The obvious answer is that religion itself is the fraud. If it was genuine, it would not be cable of being thus misused and misrepresented. It applies from everything from the Crusades to the Spanish Inquisition to the burning of witches to the massacre of the Huguenots to the forcing of Christianity on colonised countries in Africa, America, Asia, Australasia, to the justification of slavery, to the religious conflict in Ireland, to the ISIS Jihads, to the Holocaust, to these modern conspiracy theories. If there actually is a God, which I doubt, then he's laughing up his sleeve at the chaos he has caused.
You’ll never grasp the purpose of Christianity if you start from the top down — from institutions, from politics, from power. You have to start from the soul.
The Church, as we see it today, is a system. But Jesus was not a system builder. He was a soul seeker. And when He said, “Follow Me,” it wasn’t to protect Western liberalism. It was to walk a road that leads through death to life — through mercy, not merit.
Religion, as Rauch partially recognizes, became a structure to manage belief and behavior. But Christianity — true Christianity — begins when you recognize your need for the mercy of the Almighty. It’s not when you adopt certain values. It’s when you say, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
From that place — and only from that place — can you see Jesus clearly. His essence is mercy. His example is love. And His invitation is for you to walk with Him, not because it makes you a better citizen, but because without Him, you're lost.
So yes, democracy may benefit from a more Christlike Christianity. But Jesus didn’t come to save democracy. He came to save people.
Rauch's essay is on the face of it ridiculous. He quotes "Jesus says" as though the Gospel Jesus was a real, historically accurate figure, not a fictional character. Second he takes up arms against Charlie Kirk, a voice for fundamental, literal Christian values, presumably because Kirk clashes with American liberals over such issues as abortion (which many rational atheists do not support) and systemic racism (which is a theology all on its own). Heck, I'm anti-Charlie Kirk when he rabbits on about what the Bible says. But Kirk seldom advances the Bible as an argument against abortion. I wonder if Rauch has ever listened to Kirk, or whether he gained his knowledge of Turning Point at third hand. Hitch and the Dawk have on occasion confirmed that the Christian set of morals is a good one on which to base one's life, the First Commandment excepted naturally. I'm all for the maintenance of this moral set, especially when compared with the politically convenient theology of the left.
SJ1: So, Rauch writes, secular America should greet religion not with apathy but arms wide open. “We should even, perhaps, cherish religion.”
GW1: I strongly disagree. Religion is based on falsehood and often leads to poor decisions and actions. So, secular America should oppose religion and support Progressive Secular Humanism.
SJ1: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People,” wrote John Adams. “It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
GW1: I disagree. To be effective our Constitution does not require that people be religious. If they are mostly moral, it will work, and morality does not require beliefs in any deities.
SJ1: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports,” wrote George Washington.
GW1: Although I admire Washington for many of his ideas and actions, he was jut mistaken on this. Morality, but not religion, is an indispensable support. We can get along fine without religion. We forget that the founders were fallible human beings, not deities. They made errors in designing our government.
SJ1: “The practice of morality being necessary for the well being of society, he [God] has taken care to impress [its] precepts so indelibly on our hearts, that they shall not be effaced by the whimsies of our brain,” wrote Thomas Jefferson.
GW1: Jefferson did not know it at the time he lived, but we now know that God does not exist. We have proven this. Jefferson was ahead of his time by establishing the principle of church-state separation, but he was still too religious.
SJ1: Christianity, Rauch says, has long helped do what liberalism in America cannot: reliably provide citizens with moral grounding and transcendent meaning.
GW1: This is nonsense! Citizens can have moral grounding and transcendent meaning without Christianity. Progressive Secular Humanism is a better alternative.
SJ1: “… [W]e secular atheists rely on Christianity to maintain a positive cultural balance of trade: we need it to export more moral values and spiritual authority to the surrounding culture than it imports,” Rauch writes.
GW1: I strongly disagree, and Rauch is just mistaken about this. We atheists don’t or shouldn’t rely on Christianity or any other religion. We now know and have proven that God, the most popular deity of all, does not exist.
SJ1: “Jesus is very clear on his view of fighting fire with fire,” Rauch says.
GW1: This claim is blatantly false. In one story of Jesus, probably fictional, Jesus advocated for “turning the other cheek.” This is hardly fighting fire with fire. It is submission in response to fighting.
SJ1: Jesus preached radical forgiveness. Liberalism, Rauch argues, embraces closely aligned ideas: forbearance, civility, and compromise.
GW1: But forgiveness is a very different concept and practice from forbearance, civility, and compromise. In its most common meaning, forgiveness is the withholding of or reduction of just punishment for bad behavior. That is an irrational and unethical response to bad behavior. A better response is JUST PUNISHMENT.
SJ1: ...American evangelicals, 80% of whom voted for President Donald Trump in 2024.
GW1: It would be desirable if 80% of a larger Christian group voted against Trump of his successor.
SJ1: Churches might suffer costs by embracing tactics that are antithetical to the teachings of Jesus.
GW1: I hope they do suffer costs because of their contradictions, inconsistencies, and hypocrisy.
SJ1: If it’s time to throw in the towel on religion, then the cultural task, according to Rauch, is to fill the void left by Christianity’s decline.
GW1: There have always been alternatives to Christianity. If people feel some void when they leave Christianity, there are plenty of places to land. The best is Progressive Secular Humanism.
SJ1: Secular substitutes — from “wokeness” to the alt-right to techno-utopianism — often have religious features, but they’ve failed to fill “what has been called the ‘God-shaped hole’ in American life,” Rauch writes.
GW1: This is nonsense! There is no “God-shaped hole.” There is only a yearning for survival and well being. That yearning can best be met by Progressive Secular Humanism.
SJ1: So, what should secular America do? Rauch’s answer is “more” — be proactively accommodating and willing to strike reasonable compromises within constitutional bounds.
GW1: Yes, Christians should work alongside humanists on goals they hold in common. Nothing wrong with that. But some Christians still resist that. About a decade ago a group of about ten atheists volunteered to work with Habitat for Humanity on house construction, but the Christians in the group rejected our offer.
SJ1: American Christianity won’t vanish anytime soon. A Pew Research Center survey published this year suggests its decline is stabilizing, with young people recently seeming more interested in organized religion.
GW1: We need to keep the pressure on. We need to keep doubting, questioning, challenging, criticizing, and undermining Christianity, while at the same time accepting their help towards common goals.
You need to read Kennedy's book, "Pathogenesis". He points out that Christianity took off after the plague of Cyprian in 249 CE because it was the Christians who went into the towns and villages to look after the sick and dying, when others wouldn't, as they were following their evolutionary survival instincts.
The obvious answer is that religion itself is the fraud. If it was genuine, it would not be cable of being thus misused and misrepresented. It applies from everything from the Crusades to the Spanish Inquisition to the burning of witches to the massacre of the Huguenots to the forcing of Christianity on colonised countries in Africa, America, Asia, Australasia, to the justification of slavery, to the religious conflict in Ireland, to the ISIS Jihads, to the Holocaust, to these modern conspiracy theories. If there actually is a God, which I doubt, then he's laughing up his sleeve at the chaos he has caused.
And I forgot to mention the religious conflicts between Muslims and Hindus in the Indian Sub-continent!
You’ll never grasp the purpose of Christianity if you start from the top down — from institutions, from politics, from power. You have to start from the soul.
The Church, as we see it today, is a system. But Jesus was not a system builder. He was a soul seeker. And when He said, “Follow Me,” it wasn’t to protect Western liberalism. It was to walk a road that leads through death to life — through mercy, not merit.
Religion, as Rauch partially recognizes, became a structure to manage belief and behavior. But Christianity — true Christianity — begins when you recognize your need for the mercy of the Almighty. It’s not when you adopt certain values. It’s when you say, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
From that place — and only from that place — can you see Jesus clearly. His essence is mercy. His example is love. And His invitation is for you to walk with Him, not because it makes you a better citizen, but because without Him, you're lost.
So yes, democracy may benefit from a more Christlike Christianity. But Jesus didn’t come to save democracy. He came to save people.
Rauch's essay is on the face of it ridiculous. He quotes "Jesus says" as though the Gospel Jesus was a real, historically accurate figure, not a fictional character. Second he takes up arms against Charlie Kirk, a voice for fundamental, literal Christian values, presumably because Kirk clashes with American liberals over such issues as abortion (which many rational atheists do not support) and systemic racism (which is a theology all on its own). Heck, I'm anti-Charlie Kirk when he rabbits on about what the Bible says. But Kirk seldom advances the Bible as an argument against abortion. I wonder if Rauch has ever listened to Kirk, or whether he gained his knowledge of Turning Point at third hand. Hitch and the Dawk have on occasion confirmed that the Christian set of morals is a good one on which to base one's life, the First Commandment excepted naturally. I'm all for the maintenance of this moral set, especially when compared with the politically convenient theology of the left.
SJ1: So, Rauch writes, secular America should greet religion not with apathy but arms wide open. “We should even, perhaps, cherish religion.”
GW1: I strongly disagree. Religion is based on falsehood and often leads to poor decisions and actions. So, secular America should oppose religion and support Progressive Secular Humanism.
SJ1: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People,” wrote John Adams. “It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
GW1: I disagree. To be effective our Constitution does not require that people be religious. If they are mostly moral, it will work, and morality does not require beliefs in any deities.
SJ1: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports,” wrote George Washington.
GW1: Although I admire Washington for many of his ideas and actions, he was jut mistaken on this. Morality, but not religion, is an indispensable support. We can get along fine without religion. We forget that the founders were fallible human beings, not deities. They made errors in designing our government.
SJ1: “The practice of morality being necessary for the well being of society, he [God] has taken care to impress [its] precepts so indelibly on our hearts, that they shall not be effaced by the whimsies of our brain,” wrote Thomas Jefferson.
GW1: Jefferson did not know it at the time he lived, but we now know that God does not exist. We have proven this. Jefferson was ahead of his time by establishing the principle of church-state separation, but he was still too religious.
SJ1: Christianity, Rauch says, has long helped do what liberalism in America cannot: reliably provide citizens with moral grounding and transcendent meaning.
GW1: This is nonsense! Citizens can have moral grounding and transcendent meaning without Christianity. Progressive Secular Humanism is a better alternative.
SJ1: “… [W]e secular atheists rely on Christianity to maintain a positive cultural balance of trade: we need it to export more moral values and spiritual authority to the surrounding culture than it imports,” Rauch writes.
GW1: I strongly disagree, and Rauch is just mistaken about this. We atheists don’t or shouldn’t rely on Christianity or any other religion. We now know and have proven that God, the most popular deity of all, does not exist.
SJ1: “Jesus is very clear on his view of fighting fire with fire,” Rauch says.
GW1: This claim is blatantly false. In one story of Jesus, probably fictional, Jesus advocated for “turning the other cheek.” This is hardly fighting fire with fire. It is submission in response to fighting.
SJ1: Jesus preached radical forgiveness. Liberalism, Rauch argues, embraces closely aligned ideas: forbearance, civility, and compromise.
GW1: But forgiveness is a very different concept and practice from forbearance, civility, and compromise. In its most common meaning, forgiveness is the withholding of or reduction of just punishment for bad behavior. That is an irrational and unethical response to bad behavior. A better response is JUST PUNISHMENT.
SJ1: ...American evangelicals, 80% of whom voted for President Donald Trump in 2024.
GW1: It would be desirable if 80% of a larger Christian group voted against Trump of his successor.
SJ1: Churches might suffer costs by embracing tactics that are antithetical to the teachings of Jesus.
GW1: I hope they do suffer costs because of their contradictions, inconsistencies, and hypocrisy.
SJ1: If it’s time to throw in the towel on religion, then the cultural task, according to Rauch, is to fill the void left by Christianity’s decline.
GW1: There have always been alternatives to Christianity. If people feel some void when they leave Christianity, there are plenty of places to land. The best is Progressive Secular Humanism.
SJ1: Secular substitutes — from “wokeness” to the alt-right to techno-utopianism — often have religious features, but they’ve failed to fill “what has been called the ‘God-shaped hole’ in American life,” Rauch writes.
GW1: This is nonsense! There is no “God-shaped hole.” There is only a yearning for survival and well being. That yearning can best be met by Progressive Secular Humanism.
SJ1: So, what should secular America do? Rauch’s answer is “more” — be proactively accommodating and willing to strike reasonable compromises within constitutional bounds.
GW1: Yes, Christians should work alongside humanists on goals they hold in common. Nothing wrong with that. But some Christians still resist that. About a decade ago a group of about ten atheists volunteered to work with Habitat for Humanity on house construction, but the Christians in the group rejected our offer.
SJ1: American Christianity won’t vanish anytime soon. A Pew Research Center survey published this year suggests its decline is stabilizing, with young people recently seeming more interested in organized religion.
GW1: We need to keep the pressure on. We need to keep doubting, questioning, challenging, criticizing, and undermining Christianity, while at the same time accepting their help towards common goals.
You need to read Kennedy's book, "Pathogenesis". He points out that Christianity took off after the plague of Cyprian in 249 CE because it was the Christians who went into the towns and villages to look after the sick and dying, when others wouldn't, as they were following their evolutionary survival instincts.