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Syndicate
So Now Christianity is Dying in America?
For two decades the media drumbeat about religion in America has emphasized its ascendancy, especially the growth of the conservative evangelical and fundamentalist movement. We’ve been told no one should be surprised when politicians pass restrictions on abortion or gay marriage or prayer in school, because this is what an overwhelming and growing number of Americans want. America is a Christian nation, probably the most Christian nation on earth, and we are becoming more aggressive and militantly Christian by the day.
So what’s with this Newsweek cover article The End of Christian America? We know that American journalists are taught to frame every article like a story, with a beginning, middle, and end, and pepper it with juicy personal quotes that humanize the story line. But if every journalist is secretly a television screenwriter, how can they maintain their credibility when they suddenly tell us Jack Bauer of 24 is now picketing the CIA for its use of torture? And since Newsweek is basing its latest Christianity in America story on a recent survey which said self-identified Christians have fallen from 86% to 76% in the past ten years, how could Christianity possibly be dying in America?
To be fair to the journalist involved – John Meacham – the article itself is much more nuanced than the headline suggests, and journalists often don’t get to say anything about the headline slapped on by a copy editor. Still, the very opening of the article quotes the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Mr. R. Albert Mohler, who is deeply concerned about a “remarkable cultural shift” that has taken place. This shift is not the 10% decline in self-identified Christians, but something that is actually rather interesting: past surveys have shown that Americans who profess no religious affiliation were concentrated in the northwestern states, but now they are even more predominant in the northeastern states, from Maine down to Delaware.
There is a political connection here that has also been ignored by most of the media. In fact, it seemed to me on election night in 2006 to be the major development from the congressional results, but it was barely mentioned: the near-decimation of the Republican Party in the northeast. In that election, Massachusetts emerged with not one Republican congressman, and Connecticut was left with just one (who lost his seat last November). Reliably Republican states like New Hampshire and Maine have switched to blue, and the redoubtable Republican Party of New York, which had its strongholds in the rural and suburban communities, is now crumbling. What we have in the northeast is the blue equivalent of the solid south red states, where an opposition party barely exists. Since the congressional seats in the south are about equal in number to those in the northeast, the whole Republican solid south monolith has been neutered.
It can’t be just a coincidence that self-identified Christians in the northeast are falling in number while Republican Party membership is falling. This decline of Christianity in the northeast is considered important by Mr. Mohler because “the most basic contours of American culture have been radically altered. The so-called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium has given way to a post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western cultural crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture."
This quote inadvertently tells us more about the decline of Christianity than Mr. Mohler intended. First, what is this Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium? Whatever it was, it didn’t involve actual Jews. For the past 1,000 years, culminating in World War II, Christianity has been antagonistic towards the Jews, to put it mildly. There were many cultural, economic, and political factors which brought about anti-Semitism – so this is not to cast blame primarily on Christianity – but for 1,000 years the church taught that the Jews killed Christ, and the Church acquiesced in Jewish ghettoes and unrelenting legal restrictions on what jobs Jews could hold. It’s a little bit early in the history of Christianity to now talk about a Judeo-Christian consensus.
Second, even if Americans are less Christian in their religious affiliation, why does it automatically threaten the “very heart of our culture.” Americans cherish the rights of the individual but at the same time give generously to charity, Americans like fatty foods such as hamburgers and pizza, and Americans are highly dependent on their automobiles. How is any of this going to change if fewer Americans view themselves as Christian?
We hear from other conservatives, such as columnist Cal Thomas, who admits that the Christian right tried to accomplish social objectives by placing too much faith in conservative politicians, who proved themselves far too susceptible to mammon and temptations of the flesh.
Then there is former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough, who remembers from his Atlanta childhood his parents going through culture shock when they would see former Boy Scouts turn into dirty hippies. “Culturally, it was October 2001 for a decade. For a decade.” I’m not sure what happened in October 2001, but I suppose he is referring to September 11. I remember that day as deeply traumatizing, watching thousands of Americans tortured to death, some of them forced to choose between immolation or jumping 96 stories to their death. If this is what southern parents in the 60’s felt every time they saw a hippie, then there was something badly wrong with these parents.
That’s one of the problems with rightist Christians like Al Mohler and Joe Scarborough: everything has to be asserted in apocalyptic tones. The end of a millennium of moral order; the decline of civilization, the fall of the West. To prevent the cultural apocalypse (the real apocalypse can’t come soon enough), these Christians find themselves taking increasingly strident positions and issuing more alarming predictions. Al Mohler in his recent weekly column wrote about abortion and assisted suicide, titling the column “Does Your Pastor Believe in God?” That’s certainly setting the standard for theological purity high; denounce abortion or you are an atheist and apostate. Of course, this is no different than the official position of the Catholic Church towards its priests.
Who wants to be a part of a Christianity that is turning ever more crabbed, insular, authoritarian, and intolerant? Is it any wonder people in the northeast, and the Midwest for that matter, are abandoning Christianity – not in any great numbers yet, but enough to be noticed in surveys? We saw this week dismaying video from Pakistan of a 17 year old girl flogged by Islamic fundamentalists for consorting with a male. Muslims around the world must be wondering what this has to do with faith, the mercy of Allah, or the teachings of the Prophet.
A religion which turns to theological or physical discipline to enforce its message undermines the essential teachings of the faith – those teachings which aspire to the good as taught by a prophet or as expressions of God’s love. Religion by earthly discipline erodes true faith. Religion may have such a hold on society and culture that erosion occurs over long periods of time, but the decay occurs nonetheless.
Let us not be surprised that Americans are moving away from the fundamentalism that has characterized Christianity for the past quarter century. It has served no one’s ends but those of the fundamentalist leaders, and certain venal politicians who believe their own lives are exempt from the strict moral standards they want to impose legislatively on others. It has given an illusion of power and control to those who feel their own lives are uncontrollable, and who are taught that society has abandoned morality and basic human dignity.
It is a distorted form of religion that has defined vast numbers of Americans who are not Christian, or who are Christian but of the wrong sort, as condemned to hellfire, anti-American, possessed by evil, and therefore enemies who must be resisted and fought by the righteous.
It is religion as a danger to society, and Americans are beginning to recognize that fact. The story is not that religion is dying in America - it is way too soon to assert that - but that fundamentalist, rightist religious forces are losing ground as the stifling nature of what they practice becomes evident.
