{"id":7761,"date":"2016-05-05T10:24:57","date_gmt":"2016-05-05T14:24:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=7761"},"modified":"2016-05-05T10:24:57","modified_gmt":"2016-05-05T14:24:57","slug":"on-the-faith-of-our-neighbors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=7761","title":{"rendered":"On the Faith of Our Neighbors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Matt McCullough\u00a0reviews\u00a0Joseph Bottum&#8217;s\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/An-Anxious-Age-Post-Protestant-America\/dp\/0385518811\/?tag=thegospcoal-20\">An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America<\/a>, <\/em>which focuses on a newly developed class of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thegospelcoalition.org\/article\/an-anxious-age\">self-righteous Protestants<\/a> who have redefined redemption in social terms.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>These folks aren\u2019t self-consciously religious, though they may consider themselves \u201cspiritual.\u201d They blame the Protestant Christianity of their parents for much of what\u2019s worst in the world. But if they\u2019ve cast off their parents\u2019 theological and ecclesial commitments, they have inherited a robust confidence in their own \u201cessential moral rightness\u201d (13). In fact, without the work of Christ or the fellowship of the church to fall back on, their sense of moral enlightenment becomes all the more crucial. It\u2019s how they know their lives are justified; it\u2019s how they know they belong among those who \u201cget it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;\u00a0They\u2019re set apart as a class by their ability to recognize and personally reject the forces of evil\u2014especially bigotry, militarism, oppression, and (sexual) repression. And they enjoy calm assurance that they\u2019re insiders to a better world coming just around the corner.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Matt McCullough\u00a0reviews\u00a0Joseph Bottum&#8217;s\u00a0An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America, which focuses on a newly developed class of self-righteous Protestants who have redefined redemption in social terms. These folks aren\u2019t self-consciously religious, though they may consider themselves \u201cspiritual.\u201d They blame the Protestant Christianity of their parents for much of what\u2019s worst in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=7761\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">On the Faith of Our Neighbors<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[163,500,1518],"class_list":["post-7761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonfiction","tag-america","tag-christianity","tag-joseph-bottum"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}