By Lisa Miller
In his cover story, “The Decline and Fall of Christian America,” Jon Meacham argues that the ten-point dip in the number of Americans who call themselves Christian, together with the rise in the number who say they’re “unaffiliated” is a good thing – for politics and for Christianity. Political culture, Meacham writes is “as the American Founders saw…complex and charged enough without attempting to compel or coerce religious belief or observance.”
The essay is being virulently hashed over in the media, on blogs and talk shows – and repudiated, especially by critics on the right. “The Christian right has certainly stirred up an angry reaction to its attempt to marry religion to political power,” wrote Economist editor John Micklethwait and his colleague Adrian Wooldridge in the Wall Street Journal. “But it would be a mistake to regard this reaction as evidence that America is losing its religion.” Regardless of whether you agree with Meacham, the question of whether America is a Christian nation – and whether Christianity will be continue to be a driving force in our political life is an important one. We’ve asked some of the country’s thought leaders to comment.
