Ross Douthat

You have, you know, clearly strong white Catholic support for Republicans, but, you know, the church is going to issue criticisms of Trump's immigration policy and so on.

But is there a strategy apart from leaning into tribalism that you would actually recommend to pastors and leaders?

Yeah.

But I mean, that's that's a hard balance to strike.

Right.

And I feel like you often get, you know, it's just as easy to get a dynamic where your consistent ethic ends up alienating people all over the spectrum.

It's like you look to the Catholic bishops take a lot of flack from political conservatives for policies that, you know, that are seen as liberal or left wing, especially around immigration, but also around the environment.

But at the same time, they win no friends on the progressive left by being against liberalism.

euthanasia and abortion and you know whatever exciting biotechnological evils await in the future right so that it just seems like you can end up again in terms of practical pastoral strategy in a polarized environment you can end up in kind of a sour spot even when you're trying to be as holistic as possible in your message yeah but i mean god calls us to be faithful not successful right

No, I don't think it's a fatalist.

It's certainly not a fatalist position if you believe in God.

But that preaching the gospel question, what about issues of belief?

So one of the narratives around mainline decline has been

Yes, it's somewhat about politics.

And yes, it's somewhat about class and so on.

But the main line also seemed relative to more conservative and evangelical churches, at least in its leadership, to just not be as sure about politics.

core doctrines of Christianity, the resurrection, the miracles, the literal stuff, right?

And that even if you look at the evangelical churches and say, oh, they're too partisan or they're too ideological, you go to those churches and they are talking about Christ crucified and raised from the dead and the forgiveness of sins and these kinds of things.

Do you think that that is also a part of the story of which churches grow and which decline?

It's something else going on there.