Souled Out: Why The Era of the Religious Right is Over
Consider a political story told long ago that reminds us that the words “Jesus” and “religious” were not always reflexively associated with the words “right” or “conservative.” It is the story of Mrs. O’Reilly and her son who was dutifully taking her to the polls on Election Day. Mrs. O’Reilly always voted straight Democratic. Her son, a successful member of the upper middle class, had become an independent and voted for many Republicans.
As was their routine, the son asked the mother how she would vote, and, as always, she answered, “Straight Democratic.” The exasperated son replied, “Mom, if Jesus came back to earth and ran as a Republican, you would vote against him.” And she snapped back, “Aw, hush, why should he change his party after all these years?”
A great many Americans have come to believe that he has, in fact, changed his party after all these years. On significant parts of the right and left, there is a sense that religion always has been and always will be a conservative force. There are Republican candidates and political operatives who assume that religious people live on the political right, care primarily about issues such as gay marriage and abortion, and will forever be part of the GOP’s political base. There are liberals -- though fewer than conservatives think -- who buy this Republican account and write off religious people as backward and reactionary busybodies obsessed with sex.
Souled Out insists that religious faith does not lead ineluctably to conservative political convictions. It argues that the era of the religious Right is over. Its collapse is part of a larger decline of a certain style of ideological conservatism that reached high points in 1980 and 1994 but suffered a series of decisive--and I believe fatal--setbacks during George W. Bush’s second term. The end of the religious Right does not signal a decline in evangelical Christianity. On the contrary, it is a sign of a new reformation among Christians who are disentangling their great movement from a political machine. This historic change will require liberals and conservatives alike to abandon their sometimes narrow views of who religious Americans are and what they believe.
In truth, religious people hold a wide array of political views. Religion is not the enemy of reason (or science), and people of faith are not blind automatons who never question themselves or their deepest beliefs. At the heart of my argument is the view that religious faith, far from being inevitably on the side of the status quo, should on principle hold this world to higher standards. Religious people should always be wary of the ways in which political power is wielded and skeptical of how economic privileges are distributed. They should also be wary of how their own traditions have been used for narrow political purposes, and how some religious figures have manipulated faith to aggrandize their own power. The doctrine of original sin, the idea of a fallen side of human nature: these apply in principle to people who are religious no less than to those who are not.
Throughout history, our great religious traditions -- this is especially obvious in the Christian and Jewish scriptures --- have preached a message of hope for more just and decent human arrangements. One of my favorite teachers, the theologian Harvey Cox, argued many years ago that “the theological enterprise seeks to grasp the problems man faces in this historic present in the light of the past and his future, that is, in light of faith and hope.” Cox was right to call for a church “which speaks with pointed specificity to its age, which shapes its message and mission not for its own comfort but for the health and renewal of the world.”
Marx saw religion as the “opium of the people.” But that can be true only if religion is seen as utterly indifferent to what happens in this world -- or if it becomes a kind of decent drapery, to use Edmund Burke’s evocative term, to disguise or rationalize the authority of the already powerful. Such a faith would be incapable of challenging injustices and indifferent to how God’s children are treated by their governments, by their employers, by their societies. Such a faith would reflexively support the status quo by offering its blessing to whatever happened to be fashionable or whomever happened to be in power. But that is not the faith of the scriptures. It is certainly not my faith.
The title of my book can be read in two ways. It speaks to our country’s exhaustion with a religious style in politics that was excessively dogmatic, partisan, and ideological. It is a style reflecting a spirit far too certain of itself, and far too insistent on the depravity of its political adversaries. Linking religion too closely to the fortunes of one political party, or to one leader or group of leaders, is always a mistake. It encourages alienation from faith itself -- where, after all, did Voltaire come from? -- by turning a concern with the ultimate into a prop for temporal power. It distorts great traditions by requiring their exponents to bob and weave in order to accommodate the political needs of a given moment or the immediate requirements of a given politician. Thus do great traditions drain themselves of their critical capacity. I do not for a moment pretend that this tendency is unique to political conservatives. But for more than a quarter century, it is the political Right that has used, and I believe abused, religion. A great many people -- including a great many religious people -- have had enough.
They have had enough for the reason embodied in the other sense of the title: Reducing religion to politics or to a narrow set of public issues amounts to a great sellout of our traditions. It is common to speak of religion as “selling out” to secularism, or to modernity, or to a fashionable relativism. But there is a more immediate danger, particularly in the United States, of religion selling out to political forces that use the votes of religious people for purposes having nothing to do with a religious agenda -- and, often enough, for causes that may contradict the values such voters prize most. It is a great sellout of religion to insist that it has much to teach us about abortion or gay marriage but little useful to say about social justice, war and peace, the organization of our work lives, the death penalty, immigration policy or our approach to providing for the old, the sick, and the desperate. Religion becomes less relevant to public life when its role is marginalized to a predetermined list of “values issues,” when its voice is silenced or softened on the central problems facing our country and our government. My book reflects impatience with the very way in which “values issues” have been defined, especially by pollsters who stack up “moral values” as a choice apart from economic or foreign policy issues. Voters worried about poverty, the war n Iraq or the justice of the tax system are just as concerned about “values” as are those voters concerned about abortion or gay marriage.
The idea that the religious winds are changing is one of Souled Out’s central themes. Over the last two decades, much of the public discourse was premised on the idea of religion as a right-wing force. This assumption shaped how religion was covered in the mass media. Once, the media paid much attention to a broad range of religious figures -- from Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, and Karl Barth to John Courtney Murray, Billy Graham, and Martin Luther King Jr. Beginning in the late 1970s, the focus of interest narrowed. To be sure, Pope John Paul II earned his share of coverage. But in the United States, the attention lavished on Pat Robertson, the late Jerry Falwell, and James Dobson suggested that to be religious was to cling to a rather narrow set of social and political views. The public voice of religion, as reflected in the supposedly liberal mass media, was deeply inflected with the accents of a largely southern, conservative evangelicalism.
The future of religious engagement with American public life will not be defined by the events of the recent past. In the new millennium, fresh religious voices are rising to challenge stereotypical views of religious faith. I refer here not only to Jim Wallis, Amy Sullivan, Bob Edgar, and others who have joined them in speaking eloquently on behalf of religious progressivism. There is also Rick Warren, a religious and political conservative who nonetheless insists that if Christians do not care about the poorest among them in the world, they are not being true to their faith. There is Rich Cizik, a loyal conservative and a top official of the National Association of Evangelicals, who insists that a concern for life entails an engagement with the stewardship of the Earth and the problem of global warming. There is Bono, who said he could be considered a man of the cloth only if the cloth might be considered leather. He, too, challenged Christians to stand up for the poor. And religious liberals who had spent much time reacting to the religious Right in the 1980s by arguing against religious engagement in politics found their voices as people of faith insisting on a different interpretation of their traditions and of the scriptures.
My book explores these themes by looking at polling and practical politics, recent history, and developments in theology. It suggests ways of ending culture wars that, I believe, are harmful to the progressive cause. And it discusses how progressive politicians -- most notably Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton -- are speaking of faith in new and promising ways. I hope all these issues and others will come up in the course of our exchanges.
Methinks the victory parade is premature. Fingers crossed.
February 11, 2008 12:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey E.J.,
We here at the Cafe have had a few discussions along these lines within recent months. One I am thinking of particularly was with a liberal evangelical preacher. Unfortunately, with the site change over, I can't seem to find his posts right now and I don't remember his name. In any case, he made some arguments similar to yours, namely that when he reads the Bible he sees stories and imperatives about social justice and helping the poor, not imperatives about sexual mores.
The problem I have with these sorts of discussions is that it seems that people often want to impart some political momentum to the collapse of the Religious Right--to spin the collapse in order to gain political ground out of it. Normally that would be fine, but when we start talking about religion, we get into some dangerous ground.
If religion isn't naturally conservative, I think we have to assume that it also isn't naturally liberal. But you seem to think that it is somehow naturally liberal. You endorse the statement that religion ought to "speak[] with pointed specificity to its age, which shapes its message and mission not for its own comfort but for the health and renewal of the world.” While that might be true, what you see in it is that the church ought to be more vocally opposed to unjust social structures. But if you ask a conservative Christian, they would probably say that the church ought to be vocally opposed to abortion, gay marriage, pre-marital sex, etc. The statement is informed after the fact by the beliefs of the audience.
And that is the problem with religion in politics in general. I have no doubt that Jesus sought a more just social structure, more compassion, and more care for the poor. But much of the judeo-christian tradition also has something to say about gay marriage, abortion, etc. The fact is that people independently break into four categories. There are the religious and the non-religious. And then independent of that, there are liberals and conservatives.
Both religious liberals and religious conservatives will seek justification for their positions in their religion, but that is merely because they are operating within that explanatory paradigm. It does not mean that religiosity actually explains or justifies their position.
My sincere hope for the post-religious right era is that individuals take responsibility for their faith on their own terms. Faith ought to be private and personal, not political.
February 11, 2008 1:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
One I am thinking of particularly was with a liberal evangelical preacher.
Brian McClaren
February 11, 2008 11:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
test post
February 11, 2008 1:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I put a comment in, with a link, and it's gone. It was on topic:
"But Virginia's "conservative Christians" are hardly a monolith; the formulas that worked before are in tatters. Jerry Falwell is gone; Pat Robertson is on the way out, and his once intimidating "Christian Coalition" barely even exists - even what it stands for anymore is a mystery. (A friend yesterday even hinted that the current CC leader is quietly supporting Clinton)"
February 13, 2008 8:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, reasoned discourse. So refreshing! But are we talking politics, here, or sociology?
February 11, 2008 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Faith is a problem. Note that I'm using the following definition of the word: Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
Having a portion of one's beliefs immune to critical thinking leaves one too open to other faiths and authority figures. I don't just mean religious faith. I include faiths such as nationalism (see American exceptionalism), cults of personality (see George W Bush) and belief in free markets as economic panacea.
February 11, 2008 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hate to be difficult here, but what is the point of this kind of high-minded musing about the American political scene. Our national discourse is shattered and your editorial page is a big part of the reason why.
I realize faith and religion are all the rage in political discussions today, but as long as you share space with the likes of David Broder and Richard Cohen, you have bigger problems to contend with.
February 11, 2008 1:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I look forward to reading your book, but obviously I haven't yet. With that in mind, some initial reactions to your post.
It strikes me that the "new" role of the religious community in politics that you envision is an "older", pre-1980 role. But I think a lot of things have changed since then. The role that the Christian religious and evangelical community used to play in the good old days was posited on some assumptions that everyone in the U.S. was religious, that no one was gay, or atheist, that abortions happened but were a cause for shame and no one talked about them. That train done left the station.
The people who spoke up for abortion rights, gay rights, and the separation of church and state when it was literally dangerous to do so were not coming out of the church -- they were secularists. They were the ones speaking for the victims and the disempowered. They were continuing to follow the mission they had embarked on, and that they were joined in at the time by the churches, during the civil rights and anti-war eras. They were later abandoned in this mission by the churches.
I am not sure what you mean when you say that there are "ways of ending culture wars that, I believe, are harmful to the progressive cause." If those ways include going back to the "good old days", then that means not ending the culture wars but surrendering to the other side. Perhaps in your book you provide a reason why secular society should forgive the intolerance of the churches, but you don't seem to provide this reason in your post. Unless the religious voices you point to are willing to acknowledge, for example, that atheists can be moral people too, then I don't see what we have to talk about.
February 11, 2008 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
As an naturalized American citizen who's originally from the UK (Scotland), I've always been puzzled as to why so many religious people in the US tend to be conservative, particularly in the South.
My father was a minister in the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) and was much more lefty than I am (I'm a by-the-book liberal Democrat) as are so many friends of our family who are ministers. I would guess that if you polled all the ministers in the Church of Scotland you would find that only a small percentage would identify themselves as conservative (although "conservatives" in the UK are much more liberal minded than they are here - there wouldn't be a lot of room in the GOP for Tory leader David Cameron eg). Also, if you polled them I'd be equally astonished if you found any more than a handful who don't believe in evolution.
Religion is seen in the UK as something which requires much more of a social conscience. Conservatism is equated with "selfishness" - as something fundamentally "unreligious". Maybe that's unfair. But that's the reality.
Why? Well, that's the way Scottish society is. It's a very politically liberal place where "equality" is a prized goal. The church is made up of human beings and their views reflect the values of society. Same thing in the South. If a fundamentalist Christian from Mississippi had been born instead in Glasgow, then they'd be a completely different person with different values. (As they would if they'd grown up in Boston or Seattle). I'm sure E.J. is correct - outside of the South, in particular, there are many, many religious people who are not conservative.
This is a fascinating subject and one which begs the question, "How did religion come to be associated with right wing politics in the last 25 years or so"? I'll be very interested in reading more on this...
Thanks, E.J.
(Oh, and I'll bet that if you polled religious leaders in the UK you would find not one - zip, zero, nada- who thinks that torture (or "enhanced interrogation...") is something which they could defend. Now, you can argue about things like economic policy. But I think it's pretty clear that when it comes to torture, the answer to the question "What would Jesus do?" is a no brainer.)
February 11, 2008 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are a lot of people on the left who are uncomfortable with Obama's use of religious language, but I think it's precisely his ability to speak credibly and authentically the language of faith that will make it possible for the people that Tom Frank talks about to shift left. There is this group in the malleable middle that were the Reagan Democrats in the eighties, and I think Obama has the ability to effect a similar shift with Obama Republicans.
Is there anything more important for the Democratic Party than bringing this middle group more enthusiastically and solidly into the Dem coalition? It will be 50% +1 and stalemate politics forever until such a thing happens Secular types have got to learn about (the ignorance is astonishing) so they can to embrace and respect what's best in American religiosity. It's not going away. America will never be France or Sweden. And there's plenty going on in American Christianity for them to work with if effecting a progressive agenda is something they are really interested in.
February 11, 2008 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
The religious right is not going to go away. Forget it. The truth is that there's far too much social and political and financial infrastructure behind the religious right to simply wither.
The Dobsons, the Falwells, the Robertsons, they aren't going to wake up one morning go "I was wrong" and give away their stuff to the poor. they aren't going to go away at all.
The best that we can hope for from these is that they vanish into their own extremism, demanding ever and ever greater nuttiness from a diminishing tide of true believers. Let them purge themselves out of the mainstream.
But this, in itself, doesn't open the door to progressivism. People who went to a right wing Church will not now start going to a left wing church. Rather, they'll find a right wing church that's less nutty, they'll be less politically active, or they won't go to church at all.
Progressive religion will not change. Or more precisely, it will appear to change. But that will be mostly a result of staying in place and doing nothing while the religious right bifurcates into passive middle of the roaders and hard core nuts.
Frankly, I simply don't see that there ought to be or should be a great mandate for religion in American politics. Martin Luther King is known for his civil rights work, not his clergical activities.
February 11, 2008 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
DougJ,
You wrote,
"...Our national discourse is shattered and your editorial page is a big part of the reason why.
I realize faith and religion are all the rage in political discussions today, but as long as you share space with the likes of David Broder and Richard Cohen, you have bigger problems to contend with.".
I don't understand your argument. Editorial pages of major newspapers in this country encompass a wide range of political viewpoints. In the Post's case, it ranges from George Will to E.J.
The NY Times editorial page ranges from Bill Kristol to Paul Krugman. Krugman's views, eg, are not any less relevant because of the nonsense spouted by Kristol. (Although as an Obama supporter I'm getting increasingly irritated by Krugman...)
E.J. is, in my opinion, the best in the business.
(geez, what a suck up...!)
February 11, 2008 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
As an addendum listen to Richard Cizek's interview yesterday on NPR about the changnig politics of evangelicals found here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18854833
Cizek is VP of Governmental Affairs for the Nat'l Assoc. of Evangelicals. He says 40% of evangelicals are up for grabs, and Obama's a very attractive choice for them. He says also that the Republicans he knows want much more to run against Hillary because they know that Obama will break many evangelicals of their Republican habit.
February 11, 2008 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Simply put, I don't think the religious right is going to go away for a long time, if ever. They will continue with their brainwashing of kids in "Christian" schools and home schooling endeavors, betting that these kids will become even more involved and active in politics.
Fundamentalists do not pledge to the flag of any nation, but to their faith, be it Christian, Muslim, you name it. Their goals are the same and none have any intention of altering or compromising their position. Fact of life.
Polls consistently find that about 30% of the US voting population declare themselves to be fundamentalist Christian. Republican politicians are generally not stupid. They know that if they can keep that 30% within their grasp, then all they have to do is entice another 20-25% of the population to agree on their policies and wedge issues to maintain power.
It is not a stretch to assume that 25% of our population is fairly ignorant of most things outside their front door. How difficult do you think it would be to persuade them that God performs miricles, war with crazy Arabs is good, that you can't be Christian and believe killing babies and loving fags is good, that their relatives were not apes, that Jews killed Jesus, that Bush is a good Christian?
I believe it was H G Wells who observed that moderate voices among fundamentalist sects usually end up dead. I don't think that historical trend is going to end any time soon.
February 11, 2008 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
EJ, thanks for your work on a very interesting and important subject. I look forward to the discussion.
I hope the commenters who are anti-religion will try to stick to facts in their discussion and not merely spew venom here.
There's lots of interesting movement, splintering and change in what used to look like a more monolithic Christian right wing, which was on the march and aiming to gobble up middle-of-the-road church-goers (I've been very worried about losing African-American church-goers to the right, along with Catholics, who have a long and noble tradition of supporting the struggles of the poor and low-wage workers and not just being anti-abortion).
We on the left need to understand what is happening and what openings it offers us.
Someone above postulated that believers merely used their faith to justify their pre-existing political positions -- it's actually much more complex, with decades if not centuries of theological underpinnings. I think it's helpful to understand this to grasp how it is changing, what is open to change and what is not likely to change. And also quite importantly, what is genuine religious belief and what is being used and manipulated by leaders on the right for political and personal power.
February 11, 2008 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
So, Ann H, why don't you inform us of "what is not likely to change"? Then, "the commenters who are anti-religion [can] spew venom" in the proper direction.
February 11, 2008 4:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sounds like you're knife sharpening, Ellen (I'd put that in the accusatory italics if only I knew how), and I'm really not interested.
February 11, 2008 8:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, Ellen. You have quite a bit of nerve asking a believer to explain her faith. It's faith, see, and that means it not only can't be proved, but it's True(tm) even when it flies in the face of evidence and logic.
So put the knife away...or better yet, keep it sharp to facilitate a human sacrifice to the All-Just and All-Merciful.
February 12, 2008 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Valdron & Ed
The Dobson religious right isn't going away. Neither is the Aryan Nation nor the Communist Party. The question is how much influence it can have on mainstream politics. If you take away from the Dobson/Fallwell crazies the sane center of believers who have leaned rightward since Reagan, the crazies become impotent.
Evangelicals are far less monolithic than most outsiders think. Many have seen what their support of Bush has meant, and they're not stupid. They see that they've been manipulated, and they are eager to turn to an honest broker who shows that he is able to genuinely respect their concerns and sensibilities, which are not as uniformly troglodytic as they are so often portrayed.
February 11, 2008 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's always been bunkshooters. Google "Sandburg, Ode to a contemporary Bunkshooter, and notice the date.
The Dobsons of the 2000s will become as forgotten as the Billy Sunday's (The focus of that poem) of the 1900s.
Pity is, they just keep coming. And while their here, they do a lot of evil in the name of Jesus.
Maybe the answer isn't to accept them, and tolerate them. Maybe, the answer is more "walk the walk" and less "talk the talk."
I think there is a place for religious values in politics. But let's see some action regarding poverty, inequality, and war. More New Testament and less Old Testament.
February 11, 2008 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Editorial pages of major newspapers in this country encompass a wide range of political viewpoints. In the Post's case, it ranges from George Will to E.J.
The NY Times editorial page ranges from Bill Kristol to Paul Krugman. Krugman's views, eg, are not any less relevant because of the nonsense spouted by Kristol.
It's not about point of view, it's about substance versus gossip. And, frankly, this is not a place where anyone on the Wash Post editorial page comes shining through.
I'd rather EJ spend a little less time musing about the meaning of faith and so on, and a little more time doing factual analysis of candidates' claims and policies. And a little more time calling out other Villagers for their debasement of our dialog.
You can't be both a Villager and an actual progressive in today's world. Sadly, EJ has chosen the former over the latter.
February 11, 2008 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've always thought that there was plenty in Christian dogma and doctrine, as well as the words of Jesus himself, to argue for progressive ideas. That's why it surprised me so much in the last election that Democrats never went into churches to argue their position. Even as a civil rights worker in Georgia in the mid sixties we went into white fundamentalist churches and preached for justice right out of the bible. Sure, as a few writers have noted, a lot of these people are too far gone to be reached. But it sounds like there's some fertile ground there and in my opinion how much progressives reach out to them will determine their success in the coming election. Take a quarter of fundamentalist religious voters and the race is over.
February 11, 2008 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
The evangelicals were on the side of the progressive democrats in the day of William Jennings Bryant and they continued with Democrats into the sixties. Then the Democratic Party turned on them by embracing civil rights and they have voted with the republicans ever since. This has been the glue that held them on the right.
As the problem of racism recedes in this society, and the younger evangelicals are less racist than there parents, it seems only natural that they will gravitate towards the Democrats yet again. After all, the Republican Party does not represent their class interests
Surely, many people must have noticed that Huckabee's platform embraces many issues that are progressive democratic issues. He obviously is aware of what is important to his constituency. And once these people give up their racism and homophobia they will be our constituency once again.
February 11, 2008 4:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Most Americans, both on the right and on the left, see a powerful connection between their most cherished values and their religious beliefs. And most Americans are Christians. The politicians who ignore this are called losers. As I see it, all voters are either values voters or else people simply looking out for their own economic self interest. I honestly believe there are more values voters on the left than on the right.
The Republican Party has done an amazingly good job of convincing small-town Christians that two of their strongly held values – their desire to protect innocent fetuses and their distaste for homosexuality – are the sine qua non of politics. Amazingly, Jesus had absolutely nothing to say about either of these issues. The Republicans have also succeeded in creating a myth that progressives are at war with Christianity.
Republicans have two sets of allies. One is the militant atheists who prowl internet political blogs like DailyKos, looking for Christians that they can attack as idiots. With friends like this Democrats don’t need any enemies.
The other ally is the media, which has equated values voters with the Religious Right.
Obama and Clinton can either embrace religion or else lose. Let’s not forget that the founder of the progressive movement was William Jennings Bryant, a deeply religious man. Let’s not forget that Franklin D. Roosevelt and Martin Luther King quite literally appealed to the better angels of human nature. They had moral force precisely because they couched their values in their religious faith. Our world is more secular now, but it’s not THAT much more secular.
February 11, 2008 4:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your comments scare the hell out of me. No one should have to "embrace" the christian religion to win public office, or at least that is what that "quaint" document, the Consitution says.
"Obama and Clinton can either embrace religion or else lose." May I remind you that Ronald Reagan, that hero of the christian right, rarely darkened the door of a church, but then again, that may very well be what you mean by "embracing christianity." There's a lot of THAT going around!
"Let’s not forget that the founder of the progressive movement was William Jennings Bryant, a deeply religious man. Let’s not forget that Franklin D. Roosevelt and Martin Luther King quite literally appealed to the better angels of human nature. They had moral force precisely because they couched their values in their religious faith."
So what? Abraham Lincoln was NOT religious. You can be a good person whether you are a believer or not. If you don't belong to a church, you just have to actually think through what it means to be a good person, rather than have somebody else tell you how THEY think you should do it.
I would like to borrow your phrase and ammend it:
If our country makes its decisions on its leaders, and those leaders make our national decisons based on religion, our country will ultimately be a loser, both at home and in the world.
February 12, 2008 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
EJ, you state in your post: "And it discusses how progressive politicians -- most notably Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton -- are speaking of faith in new and promising ways"
Barack Obama gave a wonderful presentation on the subject of religion and politics before he decided to run for president. (Watch it here: http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid463869411/bctid416343938"
Yet I have yet to hear Hillary address any faith topic in "new and promising" ways.
Can you suggest where I might find info regarding Hillary's thoughts on faith in politics?
February 11, 2008 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
One is the militant atheists who prowl internet political blogs like DailyKos
Oh, please.
February 11, 2008 5:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you kidding! Them militant atheists are crawling out of the woodwork; they're swarming like killer bees; they're rising zombie-like from the grave. What's a poor Christian to do to defend himself?
"The horror! The horror!"
February 11, 2008 5:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Right Wing Christo Fascist Ayatollahs were always treated as if they were more powerful than they really ever were.
Pat Robertson endorsed Rudi, and then Rudi sank like a rock.
I rest my case.
February 11, 2008 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Them militant atheists are crawling out of the woodwork; they're swarming like killer bees; they're rising zombie-like from the grave.
They're almost as bad as the anti-war hippies who have taken control of the Democratic party and are busy alienating good, honest, pro-war middle America.
February 11, 2008 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, but just for the record: My definition of stupid is someone who believes that the world is only 6000 years old and that man was contemporaneous with dinosaur.
It's non-negotiable. I don't dislike stupid people. I don't disrespect them. I had a cousin who never learned to read or write, and he's a fine person. But I won't back down and I won't pretend. Someone comes to me with stupid beliefs, then they're stupid beliefs. Stupid beliefs make for stupid people.
Having said that, I'm happy to see the Dobson's dissolve into barking irrelevance, their movements retreating to a hard core of lunatics, and most right wing Christians lapse into political apathy.
The Christian right has come to reject Bush, not for screwing the poor, not for making wars, not for any number of sins, but rather for his disinterest in their causes:
* A constitutional amendment to outlaw gay marriage;
* A constitutional amendment to repeal Roe v. Wade;
* Prayer in classrooms;
* The right to discriminate on the basis of Religion - a discrimination which would include discriminations for sex, orientation, ethnicity, etc.;
* Dissolution of the separation between Church and State;
* Control of the social safety network through "faith based" programs;
* Endorsement of corporal punishment by which a father ruled his children, and a husband ruled his wife.
They were happy to have less taxes for the rich, if a few hundred dollars would dribble through to them here and there. They were happy to have more defense spending. They were puzzled at how deficits could come about. They were indifferent to all this stuff about corporate deregulation. People dying in far off countries, they were good with that... particularly if it brought on the Rapture... speaking of which. In short, they signed onto Bush's entire agenda... on the condition and belief that they would get theirs.
Well, they didn't get theirs. Their barking lunacy undermined their hopes and dreams. The other factions of the Republican alliance - the corporate pillagers, the foreign policy hawks, regarded them as useful idiots, but not to be allowed near real power. You only have to look at how the Republican media treated Huckabee and Paul any time these guys were on the verge of being serious contenders.
Well, according to their sensibilities, I'm on an express elevator to hell. So there's a limit to the amount of respect that I'll give that. See my earlier discussion of "stupid."
As for concerns, I just listed several which constituted their agenda under Bush, and in which Bush sorely disappointed them. The ones I listed are uniformly troglodytic.
But hey, I'm not unfair. Feel free to list off a bunch of 'non-troglodytic concerns that they might have, and we'll see.
February 11, 2008 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting that LJG brings up William Jennings Bryant(sic). Bryan was the founder of Populist movement and therefore profoundly religious and, lest we forget, the lawyer for the fundamentalists during Scopes. He despised Darwin having concluded that Darwin's Theory of Evolution was the cause of immorality in his day. Ironically, he most likely believed in biological evolution but not social evolution, especially when it came to Adam and Eve. No doubt he would be a thumper on the tube today, right up there with Pat Robertson and his ilk.
So from Scopes(creationism and anti-intellectualism), then the school prayer ban, then civil rights(the South), then the 60s hippies(disrespect, protest, immorality, drugs, gays, feminazies), then finally Roe v., the fundamentalists said enough is enough, we're gonna take over.
They found their man in Reagan and we all know what happened since.
February 11, 2008 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes Valdron et.al., and Blacks are disillusioned with the Democrats because their welfare checks and free housing are on the decline. *roll* Keep your ignorant and hateful biases to yourself.
February 11, 2008 6:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sure it is grossly unfair to criticize your premise without having read the book, but your comments above put you in the long line of religious apologists. History doesn't bear out your premise, however.
I'm not going to get into a deep debate over the foundations of religious belief beyond stating that all religions have as a core premise the existence of a supernatural component to their theological framework. One can be willing to live with internal contradictions, perhaps, so that one can believe things which have no scientific basis (or evidence) while at the same time not being opposed to practical scientific progress, but this doesn't change the fact that there is a fundamental dichotomy between science and religion. Saying that this isn't so, doesn't change the facts.
Now if you want to argue that religion has overstepped too far into politics that's fine. If you want to argue that religious people should focus on good works more and public policy less, that's fine too, but don't try to conflate two issues together.
The current interaction between religion and politics in the US is fairly unique in the developed world. In most other advanced societies religion has be relegated to a minority status, in some cases less that 10% of the population. Let's not over generalize about what is basically an American situation. Western European nations have much better social programs without having to depend upon the religious either as field troops or to set a moral tone. Democratic governments can do the job if they are just allowed to follow the desires of the majority.
Perhaps the increasing dissatisfaction with religion in this country is causing apologists to try and find a new role before it also becomes a minor factor in public life. The new "liberal" religious movement smacks of a bit of desperation to me.
February 11, 2008 7:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
About William Jennings Bryan: Ed Denver apparently despises him because of Bryan's activity in the Scopes Trial. In his excellent biography, Michael Kazin points out that Bryan's main objection to Darwin was Social Darwinism - a philosophy that all progressives, religious or not, find repellent. If you are going to criticize Bryan, do it correctly: He was, I am sorry to say, a racist. Like it or not, the progressive movement began with Evangelicals (I am not one, by the way). Like it or not, Evangelicals used to be Democrats. If we treat them with respect (as Obama -a Christian, but not an Evangelical - does) many of them will come back. If we continue to ridicule them and insult them, we well keep losing elections. If you want to start a party of atheists, you will have about as much clout as Ralph Nader does. You won't win anything, but you may be able to block Democrats from winning.
February 11, 2008 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry LBJ but :
is not correct. I accept that they were an important part of that movement but there were others as well.
February 11, 2008 11:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: The religious right is not going to go away. Forget it. The truth is that there's far too much social and political and financial infrastructure behind the religious right to simply wither.
The Religious Right may never vanuish entirely, but it may well dwindle to the point of political insignificance. It very nearly did so in 2000. Had either Al Gore or John McCain become president that year, the Religious Right would be nothing than a grumpy fringe movement today. Think back: its main institutions were all but bankrupt, its leaders a laughingstock, and its rank and file deeply demoralized by the failure of Monicagate to end Clinton's presidency and more importantly his popularity. Remember "The Death of Outrage", "I no longer believe America has a moral majority:" and Cal Thomas calling for Christians to get out of the business of politics and back in the business of prayer? The Religious Right was on the ropes in 2000-- and given that it has suffered great damage from its long embrace of all things Bush it may well be on the ropes again in another year or two.
Re: Polls consistently find that about 30% of the US voting population declare themselves to be fundamentalist Christian.
I think you mean "Evangelical" not "Fundamentalist". The latter word has a negative connotation (especially now it is associated with radical Islam too) and very few people use it to describe themselves. Nor are Evangelicals necessarily Fundamentalist. Most in fact are not
Re: A constitutional amendment to outlaw gay marriage;
Bush has publicly backed this (but there's little a president can do in this area)
Re: A constitutional amendment to repeal Roe v. Wade;
Bush has given them Alito and Roberts instead-- they are delighted
Re: Prayer in classrooms;
This is a state or local issue, not a national one, and the Relioguous Right does not push for it nationally in any major way.
Re: The right to discriminate on the basis of Religion - a discrimination which would include discriminations for sex, orientation, ethnicity, etc.;
Religions already have the "right" to discrminate (see: male-only Catholic priesthood)
Re: Dissolution of the separation between Church and State;
There is no "formal" separation; rather there are numerous traditions and court decisions affirming such a separtion. Traditions are hard to unravel (any religion should appreciate that). As far as coiurt decisions ago, I repeat: Roberts and Alito
Re: Control of the social safety network through "faith based" programs;
Bush proposed exactly this. The GOP in Congress was too busy with cronyism and corruption.
Re: Endorsement of corporal punishment by which a father ruled his children, and a husband ruled his wife.
Huh? I have never heard the Religious Right argue for this in a political way; indeed, why would it be a political issue since there are no laws forbidding women from submitting to their husbands, or children from obeying their parents!
February 11, 2008 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hear you.
I mean, what kind of "religious" person would have a problem with universal heath care?
What I don't get, is why the right considers itself "religious" at all. Caring for the sick was a big deal in the New Testament.
Frankly, I don't think they should get to call themselves 'christian.'
February 11, 2008 8:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Workerbee, the best explanation of how the Christian right could not be in favor of universal health care and other anti-poverty measures that I have ever read was in Don't Think of an Elephant (having a senior moment on the author's name). Not a perfect book, and I tend to disagree with (author's) description of the left, but here's what he says about the Christian right that made sense to me: They think the world is a dangerous place and they would do no one any favors to give them any help (other than moral discipline), because if would weaken them, when what people need is to be toughened up-- morally and otherwise. Handouts are a short term help that in the long term endanger the people who get them-- make them less able to cope in this world, and less likely to find God.
I don't agree with this, but it is at least a somewhat coherent position.
I had a student tell me that his fundamentalist church was not concerned with improving people's education or housing, or presumably health care, because they really believe that Christ is coming any day, and it is more urgent to save people's eternal souls. Again, I can't agree with this (and my student was not sure himself what he thought) but I find it at least a coherent position.
If you don't believe in persnal salvation, or that God is really going to sit in judgement and send some people to hell for eternity, it is hard to grasp the social positions that many right wing Christians take.
Personally, I am an atheist.
I do find it useful to see things from other people's perspectives, though; not to agree, but to understand how we can talk to each other, and whether there are any openings to change their minds.
February 11, 2008 8:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
So... what exactly is the religious right seeking or standing for that is not utterly toxic. In what way are they not troglodytes?
February 11, 2008 7:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
What good are Blacks? In what ways are they not grasping, lazy, degenerates trying to use the federal government to steal your money? *roll* Do you not see the problem with your approach here?
February 11, 2008 8:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I see that you don't have a the shadow of a clue.
There's a distinction between an ethnic group and a religious ideology.
Now run along.
February 11, 2008 9:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Valdron--
Since I used the word troglodyte in an earlier post, I'll assume you are writing to me. (It helps, by the way, to address the people by name whose comments you are responding to.)
Where the ignorance lies among the "educated" secularists is in the assumption that to be theologically conservative = troglodyte.
Theologically conservative for Catholics and many evangelicals does not equate with rejection of science, and it very often equates with a progressive social agenda. Jim Wallis, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference were or are all left of center on most social issues.
Abortion is the one chronic area of disagreement. But because abortion has been such a litmus test issue concerning one's progressive credentials, they get bunched in with social conservatives with whom they disagree with almost everything else.
February 11, 2008 8:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Cusanus,
Actually, this gets us into what 'conservative' means. I'd argue that Right Wing Christianity has nothing to do with the notion of 'conservative' theologically or otherwise.
I'd argue that 'conservative' implies a respect for the existing order and a committment to avoid radical change, and embrace incremental change on a thoughtful and careful basis.
Right Wing Christianity as practiced in the United States entirely rejects existing order, and has no use for incrementalism. Rather, it promises radical transformation on a personal level - through 'born again', miracles, or other visible manifestations of god. On a larger level, it seeks or advocates radical transformation through a number of guises - millenialism, post-millenialism, rapture, culture war, constitutional amendments, their language and world view is entirely radical. They want radical change, they want the world turned on its head.
It only took catholicism four centuries of kicking and screaming.
For my part, as I've said, rejection of science is where the conversation ends.
Yet the Catholic Church has under John Paul II and Pope Benedict, worked very hard to purge liberation theology or any left of centre politics, while at the same time enabling the right wing. Hardly encouraging.
In any case, I draw a distinction, as I've said between the stability oriented, incrementalist approach of conservative Christians such as the Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, etc., versus the Radical and Revolutionary approach of Right Wing Christians.
I disagree. Behind the issue of abortion, there is a very different and quite antithetical worldview as to the nature of sex and the role and status of women.
Those who oppose abortion on religious grounds, as mentioned elsewhere, also tend to extend that opposition to contraception, to masturbation, to vibrators, to homosexuality and even to knowledge. They oppose depictions of sexuality or nudity, and they oppose sex education in school, family planning of any sort, and believe in abstinence education.
When we look into this further, what we find is a very narrow worldview centred around the notion that sex is not a personal choice, but rather, a sort of property right derived from religious license. The man is the owner of the right, and therefore the owner of sex. The woman is the object of sex, the receptacle for the mans seed, the womb for bearing his children. The role of women is to be submissive and subordinate, to be property of the man. Religious panegyriasts have argued that within this framework women find true liberation and freedom, but really, its closer to Chador cultures. The man is also the head of the family, and therefore of the children.
Interestingly, right wing religion is notorious for an undercurrent of father/daughter incest. Sometimes symbolically played out, sometimes literally.
So the abortion thing is not some little point of difference, but is the tip of a very creepy iceberg.
Some of them, perhaps a lot of them, really are trogolodytes.
I'm not speaking from ignorance, I've had friends who were members of or became members of right wing churches.
February 12, 2008 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've been kicking around reasons for Sen. Obama's dramatic rise. One potential explanation is that he speaks a language understood by practicing Christians.
Sen. Clinton is by all accounts a person of faith and her policy positions reflect it. But Obama demonstrates an ease with religious imagery (dog whistles?) that communicates respect and understanding for persons of faith. He does this inspirationally without the negativity shown by the religious right. It seems to have innoculated him somewhat. So far, Obama has received only sporadic fire from the secular left and the religious right has kept itself busy attacking McCain and Clinton.
I would be very interested in polling information on the religious makeup of Obama supporters vs Clinton supporters as well as a comparison to the general populace.
February 11, 2008 8:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Valdron asks, for the second time, ""So... what exactly is the religious right seeking or standing for that is not utterly toxic." He deserves an answer:
In general, the rank and file members of the Religious Right believe in truthfulness, kindness
the duty of parents to protect their children, compassion for unfortunate people, comfort for the ill, hard work, friendliness, fairness, protection of the weak and the elderly, the rule of law, protection from sexual abuse, and (among many other things) civility. Though I abhor many of their leaders, I think I can find many areas of common ground with these people who seem so strange to many of us on the left.
February 11, 2008 8:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have three responses.
First - first, everyone has those values. It's not an aspect of religion. Talking gorillas and chimps, dogs and dolphins have those values. Muslims, hindus and jews have those values.
Second - I see no evidence that any of these values translate into substantive positive political action.
Third - there is a real argument that right wing religion frees at least some people from those values.
It is not a sin to lie to those who are not of their faith. The consequences of this are disquieting.
The duty to protect your children, becomes the right to rule them, which involves the right to beat and punish them. By the same token, the same right exists for men over their wives. Children and wives are required to submit to their fathers and husbands. The devout man is entitled to rape his wife. This is not without consequences - right wing Christians oppose and undermine rape crisis centers, battered women's shelters, family planning, contraception, public education, etc.
Comfort for the ill, protection for the weak, have their limits. God favours success, indeed - material success is proof of gods favour. Therefore, the bum in the ditch has it coming. The poor are deserving of their fate.
The 'rule of law' takes second place to the 'rule of God' or Biblical law.
Certainly kind, decent and worthy people are everywhere. There were even compassionate Nazis. But so what.
February 11, 2008 9:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Valdron, You have just demonstrated that people on the left can be every bit as irrational and bigoted as Pat Robinson.
February 11, 2008 11:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, it was, er...YOU who demonstrated that!
February 12, 2008 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: It is not a sin to lie to those who are not of their faith.
Where are you getting that from? I have never heard anyone make that claim
Re: The duty to protect your children, becomes the right to rule them, which involves the right to beat and punish them.
Punish one's children, yes (but secular people do that too). Beat them, no.
Re: The devout man is entitled to rape his wife.
Absoluetly not., You are making up wild calumnies out of whole cloth.
Re: God favours success, indeed - material success is proof of gods favour.
A small handful of (not necessarily conservative) churches make that claim. Most do not.
February 12, 2008 6:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Greetings to all, and thank you for those comments. Because of my technical incompetence, I have not been able to access he comments from the respondents chosen by TPM, and I hope to respond to them later. But I would like to discuss some of these excellent posts.
First, my thanks to Scotty59 for his very kind words. His observation about Sottish clergy is apt. Indeed, as he knows, the Labour Party (if I may use the British spelling) was in significant part inspired by Christian Socialism. It was often said that Labour owed more to Methodism than to Marx.
Tom Wright makes an excellent point: "If religion isn't naturally conservative, I think we have to assume it isn't naturally liberal." That's exactly right. The first chapter Souled Out is titled: "Is Religion Conservative or Progresive? (Or Both?)" In the book, I write: "Religion is, necessarily, both conservative and progresive. Religion is rooted in tradition and survives through development and change within the tradition. It applies old truths to new circumstances. It also examines old truths in light of new circumstances. The conservative insists that the tradition not be distorted merely to accomodate passing fads and fashiones. The progressive insists on purifying and clarifying the tradition by freeing it from the distortions of cultural encrutations of the past. The conservative keeps the tradition alive by honoring it. The progresive keeps the tradition alive by adapting it and sometimes by challenging it." I write about the Jesuit scholar David Hoillenbach's lovely idea of "intellectual solidrity," which, he writes, "entails engagement with the other ... in the hope that understanding might replace incomprehension and that perhaps even agreement could result." In the book, I argue that intellectual solidarity ought to be practiced not only among believers, but also between believers and non-believers. It's why I appreciate discussions such as this one.
I'll comment on some other posts in a moment.
February 12, 2008 7:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Following on where the previsious post ended: I was struck by factbased's assetion that faith claims are "immune from critical thinking." My main beef with the new atheist writers whom I discuss in the book is not that they are wrong in asserting that religion has been abused -- of course religion has been abused and misused. My disagreement is their asumption that religious people never question their faith, never subject a tradition's assertions to critical inquiry. On the contrary, I think there is much evidence that believers question themselves all the time. Michael Novak (whose political views I disagree with these days, but who has written powerfully on "Belief and Unbelief," the title of one of his early books) has noted that believers regularly engage in self-interrogation. Among the questions Novak notee that believers regularly ask themselves are the obvious ones, for example: "How does one know that one's belief is truly in God, not merely in some habitual emotion or pattern of response?" I talk a lot in the book about believers, non-belivers and rational inquiry and I'd be interested in factbased's response to those parts of Souled Out.
Nedbalzer asks fairly about what I mean about ending the culture wars. One example is my discussion of abortion (especially on pp. 106-111 of the book). I make the point that the debate over when life begins is ulikely to be settled soon -- or, in politics, perhaps at all. I also argue that many Americans are genuinely torn about abortion. Many see it as a serious moral problem, yet oppose an outright government ban. I argue that serious efforts to reduce the number of abortions would, from a pro-life point of view, save more fetal lives than fruitless efforts to crimininalize abortion; but that most of the steps we would take to reduce the number of abortions (more emphasis on contraception, sex education and personal responsibility on the part of both men and women, plus real support for poor women who want to bring their children into the world) are steps both pro-choice and pro-life liberals would strongly support anyway. "Taking substantial steps to reduce the abortion rate will never settle the larger moral and ethical argument over when life begins," I write, But it could give us all a worthy rallying point.
I like Cusamus' points that "America will never be France or Scotland" and that "evangelicals are far less monolithic than outsiders think." Exactly right on both counts. Indeed, one of the central arguments of the book, reflected in my initial post, is that there is a large reconfiguration going on in the evangelical community, witness the growing concern among evangelicals with the environment (notably global warming) and poverty. NeilR is right that relatively modest shifts in the political preferences of white evangelicals would make a big diffrence, but whether they shift voting patterns or not, evangelicals are already changing the national dialogue.
My thanks to LJG for mentioning William Jennings Bryan, FDR and Martin Luther King. LJG is right about the importance of Mike Kazin's excellent book on Bryan. To Valdron's point on King: I think a full understanding of King's work requires an understanding of the role of the scrptures in his thinking and preaching, and also his devotion (shared with Lincoln) to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. And I agree also with Maseduley's comment on Obama's speech, which I write about at some length in the book and which I admire very much. I will find a link to some of Clinton's comments and try to post it later.
I'll be back, but thank you for this great debate and the many thoughtful comments.
February 12, 2008 8:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Pleased to reap Reece's glory, but he was the one that suggested religion was not naturally liberal.
February 12, 2008 9:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
EJ, you suggest that most pro-choice and pro-life folks would agree about "more emphasis on contraception, sex education".
Perhaps you have some information on this, I would be very glad to hear it.
It has been my sense, more anecdotally, that it is just the opposite. That a great many pro-lifers are opposed to most contraception, maybe somewhat less when it is used within marriage, but quite vehemently when it is used outside marriage-- don't even tell the kids about it, it will encourage them to have sex!
Catholics, of course, are theologically opposed to contraception, though that doesn't seem to effect the numbers of them who use it. Other religious conservatives seem so anxious about sex (all the most serious sins seem to involve sex in one way or another) and so hell-bent on personal responsibility that I do not see them agreeing that good sex ed and access to contraception would reduce the number of abortions. Isn't a great deal of Republican policy in this area focused on abstinence INSTEAD OF (rather than in addition to) contraception?
February 12, 2008 10:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, he wasn't referring to all pro-lifers, but merely to pro-life liberals. That might seem like an oxymoron to many pro-choicers, but it's not. For a long time, I counted myself in that group. Now, I wouldn't really call myself pro-life or pro-choice (or, rather, I'd say I'm both).
Furthermore, one could argue that all pro-lifers should support those policies as it would reduce the number of abortions, but that's unlikely to happen in the near future.
February 12, 2008 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Hey! Enough already! I'm a pundit. We only get 800 words to make our arguments. So we throw out a few factually unsupported WAGs. It comes with the territory. You expected a dissertation?" E.J. Dionne
February 12, 2008 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have to take exception with the whole bogus "moral argument" about abortion. It's clear that overriding Roe v. Wade would be a political disaster for Republicans. Thus, they're unlikely to ever let it happen.
Regardless of how sincere some "Christians" are about the reproductive rights debate (and I think many are sincere, though I'm still reluctant to call most of these people Christians, based on their other views), they're being played for fools by a cynical political party that will never actually give them what they want.
To even wade into these complex issues of when life ends is a mistake, a dead end, a wrong turn. The only real issue here is what changes will be made to existing laws. And the answer is there won't be many at the national level.
February 12, 2008 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
E.J. Dionne said:
"My disagreement is their asumption that religious people never question their faith, never subject a tradition's assertions to critical inquiry. On the contrary, I think there is much evidence that believers question themselves all the time."
Like Bush?
Questioning one's faith is not the same as subjecting it to critical inquiry. Critical inquiry (defined as "rational inquiry") means that you hold beliefs based on evidence, not faith. While religious people may occasionally question their faith, they rarely, if ever, subject their beliefs to rational evidence-based inquiry.
There is a reason for this. Rational inquiry is the very opposite of faith-based belief, and belief in religion or god would require real evidence to support that belief. THAT is the point of Dawkins, et al.
February 12, 2008 11:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
I hate to hit a sidenote, but in re Marx, the full quote is:
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." The distinction between painkiller and drug is not so great even today, however, for all that we have mastered such technologies as radio.
But unlike most invocations, it seems used well here, for religion's use in distraction (viz 'Pie in the Sky') is not the fault of the people but its own and its proponents'. (One can string a whole series of drug-related metaphors here). And in that sense there is something delicious as well as righteous when it is a trumpet for social justice rather than distraction from; though those who call for and use it as such do not often fare well (now or two millennia ago).
February 12, 2008 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
"How does one know that one's belief is truly in God, not merely in some habitual emotion or pattern of response?" Michael Novak quoted in E.J. Dionne
What the hell does that sentence mean? It doesn't come close to parsing. No one believes in an "habitual emotion"; no one believes in a "pattern of response."
All that Novak appears to be saying is that believers sometimes question whether they are attending church and performing the rituals out of habit or because they believe that that is what God desires.
True questioning begins not with what should I do to please God but rather, whether there is a God.
February 12, 2008 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Semiloon-
Faith is not propositional in the first instance; it is experiential. Faith propositions are to experience what poetry is to experience--it's the same kind of knowledge. To insist on religious truth claims meeting scientific standards is akin to Henry Higgins saying why can't a woman be like a man.
Because there is evidence, just not the kind you like. Religious belief is ultimately rooted in experience--it is subjective experience, but it is experience that resonates with the experience of some of the greatest souls that have existed in the last several millennia who have written and spoken about that experience. If you stand outside the experience, it is understandably difficult to accept it's validity. That's why the experience, aka faith, is called a gift. Some people hear the music and some don't.
Nevertheless, all of us have the capacity to hear if if we're open to it. I have never been to China, but I trust the testimony of those who have been there. Well even the the geography of faith is an interior experience, it is still nevertheless possible to trust the testimony of those who report on it. And as with anything, there are good travel writers and there are poor ones. Don't judge the existence of a place by the descriptions of it that are superficial and cliched. Read the great ones.
February 12, 2008 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
>Because there is evidence, just not the kind you like. Religious belief is ultimately rooted in experience--it is subjective experience, but it is experience that resonates with the experience of some of the greatest souls that have existed in the last several millennia who have written and spoken about that experience. If you stand outside the experience, it is understandably difficult to accept it's validity. That's why the experience, aka faith, is called a gift. Some people hear the music and some dont.
What you call evidence, I call hearsay. And please stop with the patronizing "gift" metaphor. If you would like to delude yourself by believing in some sort of mythical being, of which no rational evidence exists and of which you have no verifiable first hand knowledge, that is certainly your business. But don't pretend that you have some sort of "gift' that others don't or that your experience is in some way superior to others. (BTW, this is the same claim that psychics and other charlatans make everyday to avoid scrutiny.)
This is the direct path that allows so-called religious people to classify non-believers as second-class citizens or infidels. "Oh well, you just don't have the GIFT."
>Nevertheless, all of us have the capacity to hear if if we're open to it. I have never been to China, but I trust the testimony of those who have been there. Well even the the geography of faith is an interior experience, it is still nevertheless possible to trust the testimony of those who report on it.
Terrible analogy. We have lots of rational evidence that China exists. There are photos, films, cuisine, culture, fossils, friends who live there, friends who visit. There is a mountain of converging evidence confirming the existence of China. If I doubt any of this, I can book a flight there and be in Shanghai tomorrow.
There is nothing irrational about the belief that China exists.
A much lower bar of proof exists for the existence of China than the existence of a god.
And there is an axiom of rational thought that says extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
You make the extraordinary claim that there is a supernatural being guiding us. You need to supply the extraordinary proof to back that up.
February 12, 2008 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
One thought: perhaps religion is opium for the people, but allegedly even the most primitive cultures discover various interesting mind altering substances to
use. Also, we need some "irrational" value system to rationalize. If we use a
religion to do so, results may vary, but there is no guaranteed method anyway.
Second, an observation. Contemporary American combination of ideas called "religious right" is rather unusual. Pre-occupation with sexual taboos is rather usual, but combining it with "randian" social teaching is not. In Europe religiou
s nuts are probably politically strongest in Poland, but there "right wing" is economically populist. Islamic fundamentalist also tend to be economically populist. In India there was some connection between "free market" and "Hindutwa" bu
t not as Randian as in USA.
So the weaknesses of American religious right are in a disconnect between the religious tradition AND the economic interests of working class religious people
and "rugged individualism" planks added by religious leaders who consult theologians from AEI. Militarism and anti-pacifism is also not a natural extension of
conservative Christianity.
All of it was below the radar screen of individual attention when it was just a
stuff of tax cuts and expressing xenophobia. But now we have increasingly unaf
fordable healthcare, consumers suffering from credit crunch and expensive gasoline (and who has most SUVs and pickup trucks?), and a war that is rather clearly
going nowhere. War that was proclaimed a "just war" although it looks like anything but.
What can religious conservatives do? They have an option of voting for Huckabee or even McCain, but the first is a total phony as a populist (his tax plan is
actually anti-populist) and the second does not even try. Thus some percentage
can be expected to go for "none of the above", and some can change the order of
priorities and vote Democratic.
Perhaps. For truthfulness, they accept things like Saddam responsibility for 9/11. Compassion: they support grimly punitive law. Fairness: this is a very different concept of fairness, not for the strange and ungodly. Comfort for the ill -- unless it would be socialized medicine. Civility -- ha ha ha ha ha ha. Who was buying those books like "How to talk with a liberal" (with a baseball bat)? But people actually change their views, so the punitive and spiteful coloration that often characterizes "conservative religion" is perhaps altering.
February 12, 2008 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
One thought: perhaps religion is opium for the people, but allegedly even the most primitive cultures discover various interesting mind altering substances to
use. Also, we need some "irrational" value system to rationalize. If we use a
religion to do so, results may vary, but there is no guaranteed method anyway.
Second, an observation. Contemporary American combination of ideas called "religious right" is rather unusual. Pre-occupation with sexual taboos is rather us
ual, but combining it with "randian" social teaching is not. In Europe religious nuts are probably politically strongest in Poland, but there "right wing" is economically populist. Islamic fundamentalist also tend to be economically populist. In India there was some connection between "free market" and "Hindutwa" but not as Randian as in USA.
So the weaknesses of American religious right are in a disconnect between the religious tradition AND the economic interests of working class religious people
and "rugged individualism" planks added by religious leaders who consult theolog
ians from AEI. Militarism and anti-pacifism is also not a natural extension of
conservative Christianity.
All of it was below the radar screen of individual attention when it was just a
stuff of tax cuts and expressing xenophobia. But now we have increasingly unaf
fordable healthcare, consumers suffering from credit crunch and expensive gasoli
ne (and who has most SUVs and pickup trucks?), and a war that is rather clearly
going nowhere. War that was proclaimed a "just war" although it looks like anything but.
What can religious conservatives do? They have an option of voting for Huckabee or even McCain, but the first is a total phony as a populist (his tax plan is
actually anti-populist) and the second does not even try. Thus some percentage
can be expected to go for "none of the above", and some can change the order of
priorities and vote Democratic.
Perhaps. For truthfulness, they accept things like Saddam responsibility for 9/11. Compassion: they support grimly punitive law. Fairness: this is a very different concept of fairness, not for the strange and ungodly. Comfort for the i
ll -- unless it would be socialized medicine. Civility -- ha ha ha ha ha ha. Who was buying those books like "How to talk with a liberal" (with a baseball bat)? Hopefully, many people will sort out their views differently in the future, after all, few make a decision to be spiteful and heartless.
February 12, 2008 1:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
The new software makes making comments a nightmare. Where is preview? While I had to try 10 times, and it looks so different than intended (together with my name, but hey, it is Piotr Berman, although I prefer to post as piotr).
February 12, 2008 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sheesh--
Is anyone out there willing to explore the possibility that their biases about religion are limiting?
Let's assume for argument that there's a lot of bad religion. Let's say most of it is. Does that mean that all religion is bad? Is it a quantitative evaluation or is it a qualitative one. Is most poetry written good or bad. Does it mean because most of it is bad, that there is no possibility of good poetry.
So instead of looking at the worst examples as if they tell the real story, look at the best and try to understand it on its own terms rather than simply reducing it to terms you feel more comfortable with.
I find that most people, especially the so-called new atheists, are fighting the Scopes trial over and over again. And quite frankly that's looking at what's going on through the rear-view mirror. Both that fundamentalist narrative and the Enlightenment rationalist narrative are dead. We're moving into new territory now, and whoever comes up with the most compelling narrative wins. And if you don't think in America that will have a religious or faith dimension to it, you're simply blind to what's happening all around you.
So better to understand what's best in religion and try to encourage its growth, because if there is only the bad to which people will turn as a default, we're all in trouble. Dionne, McLaren and others are good guides if you're interested in understanding the issues of the coming century rather than the ones that dominated the last.
February 12, 2008 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
So instead of looking at the worst examples as if they tell the real story, look at the best and try to understand it on its own terms rather than simply reducing it to terms you feel more comfortable with.
Instead of looking at the worst malaria can do, look at the best and try to understand it on its own terms rather than simply reducing it to terms you feel more comfortable with.
I find that most people, especially the so-called new atheists, are fighting the Scopes trial over and over again.
Quite the contrary. This confuses "the new atheists" -- obviously a term coined by believers inasmuch as atheism is older than religion -- with the Huckabees, Bushes, and Tancredos. To atheists and scientists, the question of evolution is quite settled, thank you very much.
America that will have a religious or faith dimension to it
Sadly true. Also a authoritarian dimension and many other self-destructive dimensions.
February 12, 2008 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is anyone out there willing to explore the possibility that their biases about religion are limiting?
Let's assume for argument that there's a lot of bad religion. Let's say most of it is. Does that mean that all religion is bad? Is it a quantitative evaluation or is it a qualitative one. Is most poetry written good or bad. Does it mean because most of it is bad, that there is no possibility of good poetry.
I thought this was a political discussion, not a 10th grade Social Studies class.
I must be in the wrong thread.
February 12, 2008 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is an experiment if my browser and TPMCafe understand each other so my post will be lees disastrous then the previous. Just in case, it can appear as written by piotr of Piotr Berman.
I observed that "new atheists" are irritating many people in a way that, say, Ann Coulter, does not. Dawkins, for example, is intolerant because he thinks that he is correct. Imagine that! By the way of contrast, religious people never claim that they are correct, God is, and they just report what God thinks to the best of their ability.
Somehow, I do not know why on the liberal sides there are regular fisticuffs between religious people and atheists, while on the conservative side there are none in evidence, even though many neo-cons and other cons seem to be totally oblivious to religion. But conservative atheists are little bit like Log Cabin Republicans -- they know that they are despised but they are securing their little place in the Big Tent. Liberal atheists have more of "were are here, get used to it" attitude.
However, if atheists are short tempered, it is partly because the theist folks just do not get it. As a rule, they are totally obtuse about what touches raw nerves of atheists. And number one peeve is the claim that "of course, there is no morality without religious basis".
Modest proposal: that theist and atheist liberals agree to agree. We share a lot of values and views, and we arrive at those values and views differently. At least, we verbalize that process differently -- call me an anti-machinist, but I kind of do not see how an artificial intelligence without subconsciousness could arrive at a value system. Perhaps inalienable rights to electricity and spare parts?
February 13, 2008 4:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Liberal atheists have more of 'were are here, get used to it' attitude."
Piotr,
As this thread has clearly shown it's quite the opposite; it's the Christians who are increasingly saying, "we're here, get used to it." I don't hear any Christians in this thread or in any other trying to exclude atheists from the progressive agenda/movement/conversation. Some atheists, though--and this is obviously not the norm but they're very vocal and have a large impact in alienating religious folks who should be our allies--are no better than white-hooded clansmen and should be repudiated.
February 13, 2008 8:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Internally ironic much?
February 14, 2008 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Religious Reich has a problem with legal deliberate "miscarriages" (i.e., abortions, even if it is the "Morning After Pill" used by a woman or child who has been RAPED.
But, they don't have a problem with little children living amid, & digging through, the huge GARBAGE DUMP "Catholic version of an "orphanage", literally little kids digging with bare hands, their feet bare too, through actual decaying, fly-ridden GARBAGE, in CALCUTTA's SLUM poor ghetto section?
They have a "problem" with Birth Control as a method of Family Planning, but not a problem with Mothers dying in Childbirth? Because they live in Catholic third-world hell holes, whered they are taught, oh so carefully taught, that it is GOD's wish they have so many babies they or their babies end up dying?
No wonder Mother Theresa "lost her faith"! How in the world could she walk thru the slums of Calcutta, & continue promoting the medieval (actually primitive witch doctory) teachings of the POPE? That birth control is "evil" intrinsically? Really?
My maternal GRANDMOTHER died in childbirth, & my 7 yr. old mother & her "big" sister (9 yrs. old) had not only to raise themselves, essentially, but take care of the orphaned new baby brother, cook, clean, feed their 6 brothers & father (A Deacon in a mainstream protestant church), when they came in from working their "dirt farm" in Missouri. My mom was so TRAUMATIZED by losing her mother at age 7, that she had no MEMORIES of her, just a vague shadowy impression.
My grandmother's death in childbirth back in the early 1950's wasn't preventable, they didn't have BIRTH CONTROL or "family planning" to help Mothers whose PHYSICAL HEALTH as they got older, meant having any more kids would literally KILL THEM.
But, the fundamentalists & the Catholic right wing, & the Pope, & the Muslim fundamentalist menfolk & IMAMS, they're fine with Maternal Deaths & babies being raised Motherless.
FAITH without REASON is crazy; REASON without spiritual "faith" is also not the answer. But believing in primitive myths & superstitions, when Modern Science & your own EYES show they no longer hold "water", will mean literally the Human Race's EXTINCTION on Planet Earth.
Not because some insane Genocidally murderous GOD has some crazy plan that makes so sense: i.e., the "Left Behind" "true believers" will be magically "RAPTURED" up into a mythical place called "HEAVEN", (HELLO, look up in the SKY, it's a BIRD, it's a PLANE, uh, no fundies, it's the International Space Station, & it is IN the "Heavens" & there are HUMANS on that Space Station, looking back at all of us "NAKED APES" down here, on good old "MOTHER" or "PLANET" EARTH.
If you want a spiritually rewarding experience, try observing EARTH DAY with some of us secular humanistic heathens. As we celebrate the "CREATION", the Universe, whatever.
Try reading an Arthur C. Clarke novel, or a novel by Isaac Asimov, a physicist, a Jew, & a science fiction master of creating WORLDS of Wonder!
Shock & Awe, the UNIVERSE will give Dubya "Shock & Awe"! If the idiot would just LOOK UP, & see the STARS instead of down at his dumb, clumsy feet of Clay.
Um, "STARDUST", actually, to be scientifically precise. We are made of "Stardust" from the "Big Bang" of Creation, whatever that means. It happen, Evolution continues, bury your heads in virtual CAVES of mental deliberate darkness.
Shock & Awe. The Multi-Verse with all the Galaxies, Star Systems, Planets, aren't enough to "shock & awe" you, then you're too blind to see you're staring at a wondrous creation which makes puny "creationist" mythology so pale in comparison to the reality of the Universe!
Or not, just believe in a giant old grandfather, white of course, with a long beard, who is like Santy Claus, because he is WATCHING you, like "Big Brother"! Or, like the Patriot Domestic Surveillance Police State voyeurs.
March 20, 2008 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Um, "artificial intelligence" & electricity: haven't you heard of the little bitty imaginary (to those who don't believe in Science) "sparks" which flash in our BRAINS, which are electrical?
so, maybe WE are the "artificial intelligences", guess it makes sense, if you believe a supernatural omnipotent being created us out of Dust? God as a "mechanical tinkerer" kindof like creating "GIZMO".
E.T., Phone home...E.T., Phone home! Galactic Long Distance Charges Apply.
March 20, 2008 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting conversation. I'm a Christian and a political conservative who isn't happy with McCain or the Republican Party. But I certainly don't belong with you folks - I'm unintelligent, stupid, a troglodyte, child-abuser, and who knows what else. You don't want my vote and certainly not my friendship; you just want me to go away.
We who live in small towns in fly-over country depend on one another and have learned to work together for a better community. Catholics and Mormons, Evangelicals and athiests, Hispanics, Native Americans and Anglos, folks with GEDs and PhDs, and EVEN Republicans, Democrats and Green Party - unless we can respect one another's beliefs and learn to get along, our little corner of the world suffers. The bitter and angry of either extreme don't get elected to public offices, and people keep track of representatives' records and vote accordingly.
I can't solve the world's problems, but I can work on things in my own community. We depend on small businesses, churches, civic organizations, and every community volunteer to get things done. Obama or McCain? Either way, our local community still has to work on local problems that won't be solved by government.
July 19, 2008 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink