Our culture has few taboos that can't be violated, and our establishment has largely given up on setting standards in the first place. Except where Islam is concerned. There, the standards are established under threat of violence, and accepted out of a mix of self-preservation and self-loathing. This is what decadence looks like: a frantic coarseness that "bravely" trashes its own values and traditions, and then knuckles under swiftly to totalitarianism and brute force.
Ross DouthatThe idea of a post-religious society is a fantasy, ultimately. Human beings are, by nature, religious in various ways.
Ross DouthatThe fact that institutional churches have gone into decline doesn't mean that we're going to enter some purely secular age. Secular people need to be aware of that.
Ross DouthatAmericans are an "almost chosen people," which is meant to suggest that there are clear parallels, literal, theological and everything else, between the American story and the Old Testament story of Israel and then the broader story of the Christian church. It's OK to recognize the parallels. It's OK to invoke them. But, you have to keep that "almost" in front of the "chosen." You can't go all the way and say, "America is Israel, America is the Church." That's where I think patriotism shades into, what I call, the heresy of nationalism.
Ross DouthatIf you're willing to recognize the religious element in one secular ideology, you need to be able to recognize it in your own.
Ross Douthat