One of the great strengths of our political system always has been our tendency to keep religious issues in the background. By maintaining the separation of church and state, the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars. …
And the religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy.
- Sen. Barry Goldwater, "Remarks Inserted into the Congressional Record" (1981)
They say that there’re two things you’re not supposed to discuss in polite company: politics and religion … and then it hit me the other day that the vast majority of my writing – away from my professional publications – is about these two taboo topics.
Hmmm.
Which got me to trying to explain this: Am I just too stubborn that I won’t leave alone what I’m supposed to leave alone? Or am I so anti-social that I don’t respond appropriately to the cues which we’re supposed to adhere? In other words, is there something wrong with me that I seem to insist on dealing with the things that we're supposed to avoid?
Well, folks, I’ve given it a lot of consideration - objectively, of course! - and I’ve determined that the answer to the above queries is “no.” Well then, how can and do I answer for this tendency to plumb the uncomfortable and/or forbidden?
It’s very simple, actually: I deal with the topics that we’re supposed to avoid because our avoidance of them doesn’t make them go away but does make it harder for us to interact with them and each other in constructive and mutually beneficial ways. You don’t realize your full potential by avoiding challenges but by surmounting them.
So, here goes:
Let’s start with the political context: we are now six months past an actual insurrection and though a fair number of the perpetrators have been arrested, the most highly placed of its supporters have faced no consequences of any significance. That Senators and Representatives conspired to overthrow the duly expressed wishes of a significant majority of our electorate is itself abominable, but it’s to our manifest discredit that we’ve enabled them to continue to roam the hallowed halls of our Capitol with impunity. Simply put, shame on them but even greater shame on us.
So let’s get this out there and stop pretending that it can be disputed: our political parties are not the same. One is focused, however effectively, on addressing issues of import to the majority of our polity, while the other is clearly seeking either to become a class of permanent practitioners of minority rule or, failing this, to trade our democracy for fascism (and, though it may go without saying, their own fascism, not someone else’s). While I’m pretty sure everyone knows my political leanings, I don’t consider it partisan in the least to state the truth: the GOP is both an embarrassment and an abandonment of its erstwhile principles, having completely thrown over any kind of conservatism, compassionate or otherwise, in favor of an immoral and inhumane commitment to the maintenance of power.
That they are the very proof and embodiment of Lord Acton’s dictum is to their and our eternal discredit.
Add to this the reality that much of the support for this deleterious group comes from people who describe themselves as followers of a Jewish pacifist mystic and yet advocate for policies that are the very antithesis of His example and teachings and we have, in a word, a mess. An enervating, gargantuan and seemingly intractable mess in which the bonds of our society are made more tenuous every day.
Now that we’ve gotten this out of the way, let’s add a bit more fuel to this fire:
For me, two great things happened last week: first, one of my greatest spiritual influences and guides, the Rev. Dr. Obery Hendricks, Jr., debuted his latest book, entitled Christians Against Christianity; and, second, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) released a groundbreaking report entitled “The 2020 Census of American Religion,” which is among the most comprehensive studies of our country’s religious affiliations, locations and influences ever.
Why are these two publications so wonderful and inspiring in my view? Because, for me, they represent a clarion call for us and our society, as they reveal us to ourselves and urge us to turn away from the ugliness and true evil that we’ve come to accept and that too many of us have come to practice consistently and proactively.
For those of you who don’t know the Rev. Dr. Hendricks’ work, let’s just say that it’s in the great and grand tradition of American prophetic exhortation, grounded as it is in the uniquely African-American experience of our country. Accordingly, I’ve been greatly influenced by his perspectives and theological constructs, which have been supremely helpful as I’ve developed my idiosyncratic spirituality over the years. Simply put, I consider myself and center my personal theology in his concept of being a Follower of Jesus, a distinction he makes to differentiate those for whom the greatest calling is the emulation of our Patron’s example and teachings from those who claim to be his followers but behave, in the main, in contrast to these.
For those of you who aren’t aware of PRRI’s work, let’s just say that it’s an organization that’s dedicated to illuminating our beliefs and how these affect our relations with each other. For example, a few years ago, it studied the demographics and psychographics of various communities of religious adherents as well as those without such an affiliation. As it parsed the data from various perspectives, one of its revelations was about the insular nature of our social circles, which, it turns out, are exceedingly narrow for the majority of our fellow citizens. Is it any wonder, then, that we have so much trouble getting along across various axes of Difference? Simply put, under the leadership of its founder and CEO Robert P Jones, it’s held the mirror to us and helped to give us a most revealing and granular sense of who we really are, often in contrast to who we profess to be.
Even though I’ve studied his work for decades and thought I knew what to expect, the Rev. Dr. Hendricks’ book is figurative fire: it’s a flat-out condemnation of the decidedly unChristian behavior that too many display, grounded both in the Good Book (and especially the Gospel) and in trenchant social and spiritual analysis. I knew it would be fierce, but it’s a whole lot more than that.
Further, he complemented the publication of his new book with an article in The Progressive magazine entitled “The Spirit of the Antichrist.” Suffice it to say that its subtitle – “How the evangelical right has come to turn against what Jesus stood for” – is an accurate foreshadowing of what’s to come not only in the article but in the new book as well.
For example, of the evangelical right, he notes that “today’s … raging Christian faction openly support(s) persons and policies that are essentially antithetical to the message of Jesus Christ.” Further, they espouse “ideologies and public pronouncements that cynically distort the teachings of Christ – in the name of Christ – to serve the interests of a particular individual or group.”
Despite this, Rev. Dr. Hendricks counsels hope, specifically that those who are perverting Christianity will “realize that they have lost their moral bearings” and therefore make “an effort to regain them.” But he doesn’t propose amnesty; in fact, he urges accountability:
But if one day they should seek to become fully worthy of the faith identity they claim, they would have to confront the insidious evil of their white supremacist roots and the destructive false assumptions of their Christian nationalism. They would have to admit to and repent for the political and moral carnage they have helped wreak upon American society.
Amen.
And then the PRRI study adds some head-scratching insights to this, among them that the group that the Rev. Dr. Hendricks challenges to reform has declined to less than 15% of our population. While appalling, it does highlight the group’s exceptionally outsized influence on our politics and society, while, for me, calling into question why we would allow this to continue. Simply put, if 5 out of 6 of us see our role in society/the world so differently, why on earth would we allow ourselves to be so constrained – and, in many cases, oppressed – by such a relatively small minority?
Put differently, black folks are less than 15% of our population, too, but can you imagine American society disproportionately influenced by and run according to this minority’s preferences that it would presume to inflict on everyone else? Of course you can’t, which is the point: why we continue to cower to the immorality, inhumanity and decidedly unChristian views and policy prescriptions of evangelical Christians is as mystifying as it is unnecessary.
As the late, great Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., exhorted of us prophetically more than half a century ago, truly, we need a “radical revolution of values” to make ours an ever more just, equitable and inclusive society, and, in so doing, for the first time, really, to live up and in to its professed creeds.
This being said, the PRRI study’s numbers evidence an important but arguably under-leveraged reality: the largest cohort of our society isn’t evangelical Christians or mainstream Protestant Christians or Catholics, but “Nones,” those who claim no institutional religious affiliation. In fact, 23% of us are in this category, while another 16% of us are affiliated with (white) mainline Protestant denominations, another 14% of us are affiliated with (white) evangelical Protestant institutions and 12% of us are whites affiliated with the Catholic Church.
If one-quarter of us are religiously unaffiliated – and, it turns out, decidedly younger than the average believer – how long do you think it will be before they tire of the tyrannical and hypocritical ‘leadership’ of their evangelical neighbors? Though perhaps challenged by the reality that they are not an organized group, my intuition – and hope – is that one day soon we’ll see the assertion of its areligious will: after all, if the religiously unaffiliated assert their right not to have others’ religion forced upon them, truth be told, we’ll be much closer to living into our professed belief in the separation of church and state.
This may sound strange coming from a lifelong Christian, an adult life-long Episcopalian and decades-long spiritual explorer with Buddhist and Taoist leanings, but I can hardly wait for the day when the Nones force us to move beyond our religious biases to interact more constructively in the public square. I value my religion and I respect and support others’ right to practice theirs, but I yearn for the day when our respective religious viewpoints are not the primary influence on the policies by which we govern our country. At least from the perspective of politics and governance, the less religion the better.
And let me be clear: it’s not just up to the Nones to restrain our religiosity in the public square, it’s up to each of us individually and all of us collectively. The Nones are just freer to remind us of this, but we – each of us with our unique religious experiences and biases – own making ours a more humanity- and collectively-focused society.
Who knows, one day we may even be inspired to take up the challenge in earnest to realize MLK’s vision of becoming the Beloved Community....
Until then, we all must engage and assert ourselves in ways that inure to the common good, and with as little overt religious influence as possible. Ours is a polyglot society, but our politics and governance don’t reflect this nearly as much or well as they need to.
Accordingly, it’s incumbent upon us to fight back and vanquish the inhumane and hypocritical ‘religious’ influences that would seek to constrain the many at the behest of a diminishing few. Further, as difficult as this may be – especially as evidenced by the exceedingly partisan and faux outrage over Critical Race Theory (CRT) on one side of the political aisle – if we really want for our country to become the place where the American Dream is both real and achievable for the majority of us, then we’ll have to lower the level of religiosity in our society.
Does this mean that any one of us who wants to be a believer can no longer be so? Of course not. But what it does mean is that none of us who chooses to be a believer has a right to inflict his or her beliefs on another. From a religious perspective, we’re all free to believe what we want and to live into this to the fullest extent possible (i.e., provided that it doesn’t constrain anyone else from living into their unique faith, of course). But our religious perspective can never nor should ever be or become the exclusive basis by which we either formulate policy or develop societal norms.
And as a person of deep faith, I truly believe that God wants
this, too … though I’m cool if you disagree, so long as you don’t try to force
me to see God (or no such being/reality) as you do.…
To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face, one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life. That is why my devotion to Truth has drawn me into the field of politics; and I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means.
- Mahatma Gandhi, An Autobiography Or The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1927)
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