Nothing gets kicked around today like Christianity.
And, in truth, there's probably a lot of kicking around deserved.
Ross Douthat, 32, a conservative columnist for The New York Times, thinks so. In April, his book "Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics" will be published by Free Press. It's probably worth a read.
On Thursday, Douthat, the Times' youngest ever op-ed columnist, will be at Berry College in Rome, Ga., where he'll speak on "Bad Religion and American Public Life Today."
The free lecture will be in the college's Krannert Center ballroom at 7 p.m.
Online blurbs about the book say Douthat talks about how the faith has gone astray and how it is taking American society with it.
Since I was unable to reach the author and do not have an early edition of the book, I wondered if his argument was more with the faith or with how its adherents live out their faith.
The book covers the time period from the 1950s, when post-World War II families attended church in droves and churches of every stripe grew, to today, when you hear about the decline of Christianity from every corner.
A description of "Bad Religion" says it charts Christianity from a "vigorous, mainstream and bipartisan faith -- which acted as a 'vital center' and the moral force behind the civil-rights movement -- through the culture wars of the 1960s and 1970s down to the polarizing debates of the present day."
So who moved? Did the faith change, or did we?
I would argue the faith, which still does so much more good than the typical Christian basher knows, still calls for its adherents to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit the imprisoned. And it calls for us to love our neighbors as ourselves.
And while I would say the Christian faith, through its various denominations and ministry arms, is doing more feeding, clothing and visiting than when church attendance was at its highest in the 1950s, we're not doing these things as often as individuals.
In other words, we moved.
The saintly Greatest Generation parents, we spoiled baby boomer parents and the self-satisfied Generation X parents wanted -- and want -- to give their children a better life than they had. And who's to say that they were -- and are -- wrong? But in doing so, we robbed our children of responsibility, of self-sufficiency and of a good work ethic.
We didn't raise them in the church, we didn't let them see us -- or ask them to help us -- reach out to others (after all, we have denominational agencies to do that), and we didn't raise an eyebrow at their television, movie or video-game habits.
All of that may be what Douthat has in mind in the book's description of the emergence of "debased versions of Christian faith that breed hubris, greed and self-absorption."
It further says the author talks about "the prosperity gospel's mantra of 'pray and grow rich'" -- remember The Prayer of Jabez boomlet -- "and a cult of self-esteem that reduces God to a life coach."
The book description states that Douthat, who grew up in a liberal home but converted to Catholicism, calls for a revival of traditional Christianity.
In my thinking, that's still feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and visiting the imprisoned, and loving your neighbor as yourself.
We just have to practice it.