A piece by @jwhawthorne.bsky.social this week pulls some quotes from recent work by @ruthgraham.bsky.social and Katelyn Beaty regarding whether or not U.S. Christians face the reality of rising ostracization from the levers of cultural and political power.

Here, a lengthy quote from Beaty in Hawthorne’s piece:

“When Christian authors claim that we’re living in an ‘anti-Christian’ or ‘godless’ age, they are speaking less to observable fact than to a perception of minority status and worldly hostility. That’s a visceral emotion, and boy does it sell books.


But when Taylor says ‘secular,’ he doesn’t mean that most people are atheists now or even that they harbor anti-religious bias. Instead, he says, modern people now face a spiritual “supernova” of choices for faith, and that this plethora ‘fragilizes’ the religious choices we make, knowing that we might have chosen otherwise, as do many of our neighbors.”

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The pieces conclusion resonate with some of my own thoughts on the subject:

While authors like Renn and Dreher (and scores of others) are writing about how society is downgrading religion, we’re watching an administration stop humanitarian aid by religious nonprofits and threaten religious groups who do refugee relief. The cabinet is full of conservative Christian influencers. The Supreme Court has taken up a case allowing a private religious school in Oklahoma to receive state funding.


Believing in a “negative world” may just be a marker of where you stand within the broader religious landscape.