Newsweek
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Apr 5, 2009 11:21 AM
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.
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