While many are quick to blame a growing atheism and rampant secularism for America's cultural and moral crisis, New York Times Columnist Ross Douthat thoughtfully suggests that the root of the crisis can only be fully understood in light of the decline of institutional religion in America. He adds that even today Americans remain deeply religious, though such devotion has shifted to alternative forms offered by self-help books, a spiritual but not religious movement, Olsteen-esque prosperity gospels, and the warring political devotions of the left and right. In a word, he argues that the problem is heresy: the various debased forms of Christianity leading to greed, hubris, and self-absorption.