Jonathan Rauch is asking all the right questions. "Why should secular Americans, including many who feel they have a beef with organized religion, care about the state of Christian America?" for one. For another, "What happens to our liberal democracy if American Christianity is no longer able, or no longer willing, to perform the functions on which our constitutional order depends?" These questions, and the paucity of answers currently available to them, worry Rauch, a self-described secular gay atheist Jew. And if they are troubling enough to move Rauch to write Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain With Democracy, that should set off alarm bells.
