Faith, in Its Place
Has America anything to learn from the violent reactions to those Danish cartoons? We are proud of our tradition of freedom but expect it to be exercised responsibly: There has been a remarkable degree of acknowledgment here that the cartoons were insensitive, matched by shock at the viciousness of the rioting and the rabid level of intolerance. Even Muslim journalists in Jordan and Yemen who published the cartoons so as to condemn both them and the incitement and overreaction now face trial. Ominously, that's because the authorities in these Islamic societies are fearful of losing ground to the extremists. This confluence of religion and politics can be malign.
America remains one of the most religious of modern nations, but we are also the most diversely religious. Our Constitution says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." The French writer Voltaire once encapsulated the virtue of this in a manner that has relevance today to both the Muslim and the non-Muslim western worlds: "With one church you have tyranny; with two, civil war; but with a hundred, peace."
America has avoided the secularization that progress brought to so many European countries. A vast majority of Americans profess to believe in God; more than two thirds believe in the existence of Satan; 120 million people a week attend a religious service. Nearly 60 percent in one poll said that religion plays a very important role in their lives, compared with 27 percent of Italians and 12 percent of French. Moral inspiration drawn from religion has been central to America's great political and social movements--from the abolition of slavery, to women's suffrage, to civil rights.
At the same time, religion in America has been largely a private matter. All men are equal before God, wrote John Adams, so all men should be free to worship God as they please. Today our cherished tradition is vulnerable to an inclination to mix religion with politics over issues like abortion, gay rights, and stem cell research.
A tension over the boundaries of church and state is part of the broader disquiet about the culture and especially the entertainment industry. Many Americans resent what they see as the vulgarity and decadence promoted by pop music, TV, and movies. In polling, Hollywood is seen as more hostile to religion than any other group.
Dramatic technological, economic, and social changes are touching family and community life. The knowledge economy means an individual can carry skills or intellectual capital from job to job, thereby placing a premium on the person and less value on loyalty to a business (where there is anyway such a disconcerting velocity in changes of ownership and identity).
New concerns. Then, too, the long-term economic expansion and the end of the Cold War have cooled such perennial hot-button issues as anticommunism, poverty, and racial discrimination. Simultaneously, the sexual revolution and the emphasis on the individual have forced social and moral issues to the forefront. Americans still express strong support for the old-fashioned values of marriage and family, but the composition of the traditional American family has changed. The personal has become the political. Think of how broadly divorce is now accepted. You might say that of the trinity of flag, motherhood, and apple pie, only apple pie remains at the same unambiguous level of support in American life.
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.
This story appears in the March 6, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.