Thinking over Ross Douthat’s column, I have been thinking over and over about the crisis of Christianity we need to have in our culture. We don’t want one. It’s here, but we don’t want to recognize it.

It’s a lot like the economic crisis. We don’t want to deal with it. It’s like the environment. It’s like our crazy dependence on oil. It’s like a lot of things. We know there’s an elephant in the room and we just pick up some poop every once in awhile to knock down the smell a bit.

Christianity needs this conversation.

Having popularized the term “culture war” two decades ago, Hunter now argues that the “war” footing has led American Christians into a cul-de-sac. It has encouraged both conservative and liberal believers to frame their mission primarily in terms of conflict, and to express themselves almost exclusively in the “language of loss, disappointment, anger, antipathy, resentment and desire for conquest.”

All we are doing is experiencing whiplash Christianity, like we are experiencing whiplash politics right now. We don’t want to deal with deep issues. We would just rather lob theological grenades and feel better about ourselves.

Douthat continues:

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.

We’ve lost sight of the gospel. We’ve lost sight of the core. We’ve reduced Christianity to bumper sticker slogans instead of preaching and living a gospel that changes lives. We’ve become so “hunkered down” we may just not want people to change. We may just want targets to blame for the demise of our culture.

Here is the question:

The question is whether they can become a creative and attractive minority in a different sort of culture, where they’re competing not only with rival faiths but with a host of pseudo-Christian spiritualities, and where the idea of a single religious truth seems increasingly passé.

Or to put it another way, Christians need to find a way to thrive in a society that looks less and less like any sort of Christendom — and more and more like the diverse and complicated Roman Empire where their religion had its beginning, 2,000 years ago this week.

Welcome to the new world.