David Brooks says Mitch Albom is more to be feared than Mel Gibson

I worry about Albom more, because while religious dogmatism
is always a danger, it is less of a problem for us today
than the soft-core spirituality that is its opposite. As
any tour around the TV dial will make abundantly clear, we
do not live in Mel Gibson’s fire-and-brimstone universe.
Instead, we live in a psychobabble nation. We’ve got more
to fear from the easygoing narcissism that is so much part
of the atmosphere nobody even thinks to protest or get
angry about it.

….In this heaven, God and his glory are not the center of
attention. It’s all about you.

Here, sins are not washed away. Instead, hurt is washed
away. The language of good and evil is replaced by the
language of trauma and recovery. There is no vice and
virtue, no moral framework to locate the individual within
the cosmic infinity of the universe. Instead there are just
the right emotions – Do you feel good about yourself? –
buttressed by an endless string of vague bromides about how
special each person is, and how much we are all mystically
connected in the flowing river of life.