Michael Sean Winters Reviews Ross Douthat's "Bad Religion: How We Became A Nation Of Heretics" | The New Republic

ROSS DOUTHAT’S ANALYSIS of religion in America is more sophisticated than the analysis of, say, Rick Santorum—but not by much. There are many ways to be simplistic and coarse. In contending against what he sees as an America afflicted with too many heresies, Douthat’s book, like Santorum’s speeches, is riddled with mistakes of fact and interpretation that would make any learned person blush.

via www.tnr.com

Comments

[Marianne]

After you read Michael Sean Winters, read Douthat's response here http://www.tnr.com/book/review/bad-religion-response, where he says "...[Winters's] review ... at times literally [reverses] the points I actually make in order to fit his own preconceptions about what my book is arguing" and "The rest of Winters’s review is snide, tendentious, and frequently unfair."

Then read Winters's reply to that here http://www.tnr.com/book/review/bad-religion-response-part-2, where he says that Douthat in his reply "displays his lack of basic knowledge" and ends with "It is astonishing to me that in a book dedicated to exposing silly heresies in our day, Douthat fails to recognize his complicity with his neoconservative comrades. One may prefer his tea with cream, another with sugar, and third with neither. Reading any of them makes me yearn for coffee."

I can almost see someone getting punched in the face right about now.

[dearieme]

The major heretic sects in the US are obviously the Mormons, trhe Unitarians and the Roman Catholics. Or is there one I'm overlooking?

[molly]

Marriane.

I don't think either is that kind of man. Instead they will write scathing critiques of one another's works and not invite each other to salons, or even nastier, write flowery invitations begging the other to come to a party.

[Chanel Handtaschen]

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