“ But with the disappearance of a Christian center and the decline of institutional religion more generally, we lack the capacity to translate those desires into something other than what we’ve seen in this, the most theologically diverse of recent presidential elections — division, demonization and polarization without end.”
-Ross Douthat
I have to disagree with the notion that institutional religion will do anything to actually unite the USA. Aside from obvious facts that people look to differences in the candidates, and each other, to evaluate and form opinions about themselves, meaning an organized religion or a central Christian church in the USA will do absolutely nothing to unite anybody, the differences will be looked for and highlighted elsewhere. More importantly, Douthat makes the mistake of blurring the lines between religion and social institutions. True religion is a personal relationship with God whether it’s mediated through priest, pastor, imam, pope or oneself. As such any organized religion which is looked upon as having a political opinion or as a political/ social representative for a person stops being a religion and is instead just a social platform. Which is why I am against the idea of a central church, the church is essentially a meeting place for believers to get together and encourage each other in faith while approaching God. The community which makes up the church is a community held together by their belief, first and (probably) only in God and how he operates. After that point, all similarities are purely social as determined by the community. E.g, In the Anglican church in rural parts of Ibadan Nigeria, women will never wear trousers to church based on cultural customs and a fascinating interpretation of the Old Testament’s adherence for women not to wear male garments. In the U.S thats interpreted differently also based on its history. The only things these two churches which should be the same since they are a shared religion, have in common are their beliefs regarding God. Based on such diversity within a united religious institution, the core functions of the church, once it steps outside of it’s spiritual norms and becomes a platform for political wars and debates to be raged, or one central opinion put out to represent all its members stops being a church and instead becomes a strangely diluted society in which the norms and values implicit to the religion are mixed in with those formed by society. A central church would not be a ‘church,’ very few churches are churches these days, what the Douthat seems to want is a central society (whether this need is justified another issue), pretending to be held together by the bonds of religion as opposed to random social rules and norms governing the community, is a misguided joke.
