My mother converted when I was 16. She was the driving force behind religion in our family. So, I'm sure I was heavily influenced by that. But, I also was, and still am, convinced by the Catholic churches historical claims to represent the continuity with the early Church that other forms of Western Christianity lack.
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 DouthatMy mother converted when I was 16. She was the driving force behind religion in our family. So, I'm sure I was heavily influenced by that. But, I also was, and still am, convinced by the Catholic churches historical claims to represent the continuity with the early Church that other forms of Western Christianity lack.
Ross DouthatEven secular people can't really escape from the need to rest their ideas on some belief, some sort of commitment that is not scientific commitment.
Ross DouthatI do think that evangelicals in general need to think seriously about how you pass on your faith across generations and over the long haul.
Ross DouthatMany things about American life, that even secular people consider good, have flowed from the presence of a robust, resilient institutional Christianity.
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 Douthat