Secular Society Gets Religion
  The flirtation between the secular and the sacred has traditionally set
off alarm bells among American academics, who have often regarded any
intrusion of religion into politics as dangerous. In the last century,
intellectual giants like John Dewey and Sigmund Freud dismissed religion
as infantile and predicted an increasingly secular modern society. In his
book "Human Nature and Conduct" (Henry Holt, 1922), Dewey said of
religion, "It has been petrified into a slavery of thought and sentiment,
as intolerant superiority on the part of the few and an intolerable burden
on the part of the many." But lately a growing number of social scientists, philosophers,
historians and other scholars are trying to account for the energetic
re-entry of religion into the public sphere, and some are viewing it with
as much delight as distress. "There was a convention until 20 years ago in academic circles and
journalism, that you didn't raise religious convictions," Michael Novak, a
philosopher who writes about religion and public policy at the
conservative American Enterprise Institute. "Now there is more freedom and
people go out of their way to talk about religion." The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, a Catholic priest who is the editor in
chief of "First Things," a monthly journal on religion, culture and public
life, agrees that the atmosphere has radically changed. In 1984 he wrote
"The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America," complaining
about the exclusion of religion from public life. "The dominant idea securely in place then was that we are rapidly
becoming a secular society, that religiously grounded ideas have no place
in the public square," Father Neuhaus said. He said that was no longer the
case. He pointed to the report in July from the President's Council on Some have found the change among academics, often a bastion of
secularism, surprising. In the last 10 years there has been greater study
of religious phenomenon and more scholarship with insights and norms drawn
from religion, said Jean Bethke Elshtain, a conservative professor of
social and political ethics at the University of Chicago. "Many of the arguments being made that the religious voice had no place
in public arguments have been forcefully challenged by not only those with
religious convictions but those who say if we want to hear all voices
speak, how can we say those from a religious perspective should shut up,"
Ms. Elshtain said. Many people believe that the advance of science, with its morally
freighted questions, is as much responsible for bringing religion back
onstage as age-old debates about the family. "There will always be
questions about personal existence and objective moral reality," said
Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center,
a Washington research center. Mr. Novak said: " 'How do we bring up our children? What is a man? What
is a woman? What is a family?' are questions tied to policies about day
care, gay rights and adoption. All of these questions have religious roots
and religious echoes, so we all tend to be discussing religious issues
more." The swing back to discussing religion doesn't surprise Wilfred M.
McClay, a professor of history and humanities at the University of
Tennessee in Chattanooga. "Before the 20th century we needed greater
protection from the excesses of religion," he said. "We now see the need
for a greater balance against pure secularism that has no probable basis
for affirming human dignity." Professor McClay is the co-editor of
"Religion Returns to the Public Square: Faith and Policy in America"
(Woodrow Wilson Press, 2002), a book due out in November in which scholars
explore the expanded role of religious institutions in welfare and
education and questions like the relation of Islam to American values in
the shadow of Sept. 11. His co-editor, Hugh Heclo, a professor of public affairs at George
Mason University, points out that it was only in the 20th century that
religion increasingly became a private matter. Before then the widespread
presumption was that a direct connection between religion and public
policy existed as the country tackled issues like prohibition, child
labor, slavery and women's rights. That was a far cry from the atmosphere in 1960 when John F. Kennedy, a
Roman Catholic, ran for president and was compelled to assure the public
that he respected the wall between church and state. In 1962, the Supreme
Court banned school-mandated prayer and in 1963 it struck down bible
reading in public schools. Now, according to Professor Heclo, the pendulum has swung the other
way. His research, he said, has turned up polls showing that people are
more willing to see religious views expressed by public officials and to
see religion promoted by government than at any time since the 1970's.
"It's not the old values debate of the culture wars," he continued, "but
'What do we think are the grounds for deciding if something is right or
wrong?' It's inescapable if you're representing a democracy in which
people believe in God." Professor Heclo embraces the latest shift. "Religion is now in the
public square," he said, "in that there is some divine truth we need to
worry about as we charge forth into all these policy decisions about
genetic engineering, man's relation to the environment and obligations to
end suffering around the world." Many social scientists and scholars, not surprisingly, are disturbed
about religion's role in public life. "Religion is intruding in areas that are very disturbing," said Paul
Kurtz, chairman of the Center for Inquiry, a secular humanist group
committed to free inquiry in science and other areas. Mr. Kurtz, an
emeritus professor of philosophy at the State University of New York at
Buffalo, said: "The intrusion of religion into science, with a ban on
cloning, involves the censoring of scientific research in the name of
religious morality. Hark, hark back to the days of Galileo." Wendy Kaminer, author of "Sleeping With Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of
Irrationalism and Perils of Piety" (Pantheon Books, 1999), said that
religion had been in the middle of the public square for at least a decade
and that its re-emergence was "a red herring" for the bigger threat of
government sponsorship of sectarian religion. "Vouchers are about government support for religion," said Ms. Kaminer,
a former scholar at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. "Bush
talks about faith-based initiatives, but we are not a country of one
faith. If we saw a lot of Muslim schools springing up, there would be less
support for school vouchers." Even Father Neuhaus expressed caution. "Religion is riddled through and
through with nonsense and fanatics, like anything else," he said. Mr. Kurtz blamed the "increased influence of the religious and
Christian right on the Bush administration and the courts." But Professor
McClay argued that religion's resurgence in public life would not
necessarily give a greater voice to either liberals or conservatives. Both have passionately invoked the connection between moral obligations
and laws, whether to support civil rights in the 60's or to oppose
abortion. And most of the moral opposition to the war on terrorism comes
from more liberal quarters, Professor McClay noted. When it comes to the American public, both liberals and conservatives
have often displayed deeply contradictory attitudes about the relationship
between religion and politics, Professor Heclo pointed out, and many are
skeptical about the sincerity of politicians' religious statements. A Gallup Poll last year, for instance, showed that 82 percent of
Americans thought of themselves as Christians, 10 percent belonged to
other faiths and 8 percent were atheists or agnostics, Professor Heclo
said. But they also said no dogma, religious creed or denominational
commitment guided their beliefs. On the other hand, while majorities were
willing to support a black, Jewish, female or gay presidential candidate,
only 48 percent said they would vote for an atheist. |
ROM the recent Supreme Court decision supporting vouchers for
religious schools to a lower court objection to the phrase "one nation
under God" in the pledge of allegiance to wrangling over cloning,
stem-cell research, euthanasia and genetic engineering, religion has been
re-entering the public arena in complex and unforeseen ways.
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