian conflict, a feature of American life and sometimes even instantiated into law (see, for example, state-level Blaine amendments), fits uneasily into his portrayal of a halcyon Christian America, as does the fact that many of the very rights he says originated and were protected in that America came under threat during times of more openly professed Christianity. The extent of his entangling of America’s political tradition with its religious one, moreover, leaves it unclear to me whether he thinks non-Christians can be good Americans.
He could also benefit from a helping of Erickson’s perspective, not necessarily on the nature of the challenge Christians face today (on which they largely agree), but on how to face it. “Evil is not partisan,” he stresses; God sees things differently from how we do. “Not everything you dislike is disliked by God, and God will not find fault in everything simply because you find fault in it.” The problem we face is “not a partisan problem, a political problem, a social problem, or an economic problem,” but “a spiritual problem,” one that requires a spiritual solution. . . .
I believe the American people retain or can regain great virtue, that even amid our challenges we still have plenty to work from.
Read more on Acton Institute: https://rlo.acton.org/archives/125641-pagans-gnostics-and-christians-oh-my.html