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3.88 AVERAGE
3.88 AVERAGE
The first half of the book contains some of the best sociological analysis of the way contemporary American culture is, whether one likes it or not, shaped by mainline Protestantism and its decline. Social justice, as Bottum points out, is merely a secularized version of the Social Gospel movement of fin de siecle America. He writes that we are in "an anxious age" as we desperately search for meaning in a time of declining faith in deities. Bottum walks the reader through the development of the Social Gospel and how it reflects through people we see today, and he makes up "poster children" that serve as its archetypes, although he makes them up and then disappointingly puts them aside very quickly.
The second half, on the other hand, is a history of American Catholicism that is rather sloppily done. Bottum notes at the end that this book is spliced together from various essays he wrote for other magazines, and it's clear in the Catholic part, as many chapters are incongruent with the others. This book is worth reading just for the first half though, one can skip the second half unless one wants to hear about how Catholic intellectualism developed in Cold War America. There's also not a lot of discussion on Catholicism vs. liberalism.
Bottum also doesn't talk about a few things, namely the role Evangelicalism played after the fall of the mainline, instead choosing to claim that Catholicism filled that role. There's little mention of Mormonism, Judaism, Islam, and other religions that may fully illustrate the American religious tapestry. Also, Bottum writes about how younger people are more pro-life, which was quite naive, as the exact opposite has been shown post-Dobbs. All in all, the first half of the book is required reading for any budding sociologist of American culture.
The second half, on the other hand, is a history of American Catholicism that is rather sloppily done. Bottum notes at the end that this book is spliced together from various essays he wrote for other magazines, and it's clear in the Catholic part, as many chapters are incongruent with the others. This book is worth reading just for the first half though, one can skip the second half unless one wants to hear about how Catholic intellectualism developed in Cold War America. There's also not a lot of discussion on Catholicism vs. liberalism.
Bottum also doesn't talk about a few things, namely the role Evangelicalism played after the fall of the mainline, instead choosing to claim that Catholicism filled that role. There's little mention of Mormonism, Judaism, Islam, and other religions that may fully illustrate the American religious tapestry. Also, Bottum writes about how younger people are more pro-life, which was quite naive, as the exact opposite has been shown post-Dobbs. All in all, the first half of the book is required reading for any budding sociologist of American culture.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Hmmm...where to start with this one?
I’ve found myself equal parts fascinated, annoyed, and defensive while reading this book. Fundamentally, I agree with Bottum’s thesis. His contention and supporting arguments are compelling and cogent to the extreme.
Where I begin to fray with his thinking is in the color commentary. Having no context on the background of Bottum prior to my reading, I quickly discovered we differed politically, which didn’t bother me all that much. My belief is that his characterization of motivations were off-putting to me. For example, while describing Katharine Jefferts Schori, “She seems, rather, a fairly typical liberal Protestant: a rentier, living off the income from the property and prestige her predecessors gained, strolling at sunset along the strand as the great tide of the Mainline ebbs further out to sea.” Seems a bit harsh and presumptuous.
Bottum is at his strongest when discussing Pope John Paul II, followed closely by his intellectual (I hope) exercise of what Post-Protestantism means for the future. In the PJPII section is where he really flexes his poetic muscles.
Overall, this read was enlightening and appreciated. It put words and ideas to deep-seated feelings that were difficult to pin down. I intend to read more by this author and would recommend to anyone seeking to explore the politcal-religious affiliation to our current state of society.
I’ve found myself equal parts fascinated, annoyed, and defensive while reading this book. Fundamentally, I agree with Bottum’s thesis. His contention and supporting arguments are compelling and cogent to the extreme.
Where I begin to fray with his thinking is in the color commentary. Having no context on the background of Bottum prior to my reading, I quickly discovered we differed politically, which didn’t bother me all that much. My belief is that his characterization of motivations were off-putting to me. For example, while describing Katharine Jefferts Schori, “She seems, rather, a fairly typical liberal Protestant: a rentier, living off the income from the property and prestige her predecessors gained, strolling at sunset along the strand as the great tide of the Mainline ebbs further out to sea.” Seems a bit harsh and presumptuous.
Bottum is at his strongest when discussing Pope John Paul II, followed closely by his intellectual (I hope) exercise of what Post-Protestantism means for the future. In the PJPII section is where he really flexes his poetic muscles.
Overall, this read was enlightening and appreciated. It put words and ideas to deep-seated feelings that were difficult to pin down. I intend to read more by this author and would recommend to anyone seeking to explore the politcal-religious affiliation to our current state of society.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Everyone is in the shadow of Tocqueville‘s “Democracy in America.” This Frenchman has summed up all American Religious Sociology, in 1835, as the tension between: Protestant Theology/religion, capitalism, and democracy. Suddenly the role and prominence of Protestantism disappeared from American life. This book explores how and why that happens.
It’s centrally claim is that this problem was specifically caused by Protestantism itself. America survived Marxism, materialism, secularization, but it couldn’t survive the collapse of the Protestant mainline churches. This created a gap to be filled by the children of those Protestants, the post-Protestants, he calls them. A whole generation that became spiritual but not religious. He doesn’t focus on how evangelicals tried to rebuild from this collapse, but the shift towards a more politically centric faith makes sense from Bottom’s thesis, as a rich tradition of Protestantism just disappeared.
What Bottom’s more interested in what tried to be built by the non-Protestant Americans as the replacement: the post-Protestants and Catholicism. In short, a rise among post-Protestants to move past Christianity, as a sign of moral superiority with thoughts like “it’s more Christian to not be Christian”, and the divorcing of Catholic thought-system from the practices and reputation of the Roman Catholic Church created in both American Christians and non-Christians an emphasis to be more “moral”, “right”, and “intellectual” than their peers. This made spiritual living the new norm and pillar in American life. Moralism replaced Protestantism; and thus Tocqueville’s complement on how the stream of Protestantism was accessible by all in American life vanished.
What I love about this book is not only the presentation of this thesis but also how it is a concise summary of all American Religious sociology in supporting that thesis. I whole heartedly recommend this book for everyone to understand the religious environment of America more broadly.
It’s centrally claim is that this problem was specifically caused by Protestantism itself. America survived Marxism, materialism, secularization, but it couldn’t survive the collapse of the Protestant mainline churches. This created a gap to be filled by the children of those Protestants, the post-Protestants, he calls them. A whole generation that became spiritual but not religious. He doesn’t focus on how evangelicals tried to rebuild from this collapse, but the shift towards a more politically centric faith makes sense from Bottom’s thesis, as a rich tradition of Protestantism just disappeared.
What Bottom’s more interested in what tried to be built by the non-Protestant Americans as the replacement: the post-Protestants and Catholicism. In short, a rise among post-Protestants to move past Christianity, as a sign of moral superiority with thoughts like “it’s more Christian to not be Christian”, and the divorcing of Catholic thought-system from the practices and reputation of the Roman Catholic Church created in both American Christians and non-Christians an emphasis to be more “moral”, “right”, and “intellectual” than their peers. This made spiritual living the new norm and pillar in American life. Moralism replaced Protestantism; and thus Tocqueville’s complement on how the stream of Protestantism was accessible by all in American life vanished.
What I love about this book is not only the presentation of this thesis but also how it is a concise summary of all American Religious sociology in supporting that thesis. I whole heartedly recommend this book for everyone to understand the religious environment of America more broadly.
"The most significant historical fact of the last fifty years is the collapse of Mainline Protestantism".
A convincing argument by a Catholic intellectual who explains how so much of American politics today is driven by people driven by the same moral angst of Protestantism, but without Christ to center them. Everything from environmentalism, obsessions with food, feminism, etc. -- so many people have adopted Protestant ideas of the Social Gospel while wholly rejecting the central idea of Christ within that gospel.
A convincing argument by a Catholic intellectual who explains how so much of American politics today is driven by people driven by the same moral angst of Protestantism, but without Christ to center them. Everything from environmentalism, obsessions with food, feminism, etc. -- so many people have adopted Protestant ideas of the Social Gospel while wholly rejecting the central idea of Christ within that gospel.
[b:An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America|2584838|An Anxious Age The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America|Joseph Bottum|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1391438098s/2584838.jpg|2601711] is tough to categorize. The primary thesis is that the old mainline Protestant denominations (Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists), who used to be a conservative, unifying force across all swathes of social class and geography, lost their influence. Early in in the 20th century, those mainline denominations embraced the "social gospel," turning Christ from being evangelism-focused to being focused on making the world a better place. This shift led to the hollowing out of cultural pillars that had anchored American society for centuries.
In their stead arose several groups: the fundamentalist Evangelicals (though this book is only incidentally about the rise of Evangelicals); the intellectual and morally retrenching Catholics; and the culturally and socially judgmental albeit unchurched "nones."
The thesis is provocative, but I'm not terribly convinced by the argument. Bottum writes in overheated prose littered with allusions to Durkheim, Weber, etc., but he has to do more to carry his argument.
In sum, fascinating read, somewhat long, fairly academic, interesting but not persuasive.
In their stead arose several groups: the fundamentalist Evangelicals (though this book is only incidentally about the rise of Evangelicals); the intellectual and morally retrenching Catholics; and the culturally and socially judgmental albeit unchurched "nones."
The thesis is provocative, but I'm not terribly convinced by the argument. Bottum writes in overheated prose littered with allusions to Durkheim, Weber, etc., but he has to do more to carry his argument.
In sum, fascinating read, somewhat long, fairly academic, interesting but not persuasive.
Bottum is writing from a conservative Catholic position so there is definitely an underlying prescription in the book that a return to an (in my opinion, slightly imagined) ideal of an old Christian social morality would solve the larger national existential he observes — along with an uncritical thirty page eulogy of John Paul II — but I think overall it's an interesting observation of a social phenomenon I've been thinking about quite a bit. Although unlike Bottum, I actually find the removal of explicit religious doctrine, but a retention of a nebulous spirituality — or just a frame of thinking — to be actually indicative of the mindset that created it you know? Like what remains of an ideology or a mode of thinking when you strip away all leavening morality? (less)