Russell Arben Fox, in the course of a characteristically thoughtful post on the book and the issues it raises, wonders why more people aren't discussing and debating Amy Sullivan's The Party Faithful. I suspect that the book would be getting more attention if the Democratic race weren't so dominated by debates over race and gender, which are temporarily swamping even hot-button topics like religion. But if you're looking for a break from the debate over Geraldine Ferraro's racism (or lack thereof), both Amy's book and E.J. Dionne's similarly-themed Souled Out make for thought-provoking reading - as the transcript and clips from this panel discussion (which happens to include yours truly) hopefully suggest.
« The Politician and the Preacher | Main | They Hold Conventions, Don't They? » The Democrats And God14 Mar 2008 06:39 pm Comments (21)
Ross, thanks for the link and plug; sorry I didn't notice you'd thrown this up yesterday. As I said at Rod's blog, thanks also for including the link to that panel discussion you participated in a while back. Rod includes a long excerpt from it in his post, and I think your point there pretty much matches the one I conclude with. I also think the dispute over abortion--or rather, the dispute over the larger question of morality, authority, and tradition for which abortion is an essential battleground for--is crucial to understanding what the Sullivan/Dionne approach to the Democratic party really involves, and what its limits are. They want to stop the Democratic party from attacking those religious believers who want to join them...but the idea of making today's Democratic party into an organization which will advance, or even just describe as legitimate, the sort of opposition to personal liberation that many serious religious believers are looking for, and thus make the party affirmatively appealing to them, is something else entirely. I would say it shouldn't be, but that's because I believe that a kind of moral discipline is inherent to any real, egalitarian social concern. But for the moment, the most Sullivan and Dionne can say is "let's tone down the personal liberation thing--like, say, regarding abortion--in the face of disagreements with religious voters," rather than, "perhaps we should rethink--including perhaps from religious perspectives--some parts of the personal liberation agenda entirely." 
There's a precedent for this in UK, where the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties are able to keep the lion's share of Muslim and Catholic votes - and even a substantial share of Evangelical votes - despite supporting left-wing social policies that don't fit with these believers' theologies. Tony Blair had a Cabinet Minister (Ruth Kelly) who was in Opus Dei. Try to imagine how Dems like Bo would react to a DNC member who was merely in Pax Christi, and you've got an instructive contrast. Two caveats: (a) Muslims, Catholics and Evangelicals have historically been "outsiders" from the UK mainstream in a way that Evangelicals in the US have not (and didn't feel themselves to be until about three deacdes ago). Left-wing support for anti-discrimination laws will appeal to members of minority religions, and will go some way to cancel out left-wing support for social policies that contrast with those religions' support for family ties. (b) The UK is much more secular than the US, and while the Conservatives have traditionally have strong ties with Anglicanism, this is usually much less "fundamentalist" than the religions dominant in the US Republican party. A conservative Baptist or Catholic in the UK won't see much difference, theologically, between an openly atheist Labour leader and a nominal Tory Anglican like Major, Hague or Cameron.
Try to imagine how Dems like Bo would react to a DNC member who was merely in Pax Christi, and you've got an instructive contrast. What's there to imagine? I'm sure there are Democratic operatives who are also in Pax Christi and Opus Dei. It's a big party in a big country with a lot of Catholics in it. Personally, I don't particularly care as long as they understand that the US government isn't an extension of those groups. Which I'm pretty sure they do, because they'd be Republicans if they didn't.
They want to stop the Democratic party from attacking those religious believers who want to join them...but the idea of making today's Democratic party into an organization which will advance, or even just describe as legitimate, the sort of opposition to personal liberation that many serious religious believers are looking for, and thus make the party affirmatively appealing to them, is something else entirely. I would say it shouldn't be, but that's because I believe that a kind of moral discipline is inherent to any real, egalitarian social concern. But, you see, the only reason you believe that is because you believe in silly fantasies about the afterlife. The problem that everyone who wants to turn the Democratic Party into a Christian Democratic movement face is that the Democratic Party caters to the substantial minority of Americans who are secular, agnostic, or atheist. Just as the problem with turning the Republicans into that party is that they are the party that caters to the substantial minority of Americans who are rich or big supporters of big business. So, our Christian Democrats aren't represented, just like libertarians aren't represented on the opposite extreme. But for all those secular types I mentioned, it is perfectly possible to combine egalitarian social concern with the government not being bluenosed and antifeminist when it comes to sexual morality. Indeed, we would argue that only through the adoption of a feminist agenda-- which religious types think is against their Imaginary Friend's laws-- can you have a truly egalitarian society. With all do respect-- and I say this seriously, despite my snark about the silliness of believing in organized religion-- the reason why the Arben Foxes aren't welcomed into the coalition with open arms is because we have a serious disagreement with them on fundamental issues. Even religious types who believe in social egalitarianism nonetheless believe in something very different than what secular types believe in. And they have every right to do so. They should not, however, be surprised when the Democratic Party tells them to stuff it when they try use the government to force women to conform to an alleged God's alleged laws.
"is that the Democratic Party caters to the substantial minority of Americans who are secular, agnostic, or atheist." "Atheist 1.6%, Agnostic 2.4%, Secular unaffiliated 6.3%" http://religions.pewforum.org/reports This adds up to the substantial 10.3% of Americans? A party that can get all of this 10.3% would still need more than 44% of the group who isn't "agnostic, atheist, or secular." On the other hand a party that can get 52% of the 89.7% that's not "agnostic, atheist, or secular" would only need 34% of the group that is "agnostic, atheist, or secular." Also to compare this 10.3% to other groups. Baptists in Evangelical denominations represent 10.8% of Americans. Church-going Catholics represent up to 11.74%. http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-religious-landscape-study-chapter-1.pdf http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#attendance However groups like Methodists or members of black churches are smaller than the "agnostic, atheist, and secular" element. The AAS group is growing, although its retention rate is low, so possibly it'll be significant in the future. Still there seems some reason to not put catering to it as a top priority. Or I'm missing something. Food for thought anyway.
There is a better case to be made that the Republican Party hates black people than that Democratic Party hates religious believers.
Thomas: Don't use polls to measure the number of Americans with an affinity to the secular. A lot of American religious belief is nothing more than Pascal's Wager, and if you look at say, church attendance, you will find that there are plenty of Americans who are effectively secular-- even if they claim to bhe Christian-- and most of them are Democrats.
"Don't use polls to measure the number of Americans with an affinity to the secular." DE So instead of actual studies I should go on guesswork, intuition, and assumption? Okay. I know of people who claim they're atheist, but pray and hold several Biblical values. Let's assume most atheists and agnostics are like that. I also know that people who never attend church are often highly religious in outlook. Let's assume that's typical. So I can proclaim the 10.3% to be way too high. Democrats are therefore catering to "secularists", which is a group that may not even exist. Why may it not? Because I can say so.
Why may it not? Because I can say so. Sounds like perfectly valid Christian reasoning. So, Thomas, since the Democratic Party is so secular in such a religious country, how do you figure they just, oh, wiped the floor with the GOP in the 2006 midterms? You can see the problem just by looking at the 'Christian' issues. Take abortion, 85-90% of Americans are religious, yet 60% of Americans support keeping 'all' or 'most' abortions legal. Even if we assumed every single secular person was in that group, that still means about half of religious people believe it as well. So, how do you think it makes those religious people feel when they see the other Christians claiming it as a Christian issue, and a major political party trying to turn that Christian issue into a Christian law. As you've discovered, pure secularists are a tiny target, which means that the GOP's Christian base is really mostly strafing their fellow Christians. And abortion is really as good as it gets: Consider the 80% of Americans who opposed the Schiavo intervention, or the growing minority in favor of gay marriage. Democrats may sound clueless to Amy, but they're the party of religious freedom; it's the GOP's Christian activists who want the government to tell those other Christians what they should believe.
yet 60% of Americans support keeping 'all' or 'most' abortions legal. Source? That's a rather debateable reading of most recent polling I've seen on the matter. a major political party trying to turn that Christian issue into a Christian law Laws against abortion are not "Christian law" any more than laws against murder are, though Christianity condemns murder in more absolute terms than most modern secularist philosophers are willing to commit to, say. Moreover, while opposition to abortion-on-demand is driven largely by the religious, it is certainly not exclusive to Christians, or even "the religious" in general. That it correlates well with religious activity (the percent of weekly churchgoers who support abortion on demand is _quite_ low, iirc) is unsurprising: life is more valued by the religious, and those who value life tend to be religious; and some portion of the secular are secular more out of a selfish will-to-small-amounts-of-power (including over any inconvenient children they might spawn) than out of any deeper belief or philosophical stance. it's the GOP's Christian activists who want the government to tell those other Christians what they should believe. I can't recall the last law proposed seriously in the US that required anyone to believe much of anything; some laws ask us not to kill anyone, and some of us dislike the idea of the state requiring us to believe (or at least act in accord with) the idea that gays can be "married." But I can't think of any remotely belief-conscripting laws...
Source? That's the top item on this page. Obviously, you can scroll down the page and find all sorts of slightly different readings based on different phrasings. With any of them, though, there's a ton of religious people who are pro-choice, and who would surely resent your insinuations here that their religiousness is lacking because they disagree with you about this. Far more than even the total number of secular people in the US. Which is kinda the point, no? life is more valued by the religious, and those who value life tend to be religious Yes, I have noticed how, within the carefully controlled conditions of someone else's womb, nearly half of Christians can be made to care about life. Outside it, not so much. This has been extensively studied, by, for example, the Journal of Religion and Society, and generally, the more religious a populace is, the more violent and murderous it is and the greater number of social ills it has, and this holds true both by US region and internationally. I can't recall the last law proposed seriously in the US that required anyone to believe much of anything I'm not asking you to think logically, Marquis. I'm asking you to think like a Christian. You believe X for religious reasons; You see a bunch of coreligionists who believe NOT X for religious reasons. This group lobbies the government to pass NOT X as a law. Obviously, if you believe X, it sounds to you like they're trying to use the government to circumvent a religious disagreement. This is a common line of thought among Christian even for issues like creationism where there's an obvious secular counterweight. Religious people just don't like the government telling them their religion is wrong; it's, like, unconstitutional or something.
Okay. I know of people who claim they're atheist, but pray and hold several Biblical values. Let's assume most atheists and agnostics are like that. I also know that people who never attend church are often highly religious in outlook. Let's assume that's typical. Don't be dense. Religious conservatives want this issue both ways. In their own congregations, they are constantly complaining about Cafeteria Cathloics and Cafeteria Christians and all the people who profess belief but also accept all sorts of mealy-mouthed spiritualism, New Age stuff, etc. But then, when we talk about political power, suddenly 90 percent of America is Christian and atheists, agnostics, and secular types are a tiny percentage of the population. The truth is, you guys know there are tons of Americans walking around calling themselves "Christian" who either don't believe anything or don't practice their belief. You just don't want to admit that many of them are effectively secular in their political outlook.
Conseratism has become a cult forge by the GOP. Most people who call themselves christians are only political christians who's allegiance is to the GOP. If King kong was a political candidate for the GOP,"Christian" would vote for him base on one or two issues. The church has been dupe to believe that the GOP is God's party,and anyother party is evil. There is a false hope that the GOP will fulfill the Great Commission for the church,by passing laws to curtail sin. The early church turn the world upside down. Today church has pattern itself after the world.
I can't actually make out enough sense in Bo's last paragraph to bother continuing the discussion, I guess. I mean, how it could apply to abortion but not to, say, Christians (you recall that fellow, something Luther King -- named after some noted Protestant, I believe?) opposing Jim Crow laws or even forcing people who religiously believe blacks are inferior to serve them at lunch counters! In other words, what separates abortion here from any other matter where people (of varying religious beliefs) have different moral and prudential judgments, each pushing for different policy? We don't consider people making religious arguments about minimum wage law to be imposing their religious will on the land at large, whether their arguments win or lose. I fail to see how abortion is different, and how the general principle here wouldn't apply to, well, all democratic law making other than of a very minarchist kind.
I'm not a sociologist or the likes, just an humble research scientist in an actual hard science field, where we try to show causality rather than mere correlation, but this JRS study seems to have some serious methodological problems. More generally, I can't imagine how, given the historical rootedness of societies and the huge weights assigned the US vs. Europe when comparing these factors, you can come up with any useful conclusions about these rates, at least for a causal relationship. The data showing that, within similar populations (in other words, abstract out the history of how people got there, might be one way of putting it) the religious are happier and more "well-adjusted" would be a counterbalance. I don't think utilitarian arguments will settle this, Bo.
Heh, indeed wikipedia suggests that there's controversy about this paper (by a "freelance paleontologist"?) on various grounds: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_S._Paul I'm no expert on this area, but the writing certainly sounded like poor papers in my own field written by a man looking for a data model that fits his conclusions.
where we try to show causality rather than mere correlation Well, I don't really believe religion causes violence, so I can't see why I should show that causation. I'm much more sympathetic to the reverse causation, proposed IIRC by Bertrand Russell, that religion serves as "an imaginary solution to a real problem." I.e. that greater social ills cause people to embrace religion in hopes of improving it. However, since religion doesn't actually accomplish anything to fix those ills, the correlation persists.
LJ - care to offer proof of your assumption? Don't say Bush, because Bush obviously did things to court them and get their support. Why should Christians vote for the democrats as opposed to the republicans? Esper apparently wants to make it the secular party. (Also, he unintentionally implies it is the hypocritical party) With this in mind, consider that the GOP is much more receptive to them and actively courts by campaigning for their issues. The choice is pretty clear when you think about it that way.
Ah. Bo -- I misread you. I think the study you link to is trying to show how "religion poisons everything" by and large, so I assumed that's where you were coming from. I actually agree that religion per se, and even Christianity, practiced as well as it generally is likely to be by fallen man, is more a "response" to ills than an actual fix. I think it can be a fix -- there's a reason religion-based social programs have (in some cases, in some places) much better results, and so forth, but if the purpose is to build a Kingdom of Heaven on earth, better go to Eurocrats than the Pope, really. I just don't think the European world has actually solved the fundamental problems (mortality, and more generally that human life is essentially a matter of failures and constraints, not of success and liberation) that religion "addresses" or at least talks about in a way that neither utilitarian gaming nor happy-talk pretending we will all live forever and have infinite orgasms of astounding beauty can deal with, at all. To boot, I think it is _true_. But, more generally, what the heck are you actually arguing for, Bo? With Christians, anyway? That people support various policies (say, the minimum wage, or abortion laws, or abolition of racial segregation) for reasons that are sometimes religious? So? What makes this different than any other point where people try to get the government to settle, if not how we believe, then how we act -- I'm not free to pay below minimum wage, no matter how little I think some work is worth doing.
Esper apparently wants to make it the secular party. (Also, he unintentionally implies it is the hypocritical party) Omega: Both parties are completely phony about religion. Probably at least 20 percent of my top 20 law school's class were atheist or agnostic. (A much larger percentage was secular.) And yet, politicians, almost exclusively drawn from top 20 law schools, all profess belief and go to church. It's just a form of pandering to the American people. So yes, the Democrats will be the party of people pretending to be religious while catering to secular types. And the Republicans will be the party of people pretending to be religious while catering to theocratic types. Welcome to America.
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I presume it's not getting argued much for the same reason the Goldberg's masterpiece Liberal Fascism wasn't: Because it's an obvious load of BS written by an obvious agenda-driven hack. I mean, oh no, some Democratic politician's adviser said something that made your invisible friend sad; sure, Amy, I'll read your 300 page book about that.
Posted by Bo | March 14, 2008 9:34 PM