Faith, in Its Place
Americans seek new ways to establish communities and uphold old virtues. Politics, following suit, has shifted from economic issues to lifestyle issues. Americans today have more social anxiety than economic anxiety, and the electorate no longer rewards an incumbent simply for good times. A middle-class woman has more to fear from divorce than from outsourcing; parents are more worried about a daughter's getting pregnant than her being a victim of global competition.
What we are experiencing is a growing "value split,"where identity lies more in belief than in job or background. Ideology, especially religious conviction as reflected in church attendance, has become the strongest predictor of voters' loyalty, replacing income, education, and gender. Those who attend church more than once a week have moved in a more conservative direction. On top of this, there has been a strengthening of religious orthodoxies among the most fervently committed Protestants, Roman Catholics, Jews, and Muslims, and they are the ones who increasingly define the religious practices and political expression of their communities.
In America, religion has long reflected values that unite the country. "In God We Trust" is not just a slogan. But dangers abound. To paraphrase the late Sen. Barry Goldwater, we saw in the Muslim world that intolerance in the name of religion is no virtue. Here in America, we must also remember that tolerance in the name of religion is no vice.
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