An America Polarized by Religion

Through out the ages religion has mixed with politics and has been all too often used by rulers and politicians to motivate - or just as frequently dupe - subjects and voters into doing their bidding.  And the amount of ensuing blood shed has been horrific.  Yet in America, unlike Europe and other advance developed countries which are increasingly secularized, religion continues to cause hate and and discord at high levels and works against national unity.  Thankfully, it seems religion is perhaps finally loosening its foul hold on society.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the phenomenon.

[T]he overwhelming majority of Americans in the mid-20th century identified themselves culturally as Protestants, Catholics or Jews, no matter their personal beliefs.  This cultural expectation has begun fading in American life. The fastest-growing religious affiliation today is the lack of religious affiliation — the rise of the “nones,” as in “none of the above,” who now constitute nearly 20 percent of the population. 

For some, this is an indication that America is finally on the path of secularization taken by much of Europe, where non-religious funerals have become common and half of Europeans have never attended a religious service. Much of modern sociology has been premised on the notion that modernization and secularization go together. 

In America’s case, the hypothesis remains unproved. While Americans have become less attached to religious institutions, there is little evidence they have become less religious.  .   .   .   .  America is not a secularized country. But the relative decline of institutional religion has public consequences. While the number of the devout has remained steady, fewer of those in the religious middle identify with the organizations and values of the devout. What we are seeing, according to Luis Lugo of Pew, is not “secularization but polarization.” Institutional religion has gained a larger body of critics. 

On the level of politics, this trend aids cultural liberalism and the Democratic Party. About 70 percent of the nones voted for President Obama. They are more liberal than the religiously affiliated on issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage.   .  .  .  .   This sets up some possible conflicts within the Democratic Party. Its second-largest religious group is black Protestants, among the most religious of Americans. 

But the main tension is emerging between the parties. Religious conservatives remain the largest constituency within the Republican Party. So America is moving in the direction of having one secular party and one religious party, bringing polarization to a new level of intensity.

For America, this could be a dangerous source of social division, with each side viewing the other as theocrats or pagans. There is no contempt like the contempt of the true believer or the militant skeptic.  .  .   .   .  Individualism can easily become atomization. Whatever else you may think of the communitarian creeds, they help create community. 

Can these creeds adapt to changed cultural circumstances and renew their appeal? Sociologists such as Roger Finke and Rodney Stark provide evidence that it has happened before.

Two things strike me from this: (i) even conservative Michael Gerson admits that the GOP has become a religious party of sorts, and (ii) conservatives believe that institutional religion can and will rebound.  On the latter, I suspect Gerson is wrong.  Increasingly, Christianity's story line is running head long into the brick wall of expanding scientific knowledge that indicates that Christianity's main truths such as Adam and Eve, The Fall, etc. are not historically true.  If Biblical literalism doesn't give way to something new, I see Christianity dying.  The only question will be how quickly and the Christianists seem to be doing all in their power to alienate even more Americans from religion.