the other market

Ross Douthat has repeatedly made some important points about the relative thinness of the American Christianity, left or right. His observations, however, are best understood within the framework sketched out yesterday by RJN:

In America, where more than 90 percent of the people say they believe in God and well over 80 percent claim to be Christians of one sort or another, Christianity is a bull market. We can debate until the wee hours of the morning whether this is "authentic" or "biblical" or "orthodox" Christianity, but the fact is that this is the form - composed of myriad forms - of the Christian movement in our time and place.