{"id":145890,"date":"2026-06-15T08:53:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T12:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=145890"},"modified":"2026-06-15T19:09:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T23:09:27","slug":"the-tablet-maggie-phillips-on-ryan-burge-the-antiprophet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=145890","title":{"rendered":"(Tablet) Maggie Phillips on Ryan Burge–The Antiprophet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In Vanishing Church<\/em>, Burge contends that religion\u2019s role in American public life was \u201crecast\u201d in the 1990s, when the religious right was at the height of its cultural prominence. Drawing on survey data such as the Cooperative Election Study and General Social Survey, he makes a case that until roughly the latter 20th century, religion was an incubator of social capital because it involved people from a broad cross-section of society working together to improve it. When the culture wars co-opted Christianity, it was to the detriment of not only Christianity but also American civil society, as young people began disaffiliating from Christianity (and religion as a whole).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAn increasing number of Americans began to see religion as primarily political,\u201d Burge writes, instead of considering it as a body of theological beliefs, a means to approach existential questions, or a personal moral foundation. Opposing abortion, for example, became \u201ca political stance with a religious justification, not a theological posture that expresses itself in how one votes on election day,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One could argue that today\u2019s online \u201ctrad\u201d Catholicism is the current form of this recasting. This specific trend is mostly absent in Vanishing Church<\/em>, but Burge has been vocal about it in interviews. As he recently framed<\/a> it, this iteration has become \u201cvery desirable among highly intellectualized Republicans\u201d as an entry point to \u201cmove up the ranks.\u201d It is, in Burge\u2019s words, \u201cinstrumental\u201d\u2014that is to say, another form of political sectarian identity. Burge also pours cold water on the notion that we\u2019re living in the moment of a Catholic revival or ascendancy: It may appear so from \u201ca vibes perspective,\u201d but \u201cnot from a numbers perspective.\u201d As college campuses and Manhattan parishes boast standing-room-only crowds and record numbers of converts, Burge observes that this is primarily an elite phenomenon that working-class parishes have not replicated. \u201cIt\u2019s a bougie revival,\u201d he recently told the National Catholic Register<\/a>.<\/em> \u201cIt\u2019s very much an elite discourse revival.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u201cThere seems to be a rapidly spreading phenomenon of people who say they are religious \u2026 while they have essentially no connection to a local church.\u201d

Is America\u2019s \u201creligious revival\u201d more aesthetic than communal?@maggiemphillips<\/a>'s latest:https:\/\/t.co\/adzIauhgsz<\/a><\/p>— Tablet Magazine (@tabletmag) May 27, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote>