New York Times op/ed columnist Ross Douthat joined Paul on Monday, March 2 for an engaging conversation about his compelling analysis of Western culture in his new book, The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success.
The audio is below:
Ross Douthat and Paul Edwards discuss The Decadent Society
Guest: New York Times Columnist Ross Douthat on The Decadent Society
Ross Douthat | PHOTO: Stephen Crowley/The New York Times via Redux
Ross Douthat is a columnist for the New York Times op-ed page. He is the author of To Change the Church, Bad Religion, and Privilege, and coauthor of Grand New Party. Before joining the New York Times, he was a senior editor for the Atlantic. He is the film critic for National Review, and he cohosts the New York Times’s weekly op-ed podcast, The Argument. He lives in New Haven with his wife and three children.
Ross’s latest book is The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success. Today the Western world seems to be in crisis. But beneath our social media frenzy and reality television politics, the deeper reality is one of drift, repetition, and dead ends. The Decadent Society explains what happens when a rich and powerful society ceases advancing—how the combination of wealth and technological proficiency with economic stagnation, political stalemates, cultural exhaustion, and demographic decline creates a strange kind of “sustainable decadence,” a civilizational languor that could endure for longer than we think.
Guest: New York Times Columnist Ross Douthat on The Decadent Society
Ross Douthat | PHOTO: Stephen Crowley/The New York Times via Redux
Ross Douthat is a columnist for the New York Times op-ed page. He is the author of To Change the Church, Bad Religion, and Privilege, and coauthor of Grand New Party. Before joining the New York Times, he was a senior editor for the Atlantic. He is the film critic for National Review, and he cohosts the New York Times’s weekly op-ed podcast, The Argument. He lives in New Haven with his wife and three children.
Ross’s latest book is The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success. Today the Western world seems to be in crisis. But beneath our social media frenzy and reality television politics, the deeper reality is one of drift, repetition, and dead ends. The Decadent Society explains what happens when a rich and powerful society ceases advancing—how the combination of wealth and technological proficiency with economic stagnation, political stalemates, cultural exhaustion, and demographic decline creates a strange kind of “sustainable decadence,” a civilizational languor that could endure for longer than we think.
Rachel Gilson serves on the leadership team of Theological Development and Culture with Cru. Her writing has appeared in Christianity Today and for Desiring God and The Gospel Coalition, and she regularly speaks at churches and on college campuses. Rachel is wrapping up her Master of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and lives in the Boston area with her husband and daughter.
As a Christian who experiences same-sex attraction, is it possible to live a life that’s faithful and fulfiling? Rachel Gilson wants to show you that it is. Living as a Christian with same-sex attraction is not just a case of limping to the finish line—it’s possible to run the race with joy.
In this powerful and personal book, she describes her own unexpected journey of coming out and coming to faith… and what came next. As she does so, she addresses many of the questions that Christians living with same-sex attraction are wrestling with: Am I consigned to a life of loneliness? How do I navigate my friendships? Will my desires ever change? Is there some greater purpose to all this? What comes next, and next, and next?
Drawing on insights from the Bible and the experiences of others, Born Again This Way provides assurance and encouragement for Christians with same-sex attraction, and paints a compelling picture of discipleship for every believer. Whatever your sexuality, this book is an inspiring testimony of how a life submitted to Jesus will be fulfilling and fruitful—but not always in the ways we might expect.
Jim Renacci is an experienced business owner who created more than 1,500 jobs and employed over 3,000 people across the Buckeye State before running for Congress in 2010. He represented Ohio’s 16th District in the House of Representatives for four terms (2011-2019). He is also the chairman of Ohio’s Future Foundation, a policy and action oriented organization whose goal is to move the state forward. A Republican, he is a former city council president and two-term Mayor of Wadsworth, Ohio.
Attorney General William Barr addresses the National Religious Broadcasters
Excerpts from AG Barr’s speech . . .
“It seems to me that the passionate political divisions of today result from a conflict between two fundamentally different visions of the individual and his relationship to the state. One vision undergirds the political system we call liberal democracy, which limits government and gives priority to preserving personal liberty. The other vision propels a form of totalitarian democracy, which seeks to submerge the individual in a collectivist agenda. It subverts individual freedom in favor of elite conceptions about what best serves the collective.
“In my view, liberal democracy has reached its fullest expression in the Anglo-American political system. This system is responsible for unprecedented human freedom and progress. We providentially enjoy its blessings today.
“The wellsprings of this system are found in Augustinian Christianity. According to St. Augustine, man lives simultaneously in two realms. Each individual is a unique creation of God with a transcendent end and eternal life in the City of God. We are created to love our Creator in this world and become united with him in eternity. As Augustine writes in his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
“At the same time, while we work toward our eternal destiny, we live in the temporal world – the City of Man. But this world is a fallen one. Man is stubbornly imperfect and prone to prey upon his fellow man. Unless there is a temporal authority capable of restraining the wicked – an authority with power here on earth – the wicked men would overwhelm the good ones and there could be no peace.”
. . . . . . .
“Totalitarian democracy is based on the idea that man is naturally good, but has been corrupted by existing societal customs, conventions, and institutions. The path to perfection is to tear down these artifices and restore human society to its natural condition.
“This form of democracy is messianic in that it postulates a preordained, perfect scheme of things to which men will be inexorably led. Its goals are earthly and they are urgent. Although totalitarian democracy is democratic in form, it requires an all-knowing elite to guide the masses toward their determined end, and that elite relies on whipping up mass enthusiasm to preserve its power and achieve its goals.
“Totalitarian democracy is almost always secular and materialistic, and its adherents tend to treat politics as a substitute for religion. Their sacred mission is to use the coercive power of the state to remake man and society according to an abstract ideal of perfection. The virtue of any individual is defined by whether they are aligned with the program. Whatever means used are justified because, by definition, they will quicken the pace of mankind’s progress toward perfection.”
. . . . . . . .
“While many factors have contributed to the polarized politics of today, I think one significant reason our politics has become so intense and so ill-tempered is that some in the so-called “progressive” movement have broken away from the fold of liberal democracy to pursue a society more in line with the thinking of Rousseau than that of our nation’s Founders. That has played a major role in our politics becoming less like a disagreement within a family, and more like a blood feud between two different clans. “
There is currently no reported community spread of #COVID19 in the US. People should follow everyday measures to prevent the spread of respiratory viruses, such as staying home when sick and washing hands with soap and water. Stay informed; visit https://t.co/1ifchVyxUM.
Could the government force your church to stop meeting for worship over Coronavirus fears?
Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention : “I had a conversation with my family over breakfast this morning. And I told my children that while I didn’t think that they were at risk right now, we, as a family, need to be preparing for significant disruption of our lives,” she said.
Those measures could include school closings, workplace shutdowns and canceling large gatherings and public events, she warned.
“The Bible urges us to move away from seeing fasting as something done in order to get something, and exhorts us to learn to see it as a response to some grievous or sacred moment/event. “
“If Christian teaching is wrong to oppose homosexual acts, then so are those who oppose Buttigieg because he is married to a man. If the Christian view is irrational, so are political judgments based upon it. But if Christian teaching is correct to reject homosexual acts, then it is eminently reasonable to oppose a candidate whose election would normalize them.”
“Yes, Christianity has been an instrument of repression, but in the living memory of Americans it has also been deployed as a means of liberation and progress — which feeds the hope that it can become a force for good once more.”
Forty-one Democratic senators voted this afternoon to block the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, successfully filibustering the legislation and preventing it from receiving a final vote. The bill would have required doctors to provide standard medical care to newborn infants who survive abortion procedures.
“There’s nothing in the bill that’s about abortion. Nothing,” Sasse said today. “It’s about infanticide. That’s the actual legislation. And you’ve got 44 people over there who want to hide from it and talk in euphemisms about abortion because they don’t want to defend the indefensible, because you can’t defend the indefensible.”
Headlines Distort the Nature of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act:
“For a secular monk, the only knowable pursuits are human pursuits, the only genuine aims human aims. A secular monk is “secular” in the sense that his cares and his projects are delimited by his day and his world. He can conceive of nothing else.”
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I met Jose Altuve. Surprisingly, He’s Human.
Jose Altuve during BP at Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland, FL. PHOTO: Paul Edwards
During batting practice on Monday in Lakeland, Florida, I had an unplanned meeting with the man at the center of the MLB cheating scandal: Jose Altuve.
He’s not who I thought he was. I’ll explain on radio today.
Today, every Senator will be able to take a clear moral stand. We’ll have the chance to proceed to two commonsense pieces of legislation that would move our nation closer to the international mainstream with respect to defending innocent human life. pic.twitter.com/AfKbycHhD3
