{"id":134852,"date":"2025-02-11T17:24:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-11T22:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=134852"},"modified":"2025-02-11T18:32:06","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T23:32:06","slug":"ct-brasd-east-reviews-ross-douthats-new-book-believe-why-everyone-should-be-religious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=134852","title":{"rendered":"(CT) Brasd East review’s Ross Douthat’s new book “Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To understand Douthat\u2019s method, recall a scene from the end of the third Indiana Jones film<\/a>. Indy is faced with a choice: Let his father die or take a leap of faith. The leap in this case is literal, a physical step into a chasm with nothing to hold him up. He takes the step, and by a miracle of movie magic, doesn\u2019t fall. There was a bridge in front of him all along, invisible to the human eye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For some, this is a picture of true faith: a passionate, even reckless jump into the unknown, based on blind trust, not reason. Douthat demurs. As he writes, \u201cJoining and practicing [some faith] is fundamentally a rational decision, not just an eyes-closed, trust-your-friends-and-intuitions jump.\u201d You can and should consider the case in your mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, whatever the social benefits of church\u2014and they are many!<\/a>\u2014they aren\u2019t the place to start. They\u2019re a byproduct of the thing itself, and that\u2019s of interest only if it\u2019s true. That\u2019s why Douthat opts to \u201cstart with religion\u2019s intellectual advantage: the ways in which nonbelief requires ignoring what our reasoning faculties tell us, while the religious perspective grapples more fully with the evidence before us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not a case for mere Christianity, then, so much as \u201cmere religion.\u201d Though Douthat ends the book with a chapter explaining why he is Roman Catholic, his aim is to clear the ground for religious commitment in general, to show why Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, and Jews as much as Catholics and Protestants are not exotic residue of a superstitious past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>

Christianity is having a moment.

Intellectuals are converting. Atheists are softening. Agnostics are hungry.@DouthatNYT<\/a>\u2019s \u201cBelieve: Why Everyone Should Be Religious\u201d is a response to this moment and to the readers he\u2019s trying to reach. https:\/\/t.co\/UfEYYzZxbb<\/a><\/p>— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) February 11, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote>