EM comments,
"There is much to agree with in Douthat’s interview. As people fall away from traditional churches, they tend to look for other saviors. Douthat calls this a “God haunted” affliction; we have a deep-seated religious impulse that will go in destructive directions when we try to elevate the secular to the divine. To the extent that people do so with (Glenn) Beck, (Oprah) Winfrey, and other secular figures in cultural is their own error, since neither figure explicitly claims to be a religious leader, even if their fans sometimes treat them as such."The obvious straight line of deification mania can be drawn to the current occupant of the White House, with those in the MSM being a large part of his fanatical base.
So, I, too, agree with Ross Douthat; good religion needs to remain vigilant as a necessary counter balance to the malignancy of bad religion, which is far worse than no religion.
I’ve oft said that Pres. Divisive is a proponent of bad religion. Obama claims to be a Christian, and I won’t dispute his claim, but he’s demonstrated himself to be a very shallow and immature Christian, short on Biblical literacy, yet long on taking Biblical text out of context in order to further a mendacious secular pretext (the usual suspects of abortion, homosexual marriage, violations of conscience, etc. - even accessory to murder!).
*repost, updated