Conservative believers fixate on the culture wars, religious liberals preach social justice, and neither leaves room for what should be a central focus of religion — the quest for the numinous, the pursuit of the unnamable, the tremor of bliss and the dark night of the soul.
The "pursuit of the unnamable"? What the hell is that? Apparently, Douthat, who otherwise would be praising the market as the savior of all humanity, thinks the embourgeoisment of American religious life is a bad thing, yet if more people were real mystics it would be a better country. This column is marvelously inept, so stupidly contradictory, and blissfully ignorant of the true terrors involved in a real mystical experience that I really don't know what else to say.
Why is everyone an expert on religion and religious experiences?
*Douthat once wrote a piece in which he confessed to a liaison with a young woman who resembled, in his words, "a chunky Reese Witherspoon". The moment didn't last, so much the better for her; talk about dodging a bullet.
