Douthat on Religion

 Sometimes, familiar people turn out to have stranger thoughts than you imagined. That seems to be the case with Ross Douthat, the Timescolumnist, whose new book, “Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious,” goes to unexpected places. Douthat, whom Isaac Chotiner described as “liberal America’s favorite conservative commentator” in a Profile for this magazine, is known for a certain levelheadedness. He specializes in presenting progressive readers with ideas they’d ordinarily dismiss, and in articulating questions that tend to vex conservatives—Has America become decadent? Do we need a new “sexual ethics”?—in ways that make them available to left-leaning thinkers. It’s not easy for a conservative to crash the liberal party; the guards at the gate will turn him away. But Douthat sidles in through a side door, mingles a little, and leaves an interesting book on the kitchen table, with a few passages highlighted.