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What's an ubermom?

Ubermoms are highly educated women who have given up very fancy jobs to perfect and hone their little ones. And I always say you can tell an ubermom because she weighs less than her kids because she's so, you know, she's so trim and she's got her life together. But she's got that little baby, you know, she reads that book What To Expect When You're Expecting. I have a joke in there, there should be like a Fascist version, What To Demand When You're Expecting. So from age 3 the little kids, they've got their little phonics video games, they've got their mobiles up on top of their crib to help their spatial recognition skills, they go to school with these backpacks that look like they've got BMW's strapped to their backs. If they tipped over they'd be stuck like beetles on their backs unable to get up. They are just laden down with homework. They're just ready for the future.

Early in this country's history there was a fear of success. You trace that through to the literature of today, which over the last decade was focusing on Americans as self-absorbed individuals. What does that say about this place?

We became the richest country on this earth in 1740. In 1740 the average American was richer than the average European. It's been a long time we've been affluent. And the idea was countries get rich and then they get decadent and then they corrupt and fall apart. Well, since 1740 somehow we've not fallen apart.

I think what that says was the Puritan founders had a phrase, "rowing to heaven." You may be rowing, you're working hard, but you're not just rowing for more money, you're rowing for some sort of salvation. We torture ourselves with this sense that we've always got to achieve some ultimate perfection, some ultimate happiness, and we have God's plan on our minds.

What does it mean to you when you read a poll that says Americans are on a spiritual journey?

I think it's always been true. But what Americans lack is a vocabulary to make this journey. It's like going out on a trip and you don't have the wagons, because you don't have the knowledge of what matters, what doesn't matter, how to even talk about what character is, what virtue is, because the language has been lost.

Now, whose failure is that?

It's all of ours. It's in part because people lost the language of America, they lost the language of God. The media decided the spiritual side of America was not something we were going to cover very well.

How does it fit with your column on evangelicalism and the fuzziness of evangelicalism, losing our theology and our distinctiveness as part of becoming part of the mainstream of American culture?

There are tens of millions of evangelicals in this country so it was natural that evangelicals were going to be part of the mainstream culture of America. But one of the problems with that is you become part of the commercial side of America, part of the side that is not about theology, not about the exact words and language written in the Bible. It is merely about being happy, getting over your problems, having fun, going to church and having great conversations and sharing compassionate moments, but losing touch with what are the demanding doctrines of a faith.

When you look at America as a nation that needs bridging between politics, media, religion, a nation that is on a spiritual journey but doesn't like religion, who can be the bridger?

One of the things I'd hope to see, say, in the evangelical community, is that there would be people who'd reach out to explain themselves, to join the mainstream community and talk about the specificities of their faith. But I hope more in the secular community there'd be less easy condemnation of the evangelical communities and more education. And to be honest, I really think that's happening. I think the media has improved 100 percent in the past 10 years since the Washington Post said that evangelicals were poor, uneducated, and easily led. That was an era of real prejudice and I think there's been a lot of progress made since then.

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May (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48