It's Dangerous to Believe: Religious Freedom and Its Enemies

by Mary Eberstadt

Mary Eberstadt, “one of the most acute and creative social observers of our time,” (Francis Fukuyama) shines a much-needed spotlight on a disturbing trend in American society: discrimination against traditional religious belief and believers, who are being aggressively pushed out of public life by the concerted efforts of militant secularists.

In It’s Dangerous to Believe, Mary Eberstadt documents how people of faith—especially Christians who adhere to traditional religious beliefs—face widespread discrimination in today’s increasingly secular society. Eberstadt details how recent laws, court decisions, and intimidation on campuses and elsewhere threaten believers who fear losing their jobs, their communities, and their basic freedoms solely because of their convictions. They fear that their religious universities and colleges will capitulate to aggressive secularist demands. They fear that they and their families will be ostracized or will have to lose their religion because of mounting social and financial penalties for believing. They fear they won’t be able to maintain charitable operations that help the sick and feed the hungry.

Is this what we want for our country?

Religious freedom is a fundamental right, enshrined in the First Amendment. With It’s Dangerous to Believe Eberstadt calls attention to this growing bigotry and seeks to open the minds of secular liberals whose otherwise good intentions are transforming them into modern inquisitors. Not until these progressives live up to their own standards of tolerance and diversity, she reminds us, can we build the inclusive society America was meant to be.

Genres: Politics, Religion, Nonfiction, Cultural, Christianity, Christian, Catholic

192 pages, Hardcover

First published June 21, 2016

About the author

Mary Eberstadt is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, consulting editor to Policy Review, and contributing writer to First Things. Her articles have appeared in the Weekly Standard, the American Spectator, Commentary, the Los Angeles Times, the London Times, and the Wall Street Journal. Her previous books include The Loser Letters and Home-Alone America.

Reviews

[Charles Haywood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mary Eberstadt’s “It’s Dangerous To Believe” offers very clear analysis and very wrong recommendations. Eberstadt eloquently describes how the elite and powerful in today’s America have subscribed to a new religion, the religion of sexual autonomy without limit, and are increasingly using their immense power to punish heretics, in the form of traditional believers. But, because she misapprehends the historical processes at work, she fails to adequately address how the targets of oppression can, or should, respond, and her actual suggestions are harmful fantasies.

First things first, though. If you reject the premise that traditionally orthodox Christians (let’s call them “TOCs”) are today’s “out group,” you will find nothing in this book to interest you. This book, and my review, depend on that premise being true. Eberstadt does try to prove this premise by example—in fact, much of the book consists of anecdotes demonstrating this premise. But as they say, the plural of anecdote is not data, as powerful as Eberstadt’s anecdotes are.

The premise, more fully stated, is that to be a public TOC (what exactly that is I address below) in America today, in any academic setting; any sizeable business setting; or interacting with any government entity, is to be the object of derision at best, hatred and the target of deliberate harm at worst (though the harm intended is confined to economic and psychological harm, so far, in the United States). Or, put another way, in the vast majority of American environments today, with the three exceptions of the home, wholly Christian social environments, and non-managerial labor, a TOC is well advised to keep the fact he is a traditional Christian to himself, or he is likely to suffer harm—hounded in the public square, driven from or downgraded in his employment, and chased by government functionaries. Moreover, this process is rapidly accelerating in scope and aggressiveness. Again, if you think that’s ludicrous, there is nothing to discuss, so you should not read this book, or this review.

What is meant here by a “traditionally orthodox Christian”? It means someone who not only actually subscribes to abstract statements of Christian doctrine such as the Nicene Creed, but further believes that God requires us to do, and not do, certain very difficult things. Such things are set forth in the Bible and in the coherent, unified teachings of Christians for two millennia, and they are not in doubt or dispute. Such teachings include a strict code of solely marital, solely heterosexual sex; they include many other difficult teachings, but in today’s culture, the sexual teachings are those that receive the focus, and as explained below, they are those that receive the incandescent fury of the new secular religion. Contrasted with the TOC is what Rod Dreher has pithily named “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism”—someone who claims to be Christian, but does not actually believe that God requires anything of human beings, except to be generically “nice,” and even then not if that would make the believer feel bad about himself or limit his pleasures. Most American Christians today fall into this, what we will call “MTD.”

This is not to say there are no other varieties of Christianity. The virtue, and the curse, of Protestant Christianity is that in it, as Luther said, is “every man his own priest.” Certainly, at some point someone who rejects the universal teachings of Christianity cannot reasonably be called a Christian, but there are Christians who are both actually practicing Christians and reject traditional teachings, including those on sexual morality. Their theology may, or may not, be an evolutionary dead end, since organized groups of such Christians, including all the traditional mainline Protestant denominations, are dying, and there is no evidence that such a theology has any gravity. But without doubt, there are devout Christians who reject traditional teachings, so are not TOCs, but nor are they believers in MTD. They are not the targets of the new secular religion, although they have to intermittently offer incense to idols to make sure they are not mistaken as TOCs. In any case, they are not the focus of this book.

On a related note, no doubt many of those who espouse and have espoused TOC (which is, over the history of Christianity, roughly 99.99% of declared Christians—MTD and other variations are a purely modern phenomena) can justly be accused of hypocrisy. One type of hypocrisy is claiming to agree with Christian teachings while not actually following them. Up to a point that’s not hypocrisy—it’s just sin, the natural condition of all Christians. At some point, though, it becomes a false claim of belief, if you never change your behavior. But for purpose of analyzing this book, a more relevant form of hypocrite is those who accept pre-marital sex, divorce and remarriage, and other actions clearly forbidden by TOC, but reject all homosexual actions as heinously sinful. Yes, there is an argument that homosexual actions are intrinsically disordered, as officially held by the Catholic Church, in a way that heterosexual ones are not. But it seems the height of hypocrisy to reject TOC teachings on heterosexual sexual morality while ruling that homosexuals must adhere to them, especially since only a tiny percentage of the population is homosexual, and thus it’s easy to lay the responsibility at their feet while disclaiming it for oneself.

However, that TOC hypocrisy exists or is widespread is not to say that there are not many TOC believers, even today. It is merely a falsehood, held as a bogus truism, that all Christians fail to live up to their own religion. And, of course, TOC beliefs have formed the basis for all of Western culture for two millennia. Therefore, a claim of hypocrisy does not undermine any part of Eberstadt’s book. I merely note it, to foreclose a simplistic line of possible attack.

All this is a long introduction, mostly of my thoughts, not the author’s, to the main point of Eberstadt’s book, which is that opposed to TOC is a new religion, that of secular sexual autonomy (which I’ll call SSA). Its “fundamental faith is that the sexual revolution, that is, the gradual destigmatization of all forms of consenting nonmarital sex, has been a boon to all humanity. The fundamental principle and starting point of the new secular morality is that freedom may be defined as self-will. ‘Doing what you want’ is the new master ethic. . . . It follows from this self-evident truth that traditional moral codes represent systems of unjust repression. . . . Two corollary imperatives are that whatever contributes to consenting sexual acts is an absolute good, and that anything interfering, or threatening to interfere, with them is ipso facto wrong. . . . Every act committed in the name of this new intolerance has a single, common denominator, which is the protection of the perceived prerogatives of the sexual revolution at all costs.” (Hence the exaltation of not just sexual activity, but also progressive sacraments such as abortion.)

After defining SSA as a new religion, Eberstadt spends quite a bit of time, every bit of which is necessary, on a detailed exegesis of the new faith. This is the most powerful section of her book, and while the quotes here are representative, they do not do her exegesis full justice:

“What believers and everyone else need to grasp is that contrary to what is sometimes argued among Christians themselves, secularist progressivism is not a nihilistic worldview. To the contrary: it embraces an alternative orthodoxy and a well-developed (and still developing) body of beliefs. The fundamental impulse leading to the penalizing of Christian believers today is not libertarian. It is instead neo-puritanical—that is, it is aimed at safeguarding its own body of revealed and developed truths, and at marginalizing, silencing, and punishing its traditional competitors.”

“This substitute religion mimics Christianity in many ways. It offers a hagiography of secular saints, for example, all of them patrons of the revolution: proselytizers for abortion . . . . crypto-scholastics . . . quasi-monastic ascetics, like the grim public priestesses of the National Abortion Rights Action League and Planned Parenthood and Emily’s List . . . and even foreign missionaries . . . .”

“This, in a nutshell, is the new secularist faith, and in various influential quadrants, it is the culturally dominate narrative of our time. The so-called culture war . . . . is a contest of competing faiths; one in the Good Book, and the other in the more newly written figurative book of secularist orthodoxy about the sexual revolution.”

Eberstadt does not really trace from where SSA arises. That would be a very long and contentious discussion, relating to the rise of autonomic individualism as the touchstone of modern man. Maybe in another review. But she merely points out, incisively, that SSA is a religion, and that this is where we are now.

It would seem to follow from this, directly and unequivocally, that this is a contest of faiths, and the result will be determined as is customary for contests of diametrically opposed faiths (on which more below). But here Eberstadt loses the plot. In Eberstadt’s view, anti-Christian behavior and attacks driven by SSA are all just a form of temporary hysteria. She repeatedly draws analogies to the Salem witch trials, as well as to more recent infamous hysterias, such as the McMartin preschool in the 1980s. In Eberstadt’s optimistic analysis, the current wave of anti-TOC persecution will subside, leaving, as did the Salem witch trials in very short order, chagrined and shamefaced former persecutors. At that point, Eberstadt calls not for a restoration of TOC values to dominance in America, but rather a return to Jeffersonian tolerance, such that TOC and SSA can co-exist.

The problem with the witch hunt analogy is that witch hunts die down because witches do not exist. They are based on an unreality, a temporary insanity in society, and in any non-primitive society, they die down as people come to their senses. But a conflict of religions is a conflict of incompatible visions, and there is no moment in which one side of the conflict opens its eyes to an unreality, because there is none. The better analogy is not Salem, but the Albigensian Crusade, where, in the 13th Century, Pope Innocent III directed a military movement to crush the Cathari (a Manichean dualist sect) in Languedoc, resulting in tens of thousands dead and the utter destruction of the Cathari.

Who, then, are today’s Cathari? To rework the old poker joke—if you look around the table, and you can’t tell which group is today’s Cathari, it’s you.

Now, I am sure that those few SSA believers who read Eberstadt’s book will say, in essence, that this is what TOC believers deserve. They will say that TOCs have long effectively persecuted non-religious people in America, along with people who are religious, but violate religious norms. Eberstadt would disagree with this (although she does not address it directly), probably with talk about Jeffersonian compromise. But she would be wrong. This objection is correct. It is in the nature of two incompatible religions. Jeffersonian compromise will only take us so far, and the dominant religion in a culture will necessarily, to a greater or lesser degree and more or less actively, crowd out competing faiths. TOC cannot tolerate the dominance of SSA, any more than SSA can tolerate the dominance of TOC. There can be only one.

This is why Eberstadt’s witch hunt analogy is wishful thinking. She’s right in her analysis—there are two competing religions. But given the claims of SSA in particular, and the facts of competing faiths in general, only one can survive with widespread public acceptance. In this respect, and only this respect, SSA is much like Islam, which necessarily requires that in any society its believers occupy all positions of power, and believers in a small number of other tolerated faiths are allowed to exist, if they formally acknowledge the authority of Islam and agree not to cause trouble. Most likely TOC could be more tolerant of SSA than the reverse, though it is hard to say. Regardless, there is no universe in which attacks by SSA on TOC subside and Jeffersonian tolerance becomes the order the day. Eberstadt calls for engagement, persuasion, comity and courtesy. These things are useless.

TOCs (a group with which I have much sympathy, but am not fully a “member”) are instead faced with two actual choices, which Christians have faced many times before: the self-abnegation of martyrs before the lions, or the sword of Peter in the Garden. Or, to offer modern metaphors, the choices are “passive acceptance” and “Highlander.” (For those not in Generation X, “Highlander” was a 1980s movie and 1990s TV series, featuring a nearly immortal Scot, condemned to fight other near immortals until the last battle, for “there can be only one.” I knew I could work that into a review someday!)

Christians have always faced an internal tension, since the time of Constantine (312 AD, the Battle of the Milvian Bridge). Before then, Christians were a frequently persecuted group, to which they, from necessity and from the instruction of Jesus, turned the other cheek. As Eberstadt notes, of the thirty-two Popes prior to 314 A.D., every single one was martyred. But after that date, Christians had the temporal power to resist persecution, and eventually dominance. For a long time, until roughly 1000 A.D., Christian doctrine generally called for strict pacifism and separation of the organized Church from military action and violence (although Christians were certainly allowed to serve in the military, given the specific endorsement by Jesus of serving in and officering the Roman military), until the combination of feudal ideas and Muslim expansion caused the doctrinal changes leading to the Crusades. Thereafter, in every time when Christians face attack, they tend to respond in one of two ways.

Those two ways are starkly contrasted in the 1986 film “The Mission.” It concerns the efforts of Spanish Jesuits to convert the Guarani Indians, in what is now Paraguay. They face initial opposition from the Indians, but responding with persistence and charity in the face of martyrdom (the first scene is of a crucified Jesuit descending a waterfall), they convert the Indians, who become devout (as happened in real life), and the Jesuits found the mission of the title. There are two relevant Jesuits: Father Gabriel, played by Jeremy Irons, is the superior; Rodrigo Mendoza, played by Robert DeNiro, is a subordinate. Mendoza is a former slave trader and mercenary, who led a life of violence and greed, then repented and was brought to Christ by Father Gabriel, who strictly abjures Mendoza against violence, no matter the provocation.

The Jesuit mission’s real opposition is the Portuguese, who want the land of the Indians, in which they are ultimately supported by the Church hierarchy (due to political machinations relating to Spain and Portugal). The Portuguese arrive with military force to seize the mission. The Jesuits respond in ways emblematic, for a thousand years, of Christian choices in such matters. Father Gabriel, holding a monstrance (containing the Eucharist for presentation), is cut down in a hail of bullets, praying for his enemies. But before the Portuguese arrive, Mendoza breaks his vow of obedience, retrieves his blades and guns, trains the Guarani, mines a bridge, and dies trying to blow the bridge as the Portuguese cross it. Both die for Christ, as they saw it, but their visions were so different that perhaps both could not be right. This, of course, is the paradox of Christian defensive action. Which path?

Passive acceptance seems like a simple, if not easy, choice. But even there, Christians face sub-choices. Should they be silent, and simply pursue their faith in private, meeting in the catacombs and avoiding employment that requires cooperation with SSA, even though such employment constitutes all employment with prestige, possibility of advancement and high remuneration? Should they actively try to form communities, not necessarily physically separated from larger society, to retain and pass on the faith (Dreher’s “Benedict Option”)? Whatever the form, though, the ultimate goal would be a restoration of the role TOC has always played in the West, with the belief and understanding that the current path of the West will lead, sooner or later, to disaster, and TOC will be needed to restore the ruins. This view is embodied in the famous phrase of the late Francis Cardinal George, “I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.”

Highlander is the harder choice to make, with some aspects less supported in Christian doctrine and more supported by human nature, and with more divergent paths. One path here would be to devote oneself, and one’s community, to missionary work. On this path, TOCs would be John the Baptist, a voice crying in the wilderness, yet making the path ready. Or they would be the nameless crucified Jesuit who begins “The Mission.” Or they would be the Apostles—all of whom, after all, were martyred save for John of Patmos. This path is attractive in principle, and really, it’s well-trod, both in time and space. For TOCs, this seems plausible, and less passive.

Another Highlander path, viable only if persecution turns violent (as it may well, since most persecutions do), is the propaganda of the deed, the John Brown solution—it never works out for the doer, but men will die when inspired, and violence, even Christian violence, inspires. It is in the nature of man. This has little of a Christian pedigree, though, and what it would look like in offensive form is not clear. Or, in the longer term, were there instability and fragmentation, a revival in a different form of the military orders, such as the Templars and the Hospitallers—we can call that the Mendoza Option. After all, military and militant Christianity has a long and respectable TOC pedigree, fully valid today, despite what the ignorant may say.

Certainly, there are other, hybrid paths. Passive acceptance can be not purely passive; it can present thorns to discourage the persecutors. Christianity for a thousand years has found it necessary to actively defend itself. Rearguard actions, like Roland at Roncesvalles, might be fought, without the goal of victory in this age. Or TOCs might ally with traditional enemies, Muslims, with whom in the face of SSA more common ground might be found than in the past. It is hard to say what might ultimately develop, and where it would lead. As Tolkien said, “It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.”

But at the end of the day, metaphorically, TOCs must choose Door One or Door Two. You will not be left alone. Eberstadt’s book, while it wakes TOCs to what they face, does not admit this choice, instead retreating into fantasies of near-future comity. But “good will towards men” is not the cry of SSA, nor will it be, and this truth, properly understood, is essential to fully grasp, such that right action can be ordered rightly.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting book that helps us understand religious liberty and the importance of protecting it for everyone! It began as a talk that Mary Eberstadt gave in Washington, D.C. in 2014 - The New Intolerance. It is amazing to see how socially acceptable it is today to discriminate against faithful believers. This change started out slowly, but has intensified quickly. Secularism is creeping in as the accepted religion and there aren't enough people that seem to understand the ramifications. It's ironic that those who are calling for diversity can't see the hypocrisy of the situation. Many believers wonder how to respond. I appreciated the call for civility and courage.

Here are a few other quotes I liked from the book:

"How, someone asked as they cradled her infant, could Catholic parents protect their sons and daughters from the toxic surges of today's society--especially the rising bellicosity toward believers? This anxious query quieted the table, and more questions followed. What would these children face in the future, given the rapidly growing hostility toward religious faith?.... What is a believer to do these days? Withdraw into tiny communities, as disparate thinkers have lately urged, hoping like the monks of yesteryear to ride out a new dark age? Or show they instead stand tall as witnesses, and endure castigation in the newly virulent public square (p. x)?"

"If Christians feel threatened at home, that is nothing compared to what they discern upon looking around the world (p. xvi)."

"Secular readers also may not understand the depth of violation felt in religious quarters over this mandate of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, Jews, and others--all of whom differ among themselves theologically about contraception itself--have been driven together as never before, united in seeing this feature of Obamacare both as dangerous precedent and as a serious challenge to religious liberty in the United States (p. xxiii)."

"'I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square (Cardinal Francis George, p. xxiv)."

"Do unbelievers, and anti-believers, and others who don't think they have a stake in this fight even know that such things are said among the believers these days? If so, do any of them care (p. xxv)?"

"Traditionalists deserve a hearing, too... Practicing Christians living in historically free societies shouldn't have to 'go' anywhere. This is especially true in America, which either remains a place where human beings can follow their faiths without hindrance--or instead becomes some other nation altogether. As Martin Luther King Jr. put it in his 'Letter from Birmingham Jail,' 'Anyone who lives in the United States can never be considered an outsider (p. xxix).'"

"Today's historic explosion of intolerance toward religious believers did not erupt out of nowhere. It has a long prehistory... Many historians would locate the beginnings of the story in the Enlightenment, when philosophical sceptics like Voltaire and Thomas Hobbes took on the task of challenging the truth of religious dogma, thus beginning the long process of disentangling church and state and creating new space for secular thought and expression. The contributions of science continued this process.... Not content to wait patiently for the withering away of the churches, both Nazism in Germany and communism in the Soviet Union and elsewhere saw religion as the largest remaining threat to totalitarian rule (p. 1)."

"Hilary Clinton declared in a 2015 keynote address to the 'Women of the World' summit that 'deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.' How is that imperious decree anything but an assertion that politics trumps religious liberty (p. 10)?"

"Doctrinally faithful Christians, Protestant and Catholic alike, are not only culturally disenfranchised. They are the only remaining minority that can be mocked and denigrated--broadly, unilaterally, and with impunity. Not to mention fired, fined, or otherwise punished for their beliefs (p. 11)."

"'At the heart of liberty...is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life (Justice Anthony Kennedy, p. 15).'"

"It is standard-bearers within the progressive-secular alliance, not religious traditionalists, who now enforce dogma on the wider society, who police cultural precincts for heretics, and who shun and shame dissenters. They are the guardians of what has become a secularist substitute faith, concerning the sexual revolution and its perceived moral imperatives. And like the Puritanism of yesteryear, today's secular version does not tolerate nonconformism. Practicing Christians who refuse to cave are on the front lines of the new intolerance today (p. 17)."

"In the new dispensation, traditional restrictions and attitudes are viewed as judgmental, moralistic... In this profound and still-unfolding transvaluation, yesterday's 'sinners' have become the new secular saints; and yesterday's 'sins' have become virtues, as positive expressions of freedom (p. 23)."

"Christianity...contends with many foes and countervailing forces. But its single most powerful enemy now is not the stuff of the philosophy common room. It is the sexual revolution--and the current absolutist defense of that revolution by adherents and beneficiaries (p. 26)."

"Step back for a moment to consult reality. In what possible, imaginable way does it harm anyone if someone else is praying for them? If you are secularist, and believe that prayer itself shares the empirical status of magic wands and unicorns, what possible grief could come of it (p. 31)?"

"Today's faithful are not pretending to have cherished beliefs as a guise under which they can at long last fulfill their ulterior dream of being 'haters.' They are fighting for their right to practice their most cherished beliefs as they never have had to fight before (p. 38)."

"'Deny religious liberty and all the other liberties collapse into rubbish (p. 49).'"

"'What happens when your kid can't get into graduate school because she has attended a Christian college identified by educational elites as a bigot factory? It's not persecution, of course, but these are the kinds of choices that orthodox Christians are going to face very soon. Will they, and their kids, be strong enough to give up dreams of reaching the top, because it's not worth compromising their faith (p. 53)?'"

"If homeschooling weren't a Christian thing, it's hard to imagine it being attacked (p. 56)."

"Religious parents have lost on school prayer, lost on sex education, lost on the kind of secularist and left-leaning books that dominate public school curricula, and lost on being treated as equal partners in public school communities. Their Bible is so toxic that a substitute teacher can now be suspended for giving one to a curious student--not because the teacher was evangelizing, but because the student asked about a phrase he had invoked from it (p. 60)."

"There is an elementary question of fairness here. Christian activists are not trying to shutter secular schools--but some progressive activists are trying to put Christian schools out of business. Can't tolerant people have a problem with that, even if they aren't believers (p. 66)?"

"Defending the right of persons (especially those who belong to a disenfranchised minority) to hold and express unpopular opinions used to be the first tenet of the liberal catechism (p. 74)."

"Most of her own time and that of like-minded colleagues, Jen lamented, is now spent not where they want to be, in soup kitchens or hospitals or nursing homes or with destitute immigrants. Rather, they must parry constant maneuvers by activists intent on closing down their foster care and adoption services--not because of the contraception mandate, in this case, but for the sole reason that traditional Judeo-Christian teachings about the family infuriate some progressives (p. 84)."

"It is impossible to hurt charities that help the poor without hurting the poor (p. 86)."

"The stronger the religious belief and practice, the more is given to charity.... Religious people also volunteer more than secular people. They even donate more blood. The point of elaborating on this 'charity gap' is not to observe that some people are more generous than others. Rather it is to ask: how much is too much to demand in the name of the sexual revolution (p. 90)?"

"The ACLU has also sued the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops because shelters operated for children and teen immigrants by the USCCB at the southern border do not offer contraception and abortion. This is a particularly telling example of how far progressive activists will go to interfere with Christian charity (p. 94)."

"Reasonable people, regardless of their personal religious beliefs, would likely agree that thwarting this kind of work is the last thing a compassionate human being should want to do (p. 94)."

"A few years ago, a national leader on behalf of same-sex marriage, Jonathan Rauch, observed that 'if Catholic Charities doesn't want to place children for adoption with same-sex couples in Massachusetts but lots of other agencies will make the placement, we can live with that.' That reasonable idea--of religious citizens and their adversaries working together toward the common good of people beside themselves, even as they acknowledge their differences--has been sounded almost nowhere else on his side of the discussion (p. 99)."

"'If our faith costs us a TV show, so be it (p. 101).'"

"Words used to bar other people from a place at the human table are words that are worth thinking twice about (p. 105)."

"'Critics mock us for our strict rules.... Yet, what is the cost of students being able to 'express' themselves? Is that freedom worth the cost of drunk driving deaths, drug related violence, and love affairs turned fatal (p. 109)?'"

"Ridding the world of religion is is impossible.... Ridding the human patrimony of Judeo-Christian art and ideas is a potentially catastrophic exercise in social amnesia (p. 116)."

"Secularist progressivism faces insurmountable obstacles to its desire to impose its orthodoxy on everyone else (p. 119)."

"'Recognizing others' right to be wrong on the ultimate questions of life is inconvenient and expensive. But all the other alternatives are worse. Repression of religion, whether in the name of an official faith or of an official secularism, doesn't work (p. 120).'"

"The sage of Monticello understood that the United States would tear itself apart if religious freedom were not made the 'first freedom (p. 123).'"

"Courage is demanded not only of religious believers but of those who disagree with them (p. 125)."

"'When religious positions do not prevail we should accept unfavorable results graciously and practice civility with our adversaries...We should love all people, be good listeners, and show concern for their sincere beliefs. Though we may disagree, we should not be disagreeable (Elder Dallin H. Oaks, p. 125).'"

"For people of truly liberal character to live up to their rhetoric about the diversity of the 'human family,' and to understand that like any other family, this one includes people who agree to disagree. Courage is required for people like that to stand not only against the cultural tide, but against the inner worms of human nature (p. 126)."

[Peter Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please give me a helpful vote on Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/review/R1UKGYBO...


Mary Eberstadt is a first-rate writer with keen insight and an ability to clearly communicate the facts underlying the issue she is addressing. Her classic article in First Things (November, 2009) on how the Catholic sex-abuse scandal retarded the growing acceptance of pedophilia in American culture - "How Pedophilia Lost its Cool" - is a prime example of seeing a major point that everyone else has missed in the morass of facts and following up on the insight with something that everyone else has missed and following up on that insight with a merciless attention to those facts.

In this book, Eberstadt examines the modern "Kulturkampf." She canvasses the news of the last few years - often times including vignettes from a few months ago, albeit because of the publication date she barely missed the sorry proof of her thesis of the last few weeks, during which Christians have been paradoxically blamed for the mass murder of gays committed by a Muslim terrorist, registered as a Democrat, who may have been gay, if early news reports are accurate. Eberstadt provides example after example of the cultural shift in rhetoric and conduct that has resulted in Christians being shunned or treated as subversives in America. She provides examples of believing Christians being kept out of university programs because of their Christian culture and of careers destroyed because of Christian expression and of individual and public discrimination against Christians and their association because of their religion. She points out that these same examples would have been unthinkable if the word "Christian" was replaced by "gay" or "Muslim."

Eberstadt properly calls this "soft persecution" - as opposed to the "hard persecution" suffered by Christians in the Mid-east. However, "soft persecution" is a big deal. Most of the history of persecution involves "soft persecution." Catholics in England were persecuted "softly" by having taxes imposed on them when they didn't go to the Church of England. Islam has moved generations of Christians into Islam by treating Christians as dhimmis. Soft persecution works.

Eberstadt's unifying thesis for this cultural shift is that the sexual revolution has created a new "faith" with its own dogmas and doctrines. Members of the new faith may not recognize themselves as having a faith, but their conduct - harsh, shrill, threatened, looking for heretics, excommunicating offenders, ritualized shaming - are recognizable as the actions of people who are defending a faith commitment rather than a public policy. I think that Eberstadt made her case in this regard. I had not looked at this issue in this way before, but it has an explanatory power for the insanely threatened and emotional reactions I've observed when I get into Facebook debates with secularists, who escalate to name-calling in zero time.

For those of us who are still trying to occupy the public square, and defend traditional Christian values, and, perhaps, shame secularists for the hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance that their position entails, Eberstadt's book is a great resource. In the wake of the 2016 Orlando Muslim terrorist attack, secular atheists have unearthed videos of one or two hyperliteralist fundamentalist Protestant pastors who preach sermons that refer to the victims as sodomites who deserve to be dead. This is certainly uncharitable and ugly speech, but it remains speech, and speech totally unrelated to the mass murder. Nonetheless, secularists are cheering that Paypal has eliminated the hyperliteralists accounts and the landlord has evicted them. In response to this, my questions about the traditional liberal value of defending the rights of people to engage in speech, when all they are doing is engaging in speech, is met with the "explanation" that bigots don't deserve rights.

This is a discussion that I am having today.

It is the Eberstadt book in a microcosm.

In response I have quoted this from the Eberstadt book:

"In August 2012, a gunman entered the office building in downtown Washington, D.C., that houses the Family Research Council (FRC), a Christian organization dedicated to traditional moral teaching. By his own account, available on video, he was alerted by secular progressive “watchdog” groups, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, that painted the FRC as a “hate group.” The shooter explained that this made him intend to kill as many of its members as he could, as he later told the FBI. 1 In the event, he fired at and hit a security guard, who disarmed him before his dream of mass murder could be fulfilled."

Eberstadt, Mary. It's Dangerous to Believe: Religious Freedom and Its Enemies (Kindle Locations 1361-1366). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

I have asked whether - in light of the principle they are espousing with respect to the hyperliteralists - they would support similar treatment to the SPLC.

I have received no answer except some assertions that I must be politically aligned with the hyperliteralist Protestant pastor nutjob.

One of the interesting things, however, is that while the SPLC "incitement" - I don't think the SPLC "incited" this shooter anymore than any other shooter was "incited" by political speech - is a great case for getting secularists to think about whether they always hold the moral high-ground, I would have forgotten it if I hadn't just read it in the Eberstadt book. Why is that? Is it because the narrative of our age pays more attention to "rightwing violence" than "leftwing violence," so that this example required a special effort to remember before it was sent to the "memory hole"?

A nit that I will pick with Eberstadt is that in her fairly encyclopedic listing of outrageous smears against Catholics, she forgot to mention how the San Francisco City Council passed a resolution declaring the Catholic Bishop of San Francisco to be subversive of San Francisco's values of tolerance and diversity because he shut down the Catholic adoption program rather than violate Catholic teachings about placing children in the households of homosexual couples. This decision was actually upheld by the Ninth Circuit. It would have seemed to be a great example to add to her list, but, again, this news story, which would have been national news if it had been done to a Muslim in Texas, never got news attention, and has slipped down the memory hole.

Weird, that.

I found her conclusion to be the weakest part of her book. Eberstadt looks at the history of hysteria and notes that hysteria dies down when the hysterics have had enough. She therefore calls on the secularists to stop using terms like "hater" and "bigot" and to return to the values of respecting the rights of others to speak as a safeguard for them when their ideas fall out of favor.

OK...maybe....but I think that this is different. The previous examples occurred in Christian cultures, which had values like "do unto others" and "the Good Samaritan" and "shame" and an adherence to neutral principles and logic. Is it the case that this new civilization - Post-Christian, and what I call Civilization 3.0 - has those values? The evidence suggests that this is not the case. My experience with individualists suggests that this is not the case: they are absolutely unembarrassed to tell me that discrimination only occurs when their sacred cows are offended, and they seem unable to understand that their bete noirs can ever be discriminated against.

I am currently reading [[ASIN:162157296X Witness (Cold War Classics)]], which has caused me to reflect that Eberstadt's description of where we are could be a straight line projection of what Chambers was describing as where the Communist party was in the 1920s and 1930s, including "Communist marriage" - which was based on the agreement of the parties to act as if they were married - and the double-think and the definition of justice as "what is good for our side." I think that those values have largely won through their incorporation into the sexual revolution. If that is the case, an appeal to the better angels of secularist nature is not going to be effective.

What should be done? Keep pitching. Point out the hypocrisy and inconsistencies of secularists engaged in "soft persecution." It may not make you loved, but Christians have been promised a return for beating hated and vilified "for my name's sake."

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can write off one story of Obama, say, suing the Little Sisters of the Poor, because they didn't have contraception cover for their employees, as an aberration. But it is not: situations like this occur across the Western world, involving schools, churches, universities, hospitals, charities, and the list goes on. Mary Eberstadt does a good job of bringing together current Western animus against Christians, drawing on many stories. She concludes that only a secular faith, the centrepiece of which is sexual freedom, can explain this hostility. It is not a rational faith: it selectively persecutes Christians and ignores identical situations involving other value-based groups; it has identified Christians as the target of a witch-hunt.

In the face of such vitriol, some of it truly inexplicable (like suing charities that provide incredible amounts of support to people in need, simply because they're religious, and NOT providing any alternative for the millions of people that were helped), we must remember that courage, and perhaps martyrdom, is necessary. After all, she points out, 32 out of the first 32 popes were killed for their faith. But there should also be a return to the liberal political foundations that permit religious coexistence. That should be common ground for reasonable people of every persuasion.

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

As an Atheist, I read this book in order to gain a stronger understanding of the other side of the coin. I do feel that there were some very valid arguments being made by the author. But too often, just as soon as she was about to win me over with the, "respecting others" argument it felt like she would shove it down the readers throat that Christians know best.

For instant, during a section discussing abortion rights and respecting the opinions of others she pulls out "Why would anyone want to make life more difficult for women who want to have babies?" I ask, Mary, the exact opposite.

It doesn't exactly help matters either that most of the evidence is Anecdotal (not data-driven). That's not to say that certain points she makes are invalid, just that they would be much more powerful with more evidence to back up her claims.

I'll end this by saying I respect the right of every religion to follow their faith. Like the auther, I only ask for the same respect in return. The ability to make choices without having to limit them with regards to the religious choices of those surrounding me.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Blessedly brief, useful if shallow state of the situation 2016

Reviewing this nearly a decade on, while politically the situation might have altered top-down, the capture of the media, those who've been schooled (not necessarily educated) within the dominant Western secular system, and voted for the majority of those controlling institutions, or subjected to the ruling classes who monitor legal, educarional, bureaucratic, workplace, electronic transactions and messages all testify that mindsets have been altered. The Left won't surrender hard-won gains.

Finding dissenters against the sexual revolution, Christian (and I'd aver 2025, traditionally observant Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, certain Muslim?) mores as have been taught until recently, progressive pieties and liberal individualism isn't easy in many enclaves. And holdouts may find, at least in "blue state" communities, online fora, and public surroundings, their actions, statements, and assertions grounds for arrest, surveillance, censorship, ridicule. Look at Britain, the Commonwealth, North America, and Western Europe, in convulsions which erupted since she published this. They show how entrenched the promulgation of hedonism is, how persistently mighty number advocates of postmodernism, and how solid endures mobilized resistance to Burkean verities. Curricula crumble, criteria for excellence flop into boosts for slackers as if "equity," and morale among guilt-tripped, cowed rank + file falters.

Eberstadt argues how competing faiths of "do what you will" and embattled moral standards clash. Not of "religion" vs. disbelief, but more of a melange of the "nones," the indifferent, the hostile, and the progressive factions who variously oppose consistently espoused and firmly defended rights to life, liberty, and securely enacted faith. So far, she offers as of end-Obama era, much to contemplate.

Yet she skims over why hundreds of millions defected due to scandals, irrelevance, shoddy Sixties-inspired instruction, vacuous liturgies, or vapid counsel peddled from pulpits, platforms, or parents. I wonder, in the wake of LGBT acceptance, legalization of gay marriage, and embedded DEI either as policy or de facto norms altering many current interactions, relationships, and environments, if those insisting as believers can accept compromise. If when Eberstadt wrote, her colleague Fr Robert John Neuhaus admitted "win some, lose some," how does having to live and let live in our "public square" align with the necessary adjustments "faith-based" advocates must now make when it comes to those they meet, deal with daily as co-workers, neighbors, customers, bosses, and habitual acquaintances?

Neither abortion nor contraception, rebranded as "reproductive rights" since this hit the shelves, are edging away. Same for hookups, dating apps, or come-and-go parenting and smartphone-driven mentalities, contrasted with the few willing to access or afford a classical humanities education. And among even most of the holdouts who stand in theory against libertine libertarians, a necessity to get along with nice folks who embrace or condone looser practices via consumer consumption accelerates.

Today, among relatives, friends, and confidants, "coming out" may segue to "co-exist" rather than rejection. Christians mingle amid those with whom they disagree in "lifestyles": a gauntlet of scolds, outcasts, and scapegoats may not match, by the 21st c. the "lived experience" of vast swathes of her diplomatically polite and smartly raised, affluent, audience, or of radical challengers; relaxed attitudes of the last sixty-plus years have loosened fidelity, intimacy, and stability. This pivot has upended both "religious" and assimilated households, as serial partnerships and polyamory grow. Few alliances consistently counter our counterculture's "have it your way": billions of satisfied customers served.

For, as with the book she edited about her cohort who shifted to the Right, there's a tilt towards Ivy League, coastal/ college town/ latte coffeehouse/ frequent flyer privilege. Those well-pedigreed movers and shakers in DC or Palo Alto corridors of clout entering, say, the Catholic Church tilt to Vance not Biden-Pelosi, Eastern Christian congregations, Chabad, and Latin Mass adherents increase, as mainstream Protestant and singalong folk worship, at least in parishes (not sure about immigrant storefronts or exurban megachurches or charismatic enterprises) dwindles. Furthermore, not everyone who nods towards restraint may hasten to worship, fellowship, or caucuses of bygone rituals. Some don't want any "organized religion" even if they're sympathetic to propriety. Many stay moderate, unwilling to support extremists, bigots, conspiracy theories, thugs or unhinged "activists."

She doesn't ask why the draw of old-fashioned living so far continues to sway but a niche cohort. She acts as if a plethora of short-lived clickbait suffices to construct firm persuasion for returning from the easygoing one-click--and since then, swipe left/right, podcast-loud, and campaign-attack status quo--to a theologically enriched approach to recovering values. Not those Silicon Valley, Big Pharma, the UN. EU, White House, dark money, PACs, and NGOs colluded to whittle away from us non-elites.

Those whom she barely notices in her Stanford perch. no matter whose partisan administration in control, opening borders, underfunding public safety, hollowing out jobs, jiggering tax breaks for corporate cronies, cozying up to bankers, and (even when she was writing, A.I. was coming) eroding by distraction our peace of mind. Her tone rattles out hyperlinked ephemera, not profound criticism.

She betrays anew a Beltway-cozy insider bias, addresses her already swayed audience of wonks and wired well-off. Sounds as if she's culling snippets from groupthink journalists, pasting quotes online, and arranging soundbites, until enough for a themed chapter. She doesn't talk to humble, harried types much if at all. She fails to balance her fast track rise to a think tank with getting out of a cubicle, unplugging a laptop, and interviewing those of us not living entire waking lives on the phone. This disconnect weakens the resonance of her messages. Too much here's airless, humorless, and rote.

[CC · Rating 3 out of 5]

This author is railing against secularism, calling it a "religion" all of its own, and detailing the abuses imposed upon Christians who just want to follow their sincerely held beliefs. There are some valid points made, mostly through anecdotal means. I agree that Christians (such as myself) have been vilified and mocked for decades. However, I feel the author subscribes to an extremely narrow, fundamentalist view of Christianity. In Mary Eberstadt's world, there is no contraception, no abortion, no extra-marital sex, and no LBGTQ people. Would she like to live in a world of the 1950's where the only people with full equality were straight, white Christian men? Maybe so.

She continually blames "the Pill" for the ensuing sexual revolution that made women more independent and hence resulted in degrading the traditional family unit, and ultimately, our society. She abhors Obama's ACA because it mandated affordable contraception to be included in health insurance policies. Obama--who is just trying to help women be able to control their reproductive lives and therefore keep families out of poverty--is perceived as an enemy of Christianity. Eberstadt's book is full of assertions like this that vilify anything she would term as secular thinking.

Eberstadt says she wants to "agree to disagree" and just be able to live her life where none of the above "sinfulness" exists, or at least a life where she doesn't have to be accepting of it. Of course, Eberstadt is welcome to her own beliefs. (I'm not sure how she will navigate through public life this way without offending others.) However, the problem arises when people who share her fundamentalist beliefs are elected into our leadership or appointed as judges, and they enact and interpret laws which persecute LGBTQ people and harm women. She objects to being called a "hater" or a "bigot" or a "homophobe," however, when laws which reflect her beliefs are passed, they really do much damage to these marginalized groups. And isn't Christianity all about caring for the marginalized?

It's been my observation that there are plenty of reasons Christians are disliked in our society. We are often not loving or welcoming to people on the margins, as Jesus was. People outside the mainstream of society are often repelled by Christians because they've been hurt by church groups who have judged them. We often lack grace. I don't think that Mary Eberstadt is lacking in these things; she is someone I would love to engage in a conversation. But Christians are often seen this way.

As a Christian, I do not want to live in a theocracy where ultimately the Christians become the oppressors. By definition, Christianity grows from the bottom up, not from the top down. It's a faith whose primary expression is love, not exclusion of the rights of others, and not forcing others to live by one narrow interpretation of biblical text. In reading this book in the year 2022, after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, I feel like fundamentalists are winning. The removal of protection for women's choice is already doing much harm: It places women in high-risk pregnancies in double jeopardy. It causes more suffering for women who miscarry and cannot now receive proper medical care (which would be considered an abortion). It makes criminals of doctors and women who opt to abort (for many varied reasons that are none of anyone else's business). The law now comes between a woman and her doctor's care, which is a very dangerous situation. This is not "pro-life." Women will suffer and die as a result. I'm sure this isn't what Eberstadt would intend, but in her deluded mind, I guess this doesn't happen.

I think what Eberstatdt doesn't "get" is that our government must be secular if all faiths must be honored as in freedom of religion. When she bemoans the exclusion of the Bible and prayers in our public schools, I ask, "Whose prayers?" "Whose Bible?" No law can prevent a student from praying in school--and I'm sure student prayers will continue as long as there are final exams. I dislike the way she divides the Christians and the "secularists" into binary groups (us vs them) when people's belief systems are so much more complex. A person who seems secular is certainly not necessarily atheist or anti-religion; there is a whole continuum of diversity in belief systems and their significance cannot be simplified in this way.

[Jonathan Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

This slim book by Mary Eberstadt tackles, with characteristic passion, one of the great but often-ignored topics of our time: the increasing hostility within Western society for traditional religious believers.

As a pastor, I consider myself fairly tuned in to this sort of news, but Eberstadt found some shocking examples that even I'd managed to miss. Eberstadt repeatedly inquires what we would think if another religious (or irreligious) group were being culturally marginalized and legally targeted in this manner - we would, of course, rightly find it abhorrent.

Eberstadt is persuasive in contending that the current furor over respecting the right of traditional religious persons and groups to conduct their lives in accordance with their own convictions, has the structure of a moral panic - much like the Salem witch craze, the Red Scare, and the daycare sex-abuse hysteria a few decades ago. In the case of those moral panics, the targeted group could really do nothing to change what was happening; it required the general public to end the hysteria. The same, Eberstadt argues, is true here, and so she makes an appeal to Western liberals to reject the hysteria and recover historic liberal values.

[Sylvester (Taking a break in 2023) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bottom line = not a good time to be a Christian. BUT! This is not new, and if history is any indicator, will merely shake off the dabblers and encourage those who truly believe.

[Marc Minter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mary Eberstadt offers the reader what must now be considered a quaint and polite request for civility and equal measures in the culture wars of 21st-century America. She embodies a classic liberal vision of American culture and politics, and she invites (maybe even pleads with) the reader to rediscover the benefits of Jeffersonian liberalism. This, Eberstadt believes, is the only good way forward, and it's the only conceivable way out of the slough of our current moment.

It seems to me that Eberstadt is something of a kind-hearted, well-meaning, and careful-thinking dinner guest who is gently asking everyone to stop throwing their food at one another. But her calls for calm have gone unheard or unheeded over the last several years, and today the other people at the table are not only throwing their food but their forks and knives as well.

The reader may benefit from Eberstadt's book. She has done an excellent job of citing numerous examples of incongruity and religious hostility among those who claim to be secular in American culture and politics. Eberstadt's book is well-written, with a good mixture of information, narrative, and argumentation.

However, I've only given it two stars here, since this sort of book must face the reality of its "sell-by" date, and its relevance has begun to sour. I largely agree with Eberstadt's arguments and rationale, but 2020-2021 have ushered in an entirely new era that no one in 2016 could have imagined. I fear that the unwillingness of our society to follow Eberstadt's counsel has led us (and will continue to do) down a far more destructive and far less enlightened path.

[Mark Jr. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a diligent concatenation of stories of anti-Christian liberal prejudice in the modern West. Not one was new to me. Every one was alarming, but not (to my mind) told in an alarmist way.

But the overall feel I get from the book is, if not alarmist, simply whiny. I have to say immediately that Eberstadt is very sharp, a writer from whom I’ve benefited before. But as a Catholic, I think she’s simply not thinking biblically; she’s thinking as an heir not of biblical religion but of Christendom and of Caesaropapism.

If she thought biblically, she’d remember Matthew 5:12.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

She’d remember Matthew 5:38–42.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.

She’d remember Romans 12:17–21.

Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

And she’d remember a major theme of one of the two bestsellers by the first pope (this is a list I borrow from John Piper).

This is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. (1 Peter 2:19)

If when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. (2:20)

Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless. (3:9)

If you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. (3:14)

It is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil. (3:17)

Rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. (4:13)

If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed. (4:14)

If anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. (4:16)

Let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good. (4:19)

Eberstadt makes a lot of telling points, but little to none of the spirit of 1 Peter is evident in the book. And yet it is Peter’s message that Christians facing soft persecution most need: an apostolic message, a dominical one.

There were, however, two major telling points in the book for me, one of which was a theme, the other a comment.

The theme was her comparison of 1) the current mania to hound Christians out of university clubs and Mozilla CEO jobs and adoption agency work with 2) manias of the past such as the Salem witch trials and the embarrassingly recent daycare child abuse scare. The parallels she drew really were illuminating: everybody freaks out and pins their own guilt on a dehumanized other. Then after the mania passes they can’t believe what they did. Yeah, I can see that.

And yet Eberstadt’s parallels imply that the mania could end some day soon and we’d all go back to the status quo ante under the benign tenets of classical liberalism. And I don’t think that’s true. I would be glad to live at peace with all men if I could, but I think classical liberalism gave us our progressivism precisely by enshrining individual freedom as its first principle. No, Eberstadt was closer to the mark when she repeatedly showed secularism to be itself a religion. The conflict between it and Christianity runs too deep for us all to turn back the clock.

Briefly, the comment I appreciated was this, and I think I can use this: to disagree with something morally is not to be a “-phobic.” It isn’t homophobia to call homosexuality immoral. We’re not called “abortiphobics” or “bestialityphobics” or—or not yet, anyway—“polygamyphobics.”

I also liked her Damon Linker quote:

Baby Boomers or Baby Boomers or Gen-Xers (like myself)—will find [Tinder’s] vision of dating as a series of technologically facilitated one-off hook-ups with near-strangers to be pretty appalling. I know I do. There’s just one problem: In order for this reaction to amount to more than an old fogey’s sub-rational expression of disgust at the behavior of the young, it has to make reference to precisely the kind of elaborate account of morality—including binding standards of human flourishing and degradation—that liberals have worked to jettison, in the name of sexual liberation, for the past half-century.

And I liked her comment that the Martin Luther King Jr of opposition to the sexual revolution may be alive today. Eberstadt genuinely has wisdom to offer. And at least that much hope.

But I see more hope in Jesus’ and Peter’s words, even if they’re harder to hear, even if it’s more gratifying to feel aggrieved, to feel robbed. They took our country. But that’s where we need Peter again. He calls Christians “sojourners and exiles” (1 Pet 2:11). America isn’t our country. Not yet. And if our hearts are set on getting it, or getting it back, we’re setting our sights too low. The meek will inherit the earth. People who look for a better city—one “that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Heb 11:10)—work and pray for the welfare of the ones they have but never forget the one they’re going to get, on a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

[Miles Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book that deserves a wide readership. Eberstadt lays out an fast and comprehensive exploration of the myriad ways in which orthodox Christianity has been sidelined in early 21st Century United States society. And she diagnoses progressivism better than most of her fellow Christian contemporaries. Progressivism is a religion, she rightly claims, built on the salvivic telos of enacting totally the individualistic (and generally gnostic) will of the modern American citizenry. Its chief sacrament, she argues, is sexuality unhinged from the created order.

For all her strength in diagnosis, Eberstadt falters in her prescription. She ask only for a return to a Jeffersonian socio-cultural settlement, wherein all religions are respected. She fails to take into account the chief mediums of Christianity's denigration: civil politics and its institutions. One hopes that future permutations of her work will reexamine the agnosticism with which conservative Christians have treated the relationship between the civil order and orthodox Christianity

[Roger Leonhardt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Christianity has become the punching bag of the left. We are demonized, our rights removed, and religious beliefs mocked. Big Government tells us we have no right in the public square while at the same time - Atheism, Islam, and the like are not only allowed, but are given special rights.

[Sheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly review for me and I think that's why it felt lightweight. OTOH, it's pretty intimidating to see all the evidence lined up this way!

[Drtaxsacto · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a developing war between religious communities and the new secularists. A good deal of their doctrines want to eliminate the guarantees established in the First Amendment. The fights come in many forms. For example, a group of colleges, both public and independent, have made it near impossible for a student organization with a religious focus to operate on campus. They demand that the groups not limit their leadership to avowed Christians. The challenges also come in places where traditional religious beliefs conflict with established policy. The secularists argue for an absolute right to abortions. You have, perhaps, heard about the small businesses which have been penalized for being unwilling to serve gay couples when they marry. In the California legislature this year, two members tried to get a bill passed which would have prevented students in Christian colleges unless they modified their policies so as to allow activities which were in fundamental conflict with religious principles. A few years before I retired we established a principle that religious colleges could establish behavior rules which applied to all students but could not discriminate on the basis of status. So, for example, a college which prohibited sex before marriage, could make that a requirement so long as it was applied to students equally. It was a good balance between competing principles. But some activists in the Gay community ignored the justness of the agreement and tried, ultimately unsuccessfully, to deny the balance.

Eberstadt goes through a litany of efforts by the secularists to shut down Christian activities. The secularists misinterpret the First Amendment by misinterpreting the Establishment clause (which was intended not to prevent religious in the public square but to prevent government from establishing a state approved religion) and the Free Exercise clause (which groups like the ACLU ignore).

Oddly the secularists don't seem to make the same kind of outrageous demands on Muslim believers. Many of the most extreme have more violent views against issues like sex before marriage and gays - but they ignore those where they will not try to accommodate practicing Christians.

Eberstadt believes that the secularists have gone many steps too far. The country was founded on religious principles. The secularists want to ignore that. The consequences of trying to adopt those principles will have long term negative consequences for the country. These issues are not simple but the basic principle of the First Amendment guarantees was tolerance. The secularists don't want to admit to that key idea. If you want to understand the challenges to Christians, this is a good place to begin thinking about what might happen next.

[Jim Milway · Rating 4 out of 5]

Depressing book on how secular religion is winning and is working overtime to keep Christianity out of polite society. If you prefer traditional marriage you're a hater. If you think home-schooling might be a better way to educate your kids, you're a quack. If you offer to pray for somebody you're oppressive.

Eberstadt compares what secular progressives are doing to Christianity to the Salem witch hunts and to McCarthyism. Her comparison are not far fetched.

We're currently losing the culture wars to an opponent who cannot live and let live. They must annihilate us. Hence the title, "It's dangerous to believe." What do we do about it? Eberstadt doesn't have a detailed action plan on how to fight back. Nor does she propose that we simply retreat to live another day. Rather she suggests that we recognize secular progressivism as a competing religion. We will need people of good will to recognize that reducing Christians' rights is reducing everybody's. The parallel with McCarthyism was the reaction by Joseph Welch to McCarthy's tactics - "Have you no decency, sir?" So secular progressivist may simply fade away as people of good will recognize its oppressive nature.

Christians need to disagree without being disagreeable. We need to engage the opposition in civil debate and full exposure of the spuriousness of their arguments. We must engage. As she quotes Solzhenitsyn, "every man always has a dozen glib little reasons why he is right not to sacrifice himself." Courage, fellow Christians.

[Lance Cahill · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars, rounded up.

The book’s overall premise can be summed up by a formulation laid down by RJ Neuhaus: Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed. Neuhaus made this statement in reference to church organization (https://www.firstthings.com/article/2...), but the author makes clear, in her view, that the rapid loosening of mores in the 20th century has led to a chilling effect on traditional views, including regulatory actions (see HHS mandates, etc).

The book is well written but it does seem to meander and I got the sense I was reading a series of NR Online blog posts artfully stringed together. It plodded its way to just enough content to be book-length, but wasn’t philosophically deep or empirically grounded save for anecdotes and missives here and there. Ultimately, the book boils down to, “hey, you liberal hypocrites, you plead for diversity and toleration but won’t countenance differing perspectives or values”. Convincing to someone looking for thin evidence of persecution, but hardly convincing to someone skeptical of the take.

I’m not sure what book this added to the public debate that wasn’t already out there. Conscience and Its Enemies would be something I’d recommend over this book with a similar theme and was published a few months before this book.

I was expecting more, but ultimately disappointed, but likely good introduction to some themes animating concerns over religious liberty.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed in this book. It wasn't worth my time.

It has the following six chapters:
1. The Roots of the New Intolerance
2. Anatomy of a Secularist Witch Hunt
3. Acclaiming "Diversity" vs. Hounding the Heretics
4. Civil Rights Talk vs. McCarthyite Muscle
5. Inquisitors vs. Good Works
6. What Is to Be Done; or, How to End a Witch Hunt

The first five chapters are a diagnosis and documentation of the problems facing people of faith, or people who don't believe the same way our culture is going, or people who speak out against our sick culture's direction. The last chapter gives the author's opinion on what can we do about the discrimination and persecution. It's rather simplistic and naive to think that progressives/liberals/socialists are going to give up any of their hard won gains to give a conservatives/people of faith any voice. It's not going to happen.

I don't recommend this book.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author's premise is that the sexual revolution, starting in the 1960s with the pill, and spilling over to gays in more recent times and now trans, openly opposes traditional religion and will give no quarter. Consequently, people of Judeo-Christian traditions, who have values guiding behaviors, must be driven from the public square by the sexual revolutionists (progressives). She lists numerous events and explains well as to why things have happened. She is restrained and slings no mud at her adversaries and instead chooses a higher path.

Highly recommended.

[Debra Wills · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gives a lot of food for thought, some I agree with others I don't. Mary Eberstadt challenges the reader to think about how Christians are being marginalized yet it isn't until the end of the book that I felt any solutions were given that involved all sides listening to the issues that divided us. It's worth a read while keeping an open mind.

[Celeste Munoz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I see what the author was trying to do here. And I do love this author. The Loser Letters was one of the most brilliant things I've ever read. I felt like this one fell short, though. It wasn't convincing in that I don't believe any left-leaning, non-religious person would be convinced by this. The audience is probably mainly the religious.

[Hank Pharis · Rating 3 out of 5]

(NOTE: I'm stingy with stars. For me 2 stars means a good book or a B. 3 stars means a very good book or a B+. 4 stars means an outstanding book or an A {only about 5% of the books I read merit 4 stars}. 5 stars means an all time favorite or an A+ {Only one of 400 or 500 books rates this!).

Very sobering book that I hope to review later.

[Angie H · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Yunzhi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Regret buying the book. A total waste of money.

[Brad · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5. A bit hyperbolic and one-sided at times, but overall, an insightful work on an important topic.

[Matt Sones · Rating 2 out of 5]

Catalogs the growing intolerance of Christians in western society.

[Quratulain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding work

Great audiobook narration

[Dietrich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though the “soft” persecution of traditionalist Christians in the modern West is nothing new, Mary Eberstadt’s timely book, It’s Dangerous to Believe, marshals plenty of evidence to show that it is clearly getting worse, and she makes a strong argument that such intensifying persecution is the result of a “new puritanism” stemming from an emerging secular religion rooted in the sexual revolution. Eberstadt attacks this new puritanism with all the heavy ammunition she can muster. She thinks genuine religious pluralism should be affirmed and defended rather than suppressed.

Eberstadt argues the persecution of traditionalist Christians is illiberal, irrational and socially destructive. It is illiberal because philosophic liberalism originates with a defense of the rights of conscience. It is irrational in that the current persecution mirrors aspects of both literal and ideological witch hunts from the past. (Great power and malevolent designs, for instance, are hysterically attributed to the already marginalized intended victims. And standards of proof for determining guilt are incredibly bogus: traditional Christians are often deemed “haters” and “bigots” for no more than simply adhering to their faith, for instance, and stigmatized as theocrats, even though their aspirations to be treated as more than second class citizens are decidedly more modest, and despite the fact the the emergence of religious freedom in America crucially depended on a Christian historical context. Also, of course, a mob mentality enables much irrational excess during a witch hunt, and today’s social media environment greatly assists the creation of this type of mentality.) And such persecution is socially destructive, fraying the ties that bind us together and entailing plenty of collateral damage, since the poor and needy are penalized as important and often irreplaceable Christian charities that refuse to surrender to the new secular pieties are crippled and destroyed.

Although traditionalist Christians will surely appreciate her book, perhaps Eberstadt’s most important audience consists of the broad number of readers who are neither persecuted Christians nor committed witch hunters. She provides an eye-opening account of what traditional Christians are enduring, and says that if the dismal situation she describes is to change for the better, if in fact traditional Christianity is not to be driven underground, it will require others to lend their traditionalist Christian fellow citizens a helping hand, standing with them against the new puritans in the name of liberality, rationality, social welfare, common sense, and the common good.

Eberstadt seems cautiously optimistic about changing the trends she describes in this book. Though she acknowledges things may get worse before they improve, she hopes that the current witch hunt will die out rather suddenly, much like in Salem or in the days of Joseph McCarthy. I hope she is right, and that with some pin-pricking the balloon of persecution soon bursts. However, I am inclined to be a bit less optimistic. For instance, since (as Eberstadt points out) the commitment to religious freedom emerged in a historical context that was overwhelmingly Christian, the increasing secularization of society might well mean that many people will simply have little to no inner commitment to sustaining a society that values the conscience rights of others, even as people like Eberstadt sound the alarm. Relatedly, another result of secularization is that for many individuals, their “understanding” of Christianity and of Christians consists mainly of perpetuated stereotypes, and so it becomes easier for them to passively go along with the persecution of a despised “other.” Also, it would seem important to remember that the persecution of traditionalist Christians means, in practice, the enhancement of centralized authority. The new puritanism is thus intertwined with and hard to disentangle from a broader and older politically progressive agenda, which means that attempts to end it will likely meet with the full resistance of the progressive political establishment.

This is a timely, brave, humane and thought provoking book, and I am very curious to see how it will be reviewed by the mainstream press.

[Paul Sand · Rating 3 out of 5]

[Imported automatically from my blog. Some formatting there may not have translated here.]

This relatively short book by Mary Eberstadt documents the efforts here in the US and elsewhere to delegitimize traditional Christian beliefs, to deny their believers an equal place in the public arena, and (what's more) to ostracize and exile those believers from positions of responsibility in private and public institutions.

Ms. Eberstadt explores a lot of case studies to support her views, most of which will be familiar to people following the news. There's Brendan Eich, forced out as Mozilla CEO when it was revealed that he backed the Proposition 8 ballot initiative against same-sex marriage. There's the Obama Administration's attempt to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to provide "contraception coverage" to their employees. There's the effort to compel Catholic Charities to offer adoption services to same-sex couples. Various efforts to restrict/ostracise religious home schooling. And more.

It's a tough life out there for a conservative Christian, in other words. Eberstadt's anecdotes are many and telling.

I think her argument is slightly off-center; there is some hostility to Christianity, but it drops off significantly for the "respectable" fraction of believers; you know, the ones who mix in a healthy dose of Progressivism and avoid saying much about sin when it comes to matters dealing with the naughty bits.

And (for example) James Damore found himself out of a sweet Google job, not because he was too religious, but because he dared to utter heresies against the Progressive social justice gospel of diversity and inclusion.

So I suspect that it's not Christianity per se that gets one in trouble; it's one's dissent from Progressive orthodoxy that brings out the witch hunt.

That said, after adjusting the target, Eberstadt makes a lot of sense that we need to bring back a modicum of respect into the argument, a willingness to deal with opinions that some might find wrong-headed, in order to (say) put babies into adoptive homes more efficaciously.

[E · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is okay. It points out the increasing soft persecution of Christians in the west, particularly the US, while also mentioning the UK. Of course, this is not exactly something new (it's been going on since Cain killed Abel), but it is certainly increasing in the West.

After providing scads of examples, Eberstadt addresses the "why" question. Her answers are compelling: secularism is a competing truth claim, a "religion," if you will, and thus conflict is unsurprising. However, it is not automatic--only a dismissal of true religious freedom will cause what is increasingly occurring. Eberstadt also ties it to the sexual revolution. Again, I think she is right. Think of Christians who are being persecuted. How often is it because of conflicting sexual mores? Very, very often (although not always; animus toward homeschooling is perhaps a counterexample, although changes in the understand of childrearing is closely tied to the sexual revolution).

This is a compelling book, even if didn't break a lot of new ground (people have been writing on this stuff for some time). But again, believers should not be surprised about what is going on. A quick read of First Peter should make that clear.