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Owen Strachan
M
y traverse through the Kentucky hinterlands was a long and windy drive through farmland and rolling hills. As I approached charming Danbury, home of Centre College, I listened, as any selfrespecting young white person would, to National Public Radio. It was time for Diane Rehm, but instead of one of her wonky panels featuring two liberals (one a journalist, one a policy analyst) and a conservative (invariably cranky, due to the 3-to-1 odds), she was hosting just one guest: Ross Douthat, the columnwriting wunderkind for the New York Times. This was a most auspicious hosting, for my drive was indeed long, and I had time to kill. As I listened to Douthat banter ably with Rehm over his new book Bad Religion, I felt the stirrings of a Vulcan mindmeld across the radio airwaves. The two talkers got along well enough; though Rehm did not waste an opportunity to declare her own self-sculpted religious views, Douthat parried nicely as he skewered therapeutic religion and prosperity thinking. As the conversation wore on, however, my NPR zen was interrupted. The vaunted hills of Kentucky made hash of my frequency, and I heard more static than commentary. Then another problem arose: treacly music tinkled out of my speakers. A soothing voice announced the dawn of a “family-friendly” listening period. A Bono wannabe sang of unconditional acceptance and sudsy divine love. It was as if my car radio had morphed into a microcosm of greater spiritual trends: trenchant religious commentary drowned out by the soothing sounds and narcissistic anthems of the local “spiritual” broadcasting studio. As the postmoderns say, it was all very meta. 9