The two writers have a strikingly similar diagnosis of the decline of institutional Christianity in America over the past half century, but they differ sharply on what that decline means for the future. On August 18, Bass and Douthat discussed this issue at length on Rev. Welton Gaddy's radio show "State of Belief." Gaddy heads the liberal Interfaith Alliance.

Regarding Christianity in the US, Douthat explained "[O]verall, we're looking at a landscape where the traditional Christian Churches are having a harder and harder time reaching people, and this phenomenon exists across the spectrum ... it's a challenge facing everyone, from the most conservative Evangelical to the most progressive-minded Episcopalian."

Bass agreed with Douthat that "There's this slow motion collapse of institutional Christianity that's been going on since the 1970's, and then what I call the Great Religious Recession - the acceleration ... since the beginning of the millennium." Both also agreed that the collapse - or at least weakening - of the Church would be detrimental to our culture and society. This is where the similarities end, however, as Bass hopes that a "new spiritual awakening" will result from this crisis, and Douthat believes the institutional and orthodox foundation of the Church is essential for its continued life. He argued: "Orthodoxy [lower case 'o'] is the truest form of Christian faith ... a Christianity that sort of seeks self-consciously to move beyond that core will ... eventually sort of cease to have any kind of Christian identity at all."

Bass's hope for a revitalized liberal Christianity comes from her experience with "isolated congregations that are demonstrating a whole different kind of vision that arises out of the old liberal tradition, but is also something different." She explained these congregations are not interested in saying "'We are orthodox' ... But they do start with the story of Jesus." She added: "There's been a huge recovery in many congregations in the mainline tradition, of understanding Jesus' great command to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves, and to try to stitch together a congregational or communal life that's really based out of this deepest core teaching of Jesus himself."

Bass further described how among liberal Christians, "It's out of practice that we come to form belief in doctrine, rather than the idea that there is an unchanging core of faith that you give your life to, and then out of that develop a set of practices." For example, instead of basing sexual ethics on biblical commands, Bass said the idea of "[honoring] one's body ... comes out of the idea that the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit," and from there, "sexuality becomes part of a more holistic discussion."

This "stitched together" faith is not sufficient to sustain a vibrant Christian life though, Douthat explained. He warned that "people often tend to underestimate the extent to which dogma sustains practice and even sustains activism." Douthat described how "the great social reformers" in American history "tended to be, in certain ways, extremely biblical in their faith, extremely dogmatic in their faith, often fairly supernatural in their faith. And this is a line that runs back from Martin Luther King through William Jennings Bryan back to the abolitionists."

"The relative weight that we give to dogma, I think, is the biggest difference between us, Douthat said.Voicing concerns about the sustainability of liberal Christianity, he asked: "How do you think about the words of Jesus? How do you think about the function of the New Testament message in the life of faith ... how do you think about the authority of that message - and how far are you willing to go in revising that message depending on personal experience and contemporary realities?" Douthat further warned that "the temptation in Liberal circles is to go so far that you end up unraveling ... you pull the thread out so far and suddenly you've unraveled the place you began."

END