Ross Douthat has a marvelous column on the Christmas season and how Christianity is “doing.” Obviously, we are full of angst. That’s our main theme these days, it seems. The column is a good one and I am kind of setting this post as a “marker” to come back to when I have time.

One thought from his column for now:

Thanks in part to this bunker mentality, American Christianity has become what Hunter calls a “weak culture” — one that mobilizes but doesn’t convert, alienates rather than seduces, and looks backward toward a lost past instead of forward to a vibrant future. In spite of their numerical strength and reserves of social capital, he argues, the Christian churches are mainly influential only in the “peripheral areas” of our common life. In the commanding heights of culture, Christianity punches way below its weight.

This is a paragraph that is rich with challenge for my own life and ministry.