Dear Scott Burgess: I am in receipt of your message saying that I am “A douche bag and an embarrassment to our university.” It’s been several weeks since you’ve written and I have been busy. But now that I have the time I wish to respond to your concerns that my weekly political column is causing embarrassment to our university and to higher education in general.

Christianity is dying. At least, that’s what major newspapers are telling us today, culling research from a new Pew Center study on what almost all sociologists are observing these days—the number of Americans who identify as Christians has reached an all-time low, and is falling. I think this is perhaps bad news for America, but it is good news for the church.