HERE in the United States, it is election season, when its
citizens turn to thoughts of religion, and politicians look for
Evangelical mascots to impress those of us whom the Obama
organisation calls "people of faith".
Although Evangelicals account for no
more than one third of all Christians in the US, and not all
Americans are Christian, Evangelicalism is viewed as the religious
industry standard. Admit to being a theist, and you are tagged as
one of those people who "cling to guns and religion", and have
crazy ideas about abortion, gender roles, and the origin of
species.
I suppose that there are places in the
US where theism is normal, and churchgoing is as unexceptional as
going to the supermarket or the public library. I do not live
there. I live among liberal urban-coastal professionals who are as
secular as Europeans, and, owing to the proximity and political
power of conservative Evangelicals, more hostile to religion.
I prefer hostility to condescension,
however. I can understand why the Dalits in India (formerly
referred to as "Untouchables") did not like it when Gandhi styled
them "children of God". I would not want to be described by a
patronising euphemism, either: that is why the secular-élite Obama
administration's designation of me as one of those "people of
faith" sets my teeth on edge. It assumes that religion is a
peculiarity - and a social deficit. This is the paradox of
liberalism: well-meaning attempts to help underdogs actually mark
people as underdogs, and politically correct euphemisms only rub it
in.
It is time to quit religion, I think,
or at least to get into the closet. Last week, a Facebook
acquaintance, a New York journalist, asked me in all seriousness
whether I was a Creationist. I am sick of having to explain that I
do not believe that Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs in the Garden of
Eden c.4004 BC. A half-century of culture wars, stirred up
during the current election cycle, has made religion socially
impossible.
Religion shapes politics in the US,
but, more important, politics shapes religion. American
Christianity, once a wide, shapeless tent, has become a
special-interest group for working-class social conservatives who
are fighting a last-ditch battle against modernity. Like the angry
young men of the Arab street, white working-class males in the US
gain nothing from modernity, and stand to lose only their
patriarchal privilege. They, and those of their female dependants
who know which side their bread is buttered, are the Republican
"base". Evangelical churches are their political lobby.
Liberal mainline churches do not
support that agenda, but no one notices. Religious affiliation has
become a political statement. The religiously unaffiliated - now 20
per cent of Americans, and the fastest-growing "religious group" in
the US - are as solidly Democratic as Evangelicals are
Republican.
That growing split, between a secular
liberal élite and a religious, socially conservative proletariat,
consisting of the white working-class, minorities, and as yet
unassimilated immigrants, is self-perpetuating.
Being an "out" liberal Christian is
miserable. Even sympathetic friends and colleagues are puzzled by
us: if we are not socially or politically conservative, why on
earth are we religious? What else is religion for? At work, in
school, and among friends, religious affiliation is a source of
embarrassment for educated, urban-coastal liberals - the
traditional constituency of the Episcopal Church and other mainline
denominations.
So we are dropping out, mainline
churches are dying, and religion, driven by politics, the media,
and the market, is shifting hard right, as it becomes a speciality
item for social conserva-tives.
Dr Harriet Baber is Professor of
Philosophy at the University of San Diego, USA.