Moore on Science

In his landmark book Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans, Laurence Moore reflected on the tendency of the American media to periodically declare that occultism is on the rise. The charge of press sensationalism is not new--and not his point. Instead, looking back to the "occult" religious sects of the 19th century, he makes an intriguing point about the myth of secularization through science:

The American press likes to announce occult revivals in which Americans react against the world view of "modern science." Yet the journalistic emphasis on ebb and flow seems much overdone. The truth is that we do not live in an uncomplicatedly secular age. The scientific revolution, wherever in time one wants to cut into it, has promoted in almost equal parts a respect for empiricism among experimental scientists and a more popular belief that experiment can push beyond the limits of ordinary sensory awareness...

[This way of thinking], rather than being rendered archaic by scientific and technical progress, has, like science fiction, often gained credibility among those who have welcomed that progress. The people who believe in ESP, after all, do not think of themselves as Criticizing science per se. In their minds, they are merely urging science to stretch beyond the materialistic assumptions that proscribe certain types of research.

The Demise of American Christianity

Legendary newsman Elmer Davis offered these thoughts on the nature of American anti-Christianity:

This, after all, is the most extraordinary of recent religious phenomena--the welding together of assorted disgrugtlements [with Christianity] into a new church as thoroughly regimented as any Christian body and quite as intolerant. The intolerance has to be taken out in talk at present, other religions controlling the secular arm: but if Mercurianity [disgruntlment with Christianity] keeps on going it is likely to be the State church of America within a couple of decades.

Already it is as strong in numbers and as much stronger in influence, as was Christianity at the beginning of the reign of Constantine. Like fourth-century Christianity it is the slick new city religion, still suspect on the farm; like Christianity it is a sycretion [sic] of diverse elements held together by a fanatical refusal to compromise with older creeds and a firm conviction of its monopoly on salvation. And like Christianity its cohesion is powerfully aided by a ritual language which enables true believers to recognize each other as surely as members of the Loyal Order of Moose.

On the one hand, it is remarkable that a description published in the New York Times in 1927 should remain so uncannily accurate in describing the quasi-religious expression of irreligion in America. On the other hand, it is equally noteworthy that Davis's prediction that a "couple of decades" would see positive irreligion become the state church of America has not come true. Not even close. Irreligion may be on the rise statistically, but not the kind of militant irreligion typified by groups like the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Religious thought and behavior, and Christianity in particular, remain alive and well in America, nearly a century after Davis could foresee their eclipse by "Mercurianity." It should be a lesson against too intense an alarmist tendency in the way we assess faith in this country.

The Myth of the Founding Fathers: Asking the Right Question

As already noted, the appeal to the Founding Fathers has reached almost religious proportions in contemporary political rhetoric. Often they are appealed to in order to bolster political philosophies, economic schemes, or specific features of controversial legislation. Just as often, they are marshaled vaguely as political partisans of various stripes radically identify their own idiosyncrasies with the dead revolutionaries in an effort to legitimize not only their politics but themselves as Americans. These attempts are usually met with appropriately graded degrees of incredulity. One feature of the debate about the Founders, however, seems to drawn continual attention on every level of society: what was the faith of the Founders? The question is supposed to provide the answer to the all-important question of whether or not America is a Christian nation. Unfortunately, too few people seem to realize what historians and academics are painfully aware of: the faith of the Founders is irrelevant.

"The eventual construction of a national identity, or a national culture, involved many factors, but one that contributed almost nothing was the religion practiced by the founding fathers themselves." So says Mark Noll, revealing what ought to have occurred to countless thoughtful people at every level of discourse. The Founders, however broadly you want to construe that category, were not ministers, they were not religious leaders, they were not spokesmen for the nation’s faith. They were political theorists, in their best moments, and more often simply politicians much of the same sort we have today. They never presumed to speak for the nation or even to be representative of it. They meant only to construct a government and then to commend that government to the people for their approval and interpretation.

It is in this latter role that the real folly of tying the religion of the nation to the religion of the Founders becomes evident. When we examine only the Constitution and the thought of its various authors, we ignore that they did not invest it with its significance or even its authority. Only when referred to the people does the Constitution become representative of and normative for American government. Therefore whether or not the Constitution, and thus the government it defines, is a purely secular one rests not with the authors but with those who interpreted and applied it. In describing his purpose in writing God of Liberty, Thomas Kidd points out, "So much of the popular discussion of faith and the American Founding revolves around the personal faith of the major Founders. This is an interesting topic, but I don't actually think it tells us much about the role that religion played in the larger process of creating the American republic. So I sought to broaden the focus to the level of the public religious principles that helped unite the Patriots. These included religious liberty, the importance of virtue, the dangers of vice, the principle of equality by creation, and the role of Providence in human affairs." These popular religious notions are infinitely more important because their influence on the development of a national identity and control over politics at every level were more direct.

Yet, as Kidd points out, these common religious notions actually unified Christian and secularist alike: "When you look at these principles, it is easier to understand why people of such sharply differing personal beliefs as Thomas Jefferson and the Baptist evangelist John Leland could cooperate so enthusiastically during the Revolution." If the interest in the faith of Jefferson and Madison is intended to establish whether or not America was founded on Christian principles, the explicit faith of either is largely inconsequential. It takes a person of profound historical ignorance to assume that when Jefferson and others appeal to Nature and Nature's God in an effort to discover the universal principles which ought to govern human relations, their vision of that universal God is Christian. It may be diluted and contorted, but it is not the same vision of a secular "Creator" that they would construct had they been Hindu or Muslim or even Jewish. Jefferson was quite clear that he believed Jesus to be a uniquely qualified revealer of the true nature of the world and ethics. The principles that guided his political thought were the principles of Christianity filtered through the prism of eighteenth century natural theology, even and especially the principle of religious pluralism. Consider the argument of Catherine A. Brekus and W. Clark Gilpin: "Christianity in America is not neatly contained under the steeples of its churches or the governing bodies of its denominations but has, in addition, extended out into other sectors of society. If Americans do not always recognize the Christian influence on their culture, it is because its omnipresence has made it virtually invisible."

Ultimately, it ought to be clear that the religious thought of the Founding Fathers, while interesting in itself, is not particularly relevant to the question of whether or not America is a Christian nation. There are other more pertinent questions we might ask. What did the people who ratified and applied the Constitution believe about the Christian character of the nation? What distinctively Christian impulses or thought modes governed the apparently construction of an apparently secular Constitution? Of course, as I argued previously, the question of first importance needs to be why do we care at all what eighteenth century Americans thought and, if it is important, what is a responsible way to apply that information? Still, Stephen Prothero comes closest to providing answers about the Christian character of the republic from its outset, doing so in a way that displays a delightful penchant for Christian paradox:

There is logic not only to President John Adams’s affirmation in the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796 that “the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion” but also to the Supreme Court’s 1892 observation that “this is a Christian nation.” In short, the long-standing debate about whether the United States is secular or religious is fundamentally confused. Thanks to the establishment clause, the US government is secular by law; thanks to the free exercise clause, American society is religious by choice. Ever since George Washington put his hand on a Bible and swore to uphold a godless Constitution, the United States has been both staunchly secular and resolutely religious.

Not to beat a dead horse, but...

An op-ed put out on Fox News yesterday by the Executive Director of Beta Upsilon Chi, a national Christian fraternity, details yet another instance of "non-discrimination" trumping freedom of conscience, not to mention common sense.

In the fall of 2010, Vanderbilt University began investigating the constitutions of every religious organization on its Nashville, Tenn., campus after a discrimination complaint was filed against a Christian fraternity. During the investigation, the university changed the student organization handbook to remove a section protecting religious association. The university eliminated a clause that read, "In affirming its commitment to this principle [of non-discrimination], the University does not limit freedom of religious association and does not require adherence to this principle by government agencies or external organizations that associate with but are not controlled by the University."

In a letter to Vanderbilt students and faculty on Jan. 20, Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos insisted that the university "does not seek to limit anyone's freedom to practice his or her religion. We do, however, require all Vanderbilt registered student organizations to observe our nondiscrimination policy. That means membership in registered student organizations is open to everyone and that everyone, if desired, has the opportunity to seek leadership positions."

Contrary to the university's stated goal of inclusion and tolerance, the change in policy jeopardizes the operational freedom of all religious organizations on campus. Patricia Helland, an associate dean who oversees religious life at Vanderbilt, defended the change in an interview saying "organizations can have core beliefs, but that organizations can't require their members or leaders to abide by or adhere to those core beliefs."

It is this final quote which brings into sharp relief the insanity of "non-discrimination" in its present form. Essentially, the position of the university is that a person may believe whatever they want and may even create a society which shares those core beliefs, but that society cannot refuse membership to anyone simply because that person does not share the core beliefs which constitute the very identity of that society. It ultimately reduces all societies, religious or otherwise, to totally amorphous and pointless entities. The article points out that a Jew could not be barred from leadership in a Muslim society, nor a Christian from a Jewish society, but it extends to even more ridiculous examples than that. The next Paul Ryan couldn't be barred from membership or leadership in a society for Democrats, the next New Gingrich from a society on marital fidelity. It's nonsense.

If students are to flourish in a learning environment that values diversity, community and debate, college administrators must return to the nationwide practice of allowing an exemption in their religious nondiscrimination policy for religious organizations – organizations whose very reason for existence is to promote a particular religion. Policies like Vanderbilt's irrationally discriminate against such groups, and fail to fulfill universities' duty to protect students' rights to associate and operate under their constitutionally-protected beliefs.

The casual observer is left to wonder why a Jew would want to be head of a Muslim organization, a Republican the head of a Democrat organization, or a homosexual the head of an organization whose founding principles are heteronormative (and it is this last one that is likely the hidden impetus behind all the controversy). But that insignificant bit of pragmatism doesn't seem to be the point for either party. What this ultimately boils down to is one group of activists with a self-defeating vision of liberalism that will tolerate anything but intolerance squaring off against another group of activists who firmly believe that their right to restrict access trumps another's right to access. Both views seem repugnant on the surface, but at least there is common sense working (de facto) in favor of the latter. If core beliefs do not define the bounds of membership in a voluntary organization, what should? Consider Justice Alito in his concurring opinion on Hosanna-Tabor: "Religious groups are the archetype of associations formed for expressive purposes, and their fundamental rights surely include the freedom to choose who is qualified to serve as a voice for their faith."

Then again...(or Positive Secularism Fights Back)

Perhaps my last offering was prematurely triumphant. I awoke this morning to find an article analyzing President Obama's decision to press the issue of faith-based organizations providing sterilization, contraceptives, and abortifacients as part of their health insurance regardless of any moral qualms or religious conscience. The position taken by the executive branch seems more ideological than practical, forcing Catholic groups to provide birth control which is freely and widely available elsewhere. For the author of the article, the message the government is sending is clear:

Obama's decision also reflects a certain view of liberalism. Classical liberalism was concerned with the freedom to hold and practice beliefs at odds with a public consensus. Modern liberalism uses the power of the state to impose liberal values on institutions it regards as backward. It is the difference between pluralism and anti-clericalism.

I don't know that this can necessarily be cast as "anti-clericalism," and I certainly reject the provocative claim that "the war on religion is now formally declared." This is, however, indicative of this shift in American conceptions of liberalism that I referenced last night, away from the idea of non-intrusive freedom that dominated, at the very least, in the antebellum period and toward a new idea of government sponsored, socially mandated positive pluralism. It is no longer enough to merely not infringe upon the life and liberty of another; in fact, infringing on that liberty can be seen as a moral good provide it is done in the service of securing an increasingly bloated list of rights on behalf of another. (Imagine suggesting to an American two hundred years ago--or one hundred, or fifty, or twenty--that abortion, sterilization, and birth control were inalienable human rights that trumped religious liberty.) There does some to be a clash in cultures occurring here--though again, not some vague war on religion--which no longer sees conscience as the liberty so essential that it became enshrined in the very first amendment to the Constitution, but instead considers it to be a private peccadillo to be tolerated so long as it doesn't interfere with the liberated mindset of post-sexual revolution America.

Without climbing too high onto my soapbox, I'd like to suggest that this viewpoint is only possible because of the trivial way contemporary Christians have handled their faith, allowing it to become more about politics than piety, more about sexual ethics than kingdom ethics. I am ultimately convicted that if Christians were to take faith in Christ as the all-consuming, life-transforming, community-constituting reality that it is and allowed it to distinguish us from society at large rather than trying to conform it to social expectations, perhaps it would be harder for the world to see faith as secondary in importance to the all-powerful right to have a thin, lubricated layer of latex between you and the sexual partner of your choice.

Secularization: Asking the Right Questions

Perhaps my favorite quote of all time, which curiously has not appeared here before, is from Hans van Campenhausen: "It is the wrong question to ask, and therefore, as one might expect, has no right answer." This is the approach that Stephen Prothero took to questions raised by secularization theory. Secularization theory, which very broadly stated, is the belief that society is marching progressively on toward irreligion, raised questions about the anomaly of a developed Western society like America which was curiously still so religious. This, shockingly, turned out to be the wrong question, given that--in Prothero's words--"Secularization theory has run aground, as grand theories often do, on the shoals of historical facts."

Instead, Prothero offers this thought-provoking question which may turn out to have been the right one all along:

Today what needs explaining is not the persistence of religion in modern societies but the emergence of unbelief in Europe and among American leaders in media, law, and higher education.