Ross Douthat. Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious
Ross Douthat. Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics
Why Religion Still Matters with Ross Douthat. A podcast interview.
Ross Douthat: Why Everyone Should Be Religious [Gospelbound – Ep. 147] A Gospel Coalition podcast.
Why You Need Religion (with Ross Douthat) A podcast with Gavin Ortland.
Douthat, born in 1979, earned his BA from Harvard with highest honors. He is a Roman Catholic. In his spiritual pilgrimage he cites the influence of C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, and J. R. R. Tolkien.
He is a columnist for The New York Times since 2009. He writes on religion and conservative political and social issues and has written in support of banning abortion because it kills a human being.
In Believe, Douthat starts with a beautiful godless, nationless, ruleless paradise envisioned in John Lennon’s Imagine:
Imagine by John Lennon ‧ 1971
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us, only sky
Imagine all the people
Livin’ for today
Ah
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Livin’ life in peace
You
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
This was an enticing dream but it couldn’t hold up to cancer, suicide of friends, drug overdoses, and finally a global pandemic. Douthat agues that faith is a better approach to the life we need to live in our real world.
In Bad Religion, Douthat chronicles the personalities and beliefs of those who shaped the current religious scene in America.
From Billy Graham to Jim and Tammy Baker and from Fulton Sheen to Harvey Cox, these people brought us to the fractured, diverse spiritual climate we live in today. He then makes the case for his Roman Catholicism faith.
Conclusion
These books are both well-written packed histories of our time. They are surely not dry, boring, and burdened like the many books that have given history a had name.
The podcasts are excellent because Douthat is open, gives examples from his own life, and is very humble as his makes his case on these issues.
All of these will be a fun, challenging, learning experience.
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