"The Evangelical Crackup": reality or wishful thinking?

In The New York Times Magazine this past weekend, David D. Kirkpatrick had a lengthy but fascinating article on evangelicals and politics called "The Evangelical Crackup." I don't know much about Kirkpatrick, but he seems to have been following evangelicals and politics for quite a while. I highly recommend the article, though it is a bit lengthy. Do it in a few sittings if you have to.

Basically, Kirkpatrick says that, for a variety of reasons, the Republican Party can't necessarily rely on the total allegiance of evangelical Protestants anymore. While still very socially conservative, many in the religious right are ready for a new brand of evangelical-influenced politics. In particular, Kirkpatrick examines evangelical churches in Wichita, Kansas. Wichita is apparently a stronghold for big evangelical churches and has been the home of some notable players in the religious right. Kirkpatrick says there are some changes going on there that carry some significance and are symptomatic of more widespread changes affecting the rest of the country. Here are some of his main points.

1. Younger evangelicals are less likely to affiliate with the Republican Party. This is also backed up by a recent Pew report. This likely has to do a lot with the Iraq situation and dissatisfaction over the war and the current administration. For that reason, I wouldn't expect that alone to significantly change evangelicals' party affiliations.
2. Kirkpatrick does suggest, however, that many evangelicals are starting to get concerned with issues like environmentalism and economic justice. If this can get widespread support among evangelicals and grounding in evangelical theology and rhetoric, then it could signal a shift in party affiliation. But I wouldn't expect it to be major.
   
3. He suggests that part of the shift away from the Republican Party could be from dissatisfaction with the party and its inability to deliver when it comes to social and moral issues. It's hard for me to imagine a big shift to the Democratic Party, however. I'd expect that more would simply become independents.
   
4. It also likely has something to do with there not being a presidential candidate that they can really rally behind. Romney is a Mormon, Giuliani is a "lapsed-Catholic big-city mayor," Fred Thompson is a "church-skipping Hollywood character actor," and McCain is a "political renegade known for crossing swords with the Rev. Pat Robertson and the Rev. Jerry Falwell."
   
5. Kirkpatrick also talked to several evangelical theologians who expressed concern that there was going to be something of a split among evangelicals that would mirror the split between evangelical and mainline Protestants early in the 20th century.
   

Is there really an evangelical "crackup" in the works? Or is it wishful thinking on the part of the NY Times? I've enjoyed reading some of the comments on the article in the UU blogging world. I particularly liked what Doug Muder had to say over at Open Source Journalism:

It's long but it's important: This weekend's New York Times Magazine published The Evangelical Crackup, an article describing how a new generation of evangelical pastors is telling the Republican Party that they can still be friends, but they need to start seeing other people. They're noticing that Christianity has more political significance than just anti-abortion and anti-gay-rights, and they're starting to pay attention to a few liberal issues like the environment and poverty. Scriptural religion is a mixed bag, but you have to give it this: No matter how long people ignore the Sermon on the Mount, it stays in the book. Sooner or later somebody's bound to run across it again and ask: "Why aren't we doing anything about this?"

Over at Debra Haffner's blog, she had the following to say:

And the New York Times magazine once again declared the death of the radical religious right. . . As to the New York Times, as I said when Jerry Falwell died, reports of the death of religious conservatives is premature. As someone who advocates for the rights of women and LGBT persons, it's not time to celebrate.

To an extent I suppose I share her concern about the article and conclusions that folks might be tempted to draw, but I don't think the article was a "premature obituary" as she called it in her title, or even an obituary for that matter. I don't see loads of evangelicals flocking to the Democratic Party or changing their mind on social issues. But the article presents some pretty compelling evidence that there might be some shifts in store in the evangelical political world.

O'Reilly says most teachers are "anti-American"

How does this guy have a TV show on a major network? Why do people listen to him? I caught about ten minutes of another O'Reilly Factor tonight. I talked about O'Reilly in a previous post, as well. What planet does this guy live on? It almost makes my feel physically ill when I listen to him. Tonight he was focusing on how teachers, particularly at the university level, are mostly "anti-American" and have nothing positive to say about our country. He says that they are harming our nation and making us more vulnerable to terrorism and what not. He says they've created an environment where it's cool for kids to be critical about our country and government and a "geek" if you're patriotic. How offensive should that be to our nation's teachers who do what they do because they are proud to be American and want to make a difference in our youth's lives, and because they envision students who are patriotic but not afraid to question and who care about how the rest of the world sees us!!

He also talked in great length about the media's negativity and bias against the military, the Iraq war, and the president. He is constantly concerned that all the good things going on in Iraq are underreported and ignored because they're simply to inconvenient for all those liberals in the media. Again, he preys on viewers' fears by saying that all this negativity is just to further some "liberal agenda" and that it ultimately makes us weak as a nation and vulnerable. He also makes it sound like you're anti-military if you're against the Iraq war. I mean anti-military in that you don't support those brave men and women over there making the world a better place. I honor and support those men and women, but would rather they were home making our country a better place, not involved in a mess that we created.

O'Reilly does so much harm by presenting this lie-filled, fear-filled version of what it means to be patriotic, what it means to love country, and what will keep us safe. He paints those who disagree with him as "anti-American" and motivated only by some corrupt "agenda."

We will ultimately lose as a country if O'Reilly and like-minded conservatives are successful at convincing Americans that to question and challenge is "anti-American" and that we are only safe if our military is exerting its will all over the globe.

Interestingly, respected NY Times author and journalist Thomas Friedman, who comes off more liberal than conservative to me, had the same criticism of universities, but at least it's not so hate-filled and over-simplistic. In his book Longitudes and Attitudes, Friedman does express his concern that students and professors at universities are so desirous to be politically correct that they tend to be overly critical of the U.S. when it comes to the causes of 9/11 and the potential that we might have been partially at fault. There's no doubt that college campuses are likely the site of the most criticism of the U.S. and its government (particularly the current administration), but I think generally it's in the desire to see our country live up to its potential and to not be a superpower separate and above the rest of the world but a country living among others, cooperative and diplomatic. I think Friedman would likely agree, but is nonetheless concerned with the way in which it is done.

O'Reilly, on the other hand, would have you believe that truly patriotic Americans are a persecuted minority that isn't allowed to express itself and that those darn liberals would make us vulnerable and weak by having the audacity to stop and think and question.

What I want to know is whether there is anyone on TV to balance and challenge the nonsense that O'Reilly is spouting off every night. We sure need it.

Maybe it should be: "Is the Religious Right keeping you from going to church?"

In my last post I talked about how I felt about the UUA's full-page ad in Time magazine. It starts in huge letters by asking "Is God keeping you from going to church?" I believe that that question is both meant as an attention-grabber as well as a legitimate question for people who desire religious experiences but have been turned off by prior religious experiences, particularly with strict or conservative theological views.

It's an increasingly known fact that during the 1990's, the percentage of Americans claiming no religious affiliation on national surveys doubled. Before the decade about 7% of Americans claimed no religion and at the end of the decade it was up to about 14%. I've looked at the 2006 General Social Survey and it's now up to about 17%! This is a remarkable and rapid social change.

Anyway, two sociologists argue in a journal article published a few years ago that this increase is due partly to a political effect. They find that losses from organized religion during the 1990's were almost all from people with liberal or moderate political views. They suggest that the the rise and growth of the Religious Right turned off liberals and moderates to religion altogether. BUT, they show that this growing number of non-religious Americans still for the most part believes in God, in the afterlife, and considers itself spiritual. Their beef is with organized religion, not with the gods.

So, maybe the UUA's ad should have said "Is the Religious Right keeping you from going to church?" This would certainly target a larger portion of the population than those that might be affected by the existing ad.

Thoughts on the UUA's full-page ad in Time

As part of a big marketing campaign, the Unitarian Universalist Association recently teamed up with Time magazine. In addition to running full-page ads, apparently starting in late October Time.com will feature "an archive of religious articles" that "will bring our liberal religious perspectives to the public discourse on faith and values in our society." Readers will be able to read UU-authored articles on a variety of contemporary topics.

The magazine will feature several full-page ads. One ad says in huge letters "Is God keeping you from going to church?" Then it goes on to say:

Maybe you're uncomfortable with God - or at least someone else's idea of God. Yet maybe you yearn for a loving, spiritual community where you can be inspired and encouraged as you search for your own truth and meaning. This is a church, you ask? Welcome to Unitarian Universalism.

Overall, I like the ad. The opening line about "God keeping you from going to church" is bound to offend some folks, but I think it's really meant to just get people's attention. At first I didn't like it, but it's growing on me. I mean, that's why I stopped going to church! I had a hard time imagining anywhere where my agnosticism would be OK.

And, in general, I like what follows in the ad, but it's bound to turn some people off, especially the phrase "as you search for your own truth and meaning." This is exactly what bugs people about religious liberalism (and maybe liberalism in general) - that all there is is moral relativism and nobody's right and nobody's wrong and what the individual believes is all that matters. People inevitably ask "Well, what if my 'search for meaning and truth' leads me to conclude that (fill in with something bad)?" There's this conception that that type of religion is flaky and empty and ultimately leads people astray. It certainly facilitates all those things.

While I think people that would think all those things after seeing the ad ultimately are missing the point, I guess that phrase "as you search for your own truth and meaning" still bugs me. I understand that Unitarian Universalism is built not around common theological beliefs but around shared values and moral action, but it still bugs me. It says something about the tremendous individualism that characterizes Unitarian Universalism. I plan to say more on this later - the famous sociologist Robert Bellah actually spoke at GA several years ago and said that individualism is UUism's biggest problem.

Federally-funded "Talk to me" ad says wait until married

Several times in the last few days I have seen this new TV spot from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. You can see it here. It depicts several adolescents talking to their parents through the camera. The basic message is: talk to us about sex and encourage us to wait until we're married, even though we might seem annoyed at the time.

I was really quite surprised the first time I saw it, as was my wife. There's no doubt that sexuality is a health issue, and teenage sex is a health issue, but I was still a bit surprised to see that it was made by the U.S. Department of Health & Human services. It wasn't promoting thorough sex education, or safe sex, or explaining the risks of sex, or whatever. The message was clearly that abstinence is the best way to go. This seems more a moral position than a medical position.

I know that I might seem a little conservative when it comes to sexuality. Maybe it's the Mormon upbringing. I don't know. But I believe that sex is probably best reserved for marriage, and I believe that it's probably best that kids wait until they get married. Maybe that's what makes me a liberal, then, that I use words like "probably" or "should," and that I feel a bit uncomfortable when the government is putting ads like this out there. I believe that health and safety are ultimately more important than promoting abstinence only. I've also read that a report submitted to the U.S. Department of Health says that the abstinence-only sex ed programs have no effect on reducing teen sex. I guess the issue then is what do you do about it?

My feeling is that discussion of the moral, emotional, and spiritual ramifications of sex ought to be left to families and churches. The government and schools ought to be providing us with accurate information and medical opinion and medical/practical options that focus on health.

Thomas Friedman's "Generation Q"

In a recent NY Times article, Thomas Friedman talked about his experiences visiting college campuses and meeting with college students. He called those students "Generation Q." The "Q" stands for quiet. He explains that while this generation, of which I am a part, is certainly active and involved in certain ways, he has the following concern:

But Generation Q may be too quiet, too online, for its own good, and for the country’s own good. When I think of the huge budget deficit, Social Security deficit and ecological deficit that our generation is leaving this generation, if they are not spitting mad, well, then they’re just not paying attention. And we’ll just keep piling it on them.

And later he says this:

America needs a jolt of the idealism, activism and outrage (it must be in there) of Generation Q. That’s what twentysomethings are for — to light a fire under the country. But they can’t e-mail it in, and an online petition or a mouse click for carbon neutrality won’t cut it. They have to get organized in a way that will force politicians to pay attention rather than just patronize them.

And here I sit, blogging about religious and political issues, while doing little other activism than joining the ACLU, subscribing to The Nation, and donating to the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. I have to admit that this article got me thinking a little bit. Maybe my generation lives in a sort of virtual world where we blog and email but do little in the real world to change it, to get noticed, and to demand a better world.

Which kind of humanist are you? Pete Stark in UU World

An interesting article appeared in the magazine UU World recently. It was about Representative Pete Stark, an 18-year Congressman from the San Francisco area. Rep. Stark is also an out-of-the-closet "Unitarian who does not believe in a supreme being," according to a statement he made back in March. The Secular Coalition of America asked Stark whether he would make an official statement publicizing his unbelief. So he did. He's since been praised by the American Humanist Association in an ad they placed recently.

But according to the UU World article, none of this is a big deal to Rep. Stark. He recently spoke at Harvard to receive an award. The author of the article says he expects that those hard-core humanists present may have been a bit disappointed by his nonchalant and matter-of-fact style of humanism. According to the article:

During the question period, the audience tried hard to elicit stories of persecution and bigotry and victimization. They failed.

Asked what could be done to stop the demonization of unbelievers, Stark questioned the premise. “I have no evidence that nonbelievers are demonized. I don’t think that’s an issue with many people.” Voters want to know what he thinks about Iraq and abortion and health care—but God? “It just doesn’t come up very much. When we’re paving the roads, religion just doesn’t enter into it.”

I thought it was interesting to hear from a real live politician how religion fits in with politics in real life. The author goes on to explain that this interesting encounter at Harvard suggests that there may be two kinds of humanists:

The contrasting attitudes of Stark and his audience, many of them from student Humanist organizations at Harvard, Brandeis, and Tufts, points to an interesting issue in the Humanist movement. For one kind of unbeliever, God is like the Tooth Fairy. Not believing in him is a mark of maturity, something to take pride in. Such people are easy to attract to Humanist events, because unbelief is part of their identity.

But other nontheists take an attitude more like the opening of the Gelett Burgess nonsense rhyme:

I’ve never seen a purple cow
I never hope to see one.
They harbor no resistance to the notion of a deity, they just don’t anticipate running into one. If you ask them, they may admit to being atheists or agnostics, but in their own minds the question hardly ever comes up.

Pete Stark is more of a purple-cow unbeliever than a Tooth-Fairy unbeliever.

I would have to say that I'm more the second kind. At any rate, the author finishes by mentioning the fact that a growing number of young people are rejecting organized religion and may be a prime source of humanist growth (the article cites a Pew finding that as many as 20% of 18-to-25-year-olds have no religious affiliation, but recent General Social Survey data indicates that this is more like 25%). But, the humanist movement will have to be open to both kinds of humanists. I think this is a fantastic point:

Humanism offers its adherents the possibility of a full, productive, and meaningful life without God. But people come to Humanism from two very different directions. Some find themselves without God, and look for a way to have a full, productive, and meaningful life anyway. Others, like Pete Stark, find themselves leading full lives already, and eventually notice that God hasn’t shown up. A Humanist movement that hopes to represent one-in-five young people is going to have to keep both doors open.

Is the difference between these two types meaningful? Are there really two types? I think it might be. It might be the difference between a Sam Harris approach to religion and something that's kinder, more reasonable, and more realistic.

"Aliens in America": a great new TV show

I'm just as skeptical as the next person about the slew of new TV shows each fall, many of which will not even make it to Halloween. I don't watch a lot of TV, mostly The Office and sports. But my wife was listening to NPR or something recently and a TV critic recommended two new shows: Pushing Daisies and Aliens in America.

Pushing Daisies is a bizarre show (comedy-drama) about a man that can bring dead things (including people) back to life by simply touching them. It's also kind of a crime drama, as a private investigator uses his special power to interview the deceased to find out how they died. It is bizarre, but intriguing. It really feels like watching a Tim Burton film. That's the best way to describe it. The colors, the narration, the feel, the style, the dreaminess - all very Burton-esque.

Aliens in America is a comedy about a family in a little Wisconsin town that takes in an exchange student that happens to be a Pakistani Muslim. The show centers around the relationship between a high school-age boy in the family and his friendship with the exchange student. The family is interesting. The mom has quit her job so that she can take on a greater role in her son's life. She's a bit overbearing and controlling, too. Anyway, they think that since the exchange student is coming from London, he'll be this dashing, classy British kid that will boost their son's confidence and make him cool (the dad is just excited about the $500/month that host families get). Instead, it is a Pakistani Muslim. The show takes on something that even the big networks won't - what life is like for Muslims in the U.S. The show takes place in this little town in Wisconsin, so religious ignorance and intolerance is definitely something that the boy has to deal with on a daily basis. But the show is funny and sweet, and incredibly thought-provoking. I think it's an absolutely fantastic way to get people (the show is mostly focused toward a younger crowd) to think about religious pluralism, and to overcome prejudice toward Muslims in the U.S. I highly recommend it. It's on Monday nights at 8:30 on The CW.

Actually, I spoke with someone from the show's network today (The CW). I work for a religion data archive website and we get a lot of phone calls from journalists and members of the media. The person calling was hoping to get information about cities in the U.S. that have large Muslim populations so that they could market the show there. But really, the show will do more good for the rest of us.

Why name the divine?

I am agnostic. I had a deeply religious upbringing and was active in the LDS church up until this year. Yet I had been whittling away at my religious beliefs and expectations for years and years as a result of ineffective prayers and frustrating experiences. Yet I am not a bitter, anti-religious atheist or anti-Mormon. I remain intrigued by religion, by faith, and yes, by the divine. I am decidedly agnostic. I realize that it may seem a weak position to take, but I find it to be the only sincere and honest position for me. I cannot be so bold as to say that God exists or doesn't, and, frankly, I find it irrelevant. I do not mean to disrespect firm believers in saying that. I cannot know another's thoughts and experiences. I cannot know how they arrived at their beliefs.

Despite my unbelief, I am deeply concerned with issues that one could call religious or spiritual. Whatever a cold, rational, naturalistic, scientific world view would look like, if there is even such thing, it is entirely unappealing to me. Equally unappealing to me is a life in which I would constantly have to ignore reality and reason in an attempt to satisfy social and personal wishes. So, I lie between the two, open to both, I hope. Agnosticism, religious humanism, whatever you want to call it. It doesn't matter. I believe that what matters most is that we do a few simple things like continually trying to improve ourselves, loving and caring for others, trying to make the world a better place, and seeking after truth and beauty. Everything else is secondary, including belief in God.

Why do we name the divine? Why do we constantly feel compelled to define, classify, describe, and name that mystery and wonder that we all feel? It seems to be something that humans have always done.

The LDS view of God is both highly conventional and highly radical. Yet it is a view of a highly personal, involved God who looks like us and is made of flesh and bone. A God that appeared to Joseph Smith not even 200 years ago. It is exciting and wonderful to think of the possibilities, including the cherished LDS belief that man's destiny is to become like God. Yet for years I failed to have any meaningful connection to that God. I felt like I was jumping through too many mental hoops and doing too many mental tricks to make it work.

Why do we believe? There are a million answers to this question, I suppose. Believers argue that we believe because we are his children, and our spirits long for him. Evolutionary biologists search for reasons why it could have been advantageous to believe. Brain scientists look for ways in which our brains might be wired to believe.

Yet the profound hiddenness of God remains ever present. Still, believers argue that life without God, the supreme Organizer, Judge, and Creator would be meaningless. Indeed, they argue that without him it wouldn't have been possible. Do we long to attribute creation to him because we are ever awed by the wonders and beauty of the earth? Does it make us feel better to know who's responsible for it, as if someone has to be in order for it all to make sense? Does it give us a sense of peace to think that bad people are going to get it someday, and that we'll get to live in eternal bliss, thanks to God?

So, I ask again: why name the divine? I'll admit, sometimes I wish I could. But I can't. I am in awe at the wonders of our planet and life upon it. Yet, I don't rush to put a name or face on that feeling. I'll continue to let it stir in me, making me want to be better, kinder, and truer.