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Responding to Secularism

April 20th, 2021 | 2 min read

By Matthew Lee Anderson

As secularism has grown ascendant and liberalism has become decadent, Christians have used different strategies to respond. Some change to accommodate the culture, some hunker down and wait for it to blow over, and some propose re-Christianizing America. Ross Douthat recently wrote a piece analyzing these responses. You’ll get a lot more out of this Mere Fidelity conversation if you read Ross Douthat’s article first. Nothing says Mere Fidelity better than a heated exchange over the pronunciation of ‘amicable.’

Mere Fidelity is sponsored by Lexham Press, and features the Lexham Press Book of the Month.

The Book of the Month is Anglicanism: A Reformed Catholic Tradition by Gerald Bray. Get a 40% discount using the promo code MEREFIDELITYAPR21. In Anglicanism: A Reformed Catholic Tradition, Gerald Bray argues that some theological trajectories are more faithful than others to the nature and history of the Church of England. Readers looking to understand the diversity, nature, and future of Anglicanism will be helped by Bray’s historical examination.

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Timestamps:

Mere Anglicanism [0:00]

The Cul-De-Sacs of the Christian Intellectual” by Ross Douthat [1:36]

Ecumenism not Accommodation [13:48]

Analyzing the Different Christian Strategies[19:40]

What is the job of the church? [27:08]

Each Mere Fi Member’s Unique Contribution [35:20]

 

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Follow DerekAndrew, and Alastair for more tweet-sized brilliance. Thanks to Timothy Crouch for keeping us organized. Thanks to Tim Motte for sound editing. And thanks to The Joy Eternal for lending us their music, which everybody should download out of gratitude for their kindness.

 

Matthew Lee Anderson

Matthew Lee Anderson is an Associate Professor of Ethics and Theology in Baylor University's Honors College. He has a D.Phil. in Christian Ethics from Oxford University, and is a Perpetual Member of Biola University's Torrey Honors College. In 2005, he founded Mere Orthodoxy.