G
Gandalf Grey
Guest
Tomgram: Ira Chernus asks, "Is Religion a Threat to Democracy?"
By Tom Engelhardt
Created Jan 14 2008 - 9:13am
- from TomDispatch [1]
Here's the strange thing: If we are in a political "season of change" [2]
and "change" is now the word most used by presidential candidates, change
isn't exactly valued when it comes to presidential runs themselves. Take,
for example, the Democratic debate [3] moderated by ABC News' Charlie Gibson
a week ago. In that mere hour and a half of television, Gibson, his TV
sidekicks like George Stephanopoulos, and the four candidates managed to use
the "C" word some 48 times -- being "agents of" or "power voices for
change," "making," "delivering," "producing," "advocating for," "fighting
for," "believing deeply in," "loving," even "embody[ing] change." In the
process, they just about ground change into the dust. But lurking in the
background was another use of that word -- as an accusation -- and it went
unnoticed.
Here's Hillary Clinton, for example, launching an attack on Barack Obama:
"You know, I think that, two weeks ago, you criticized Senator Edwards in
saying that he was unelectable because he had changed positions over the
course of four years, that four years ago he wasn't for universal health
care; now, he is. Well, you've changed positions within three years on, you
know, a range of issues that you put forth when you ran for the Senate, and
now you have changed."
To which, Obama had to respond: "I have been entirely consistent in my
position on health care."
This is typical of our electoral moment and it's another little legacy [4]
of the Bush era. You can probably thank Karl Rove for this one because in
2004, handling a notoriously single-minded, inflexible, and stubborn
candidate, he managed to turn the "C" word into a curse no one is likely to
forget. To change, you remember, was actually to "flip-flop." [5] And if
there's one thing in the post-2004 era that no candidate can now afford to
be charged with, it's flipping and flopping like a fish on the deck of a
ship.
John Edwards, for instance, recently changed his position [6] on Iraq in a
significant way. While still in the Iowa caucus race, he called for the
withdrawal within 10 months of all American troops in Iraq (except for a few
thousand soldiers left to guard the Baghdad embassy), including the trainers
of Iraqi troops. Previously, like the other two leading candidates, he had
only called for [7] the withdrawal of American "combat troops" who make up
perhaps half of the U.S. troop contingent. He was not challenged on this in
the debate, but had he been, he would surely have little choice but to claim
that he, too, had somehow been "consistent," that he hadn't flip-flopped on
Iraq.
As a result, the "change" candidates of 2008, wielding the "C" word for an
audience "fired up" for. well, you know what, so just shout it out. must
themselves swear that they are "consistent" in their positions, that, in
short, they do not change. The one thing these candidates of change can't go
out in public and say is something like: "Well, that was 2002, but in the
intervening years, I've done a lot of thinking, had new experiences, grown,
matured. changed, and so has my position on [you fill in the issue]."
Change may, or may not, turn out to be the Pied Piper of 2008 for the
American voter, but it surely will remain the Scylla and Charybdis of
twenty-first century presidential politics. So watch out. be consistent. go
(like the Republican candidates [8]) for the "eternal" verities. and, while
you're at it, consider the nature of religious consistency in politics,
because this election is, so far, not just the non-flip-flop election, but
the "faith" election in which even Hillary Clinton has [9] a "Faith, Family
and Values" team on her campaign staff, while John McCain claimed on the
campaign trail that he thought the Constitution had established a "Christian
nation". but let Tomdispatch regular and professor of religion Ira Chernus
tell you the rest.
-- Tom
Is Religion a Threat to Democracy? Faith Talk on the Campaign Trail
By Ira Chernus
It's a presidential campaign like no other. The candidates have been falling
all over each other in their rush to declare the depth and sincerity of
their religious faith. The pundits have been just as eager to raise
questions that seem obvious and important: Should we let religious beliefs
influence the making of law and public policy? If so, in what way and to
what extent? Those questions, however, assume that candidates bring the
subject of faith into the political arena largely to justify -- or turn up
the heat under -- their policy positions. In fact, faith talk often has
little to do with candidates' stands on the issues. There's something else
going on here.
Look at the TV ad [10] that brought Mike Huckabee out of obscurity in Iowa,
the one that identified him as a "Christian Leader" who proclaims: "Faith
doesn't just influence me. It really defines me." That ad did indeed mention
a couple of actual political issues -- the usual suspects, abortion and gay
marriage -- but only in passing. Then Huckabee followed up with a red
sweater-themed Christmas ad [11] that actively encouraged voters to ignore
the issues. We're all tired of politics, the kindly pastor indicated. Let's
just drop all the policy stuff and talk about Christmas -- and Christ.
Ads like his aren't meant to argue policy. They aim to create an image -- in
this case, of a good Christian with a steady moral compass who sticks to his
principles. At a deeper level, faith-talk ads work hard to turn the
candidate -- whatever candidate -- into a bulwark of solidity, a symbol of
certainty; their goal is to offer assurance that the basic rules for living
remain fixed, objective truths, as true as religion.
In a time when the world seems like a shaky place -- whether you have a
child in Iraq, a mortgage you may not be able to meet, a pension threatening
to head south, a job evaporating under you, a loved one battling drug or
alcohol addiction, an ex who just came out as gay or born-again, or a
president you just can't trust -- you may begin to wonder whether there is
any moral order in the universe. Are the very foundations of society so
shaky that they might not hold up for long? Words about faith -- nearly any
words -- speak reassuringly to such fears, which haunt millions of
Americans.
These fears and the religious responses to them have been a key to the
political success of the religious right in recent decades. Randall Balmer,
a leading scholar of evangelical Christianity, points out that it's offered
not so much "issues" to mobilize around as "an unambiguous morality in an
age of moral and ethical uncertainty."
Mitt Romney was courting the evangelical-swinging-toward-Huckabee vote when
he, too, went out of his way to link religion with moral absolutes in his
big Iowa speech [12] on faith. Our "common creed of moral convictions. the
firm ground on which Americans of different faiths meet" turned out, utterly
unsurprisingly, to be none other than religious soil: "We believe that every
single human being is a child of God. liberty is a gift of God." No doubts
allowed here.
American politicians have regularly wielded religious language and symbolism
in their moments of need, and such faith talk has always helped provide a
sense of moral certainty in a shape-shifting world. But in the better years
of the previous century, candidates used religion mostly as an adjunct to
the real meat of the political process, a tool to whip up support for
policies.
How times have changed. Think of it, perhaps, as a way to measure the
powerful sense of unsettledness that has taken a firm hold on American
society. Candidates increasingly keep their talk about religion separate
from specific campaign issues. They promote faith as something important and
valuable in and of itself in the election process. They invariably avow the
deep roots of their religious faith and link it not with issues, but with
certitude itself.
Sometimes it seems that Democrats do this with even more grim regularity
than Republicans. John Edwards [13], for example, reassured the nation that
"the hand of God today is in every step of what happens with me and every
human being that exists on this planet." In the same forum, Hillary Clinton
proclaimed that she "had a grounding in faith that gave me the courage and
the strength to do what I thought was right, regardless of what the world
thought. And that's all one can expect or hope for."
When religious language enters the political arena in this way, as an end in
itself, it always sends the same symbolic message: Yes, Virginia (or Iowa or
New Hampshire or South Carolina) there are absolute values, universal truths
that can never change. You are not adrift in a sea of moral chaos. Elect me
and you're sure to have a fixed mooring to hold you and your community fast
forever.
That message does its work in cultural depths that arguments about the
separation of church and state can never touch. Even if the candidates
themselves don't always understand what their words are doing, this is the
biggest, most overlooked piece in today's faith and politics puzzle -- and
once you start looking for it, you find it nearly everywhere on the
political landscape.
The Threat to Democracy
So, when it comes to religion and politics, here's the most critical
question: Should we turn the political arena into a stage to dramatize our
quest for moral certainty? The simple answer is no -- for lots of reasons.
For starters, it's a direct threat to democracy. The essence of our system
is that we, the people, get to choose our values. We don't discover them
inscribed in the cosmos. So everything must be open to question, to debate,
and therefore to change. In a democracy, there should be no fixed truth
except that everyone has the right to offer a new view -- and to change his
or her mind. It's a process whose outcome should never be predictable, a
process without end. A claim to absolute truth -- any absolute truth --
stops that process.
For those of us who see the political arena as the place where the whole
community gathers to work for a better world, it's even more important to
insist that politics must be about large-scale change. The politics of moral
absolutes sends just the opposite message: Don't worry, whatever small
changes are necessary, it's only in order to resist the fundamental
crumbling that frightens so many. Nothing really important can ever change.
Many liberals and progressives hear that profoundly conservative message
even when it's hidden beneath all the reasonable arguments about church and
state. That's one big reason they are often so quick to sound a shrill alarm
at every sign of faith-based politics.
They also know how easy it is to go from "there is a fixed truth" to "I have
that fixed truth." And they've seen that the fixed truth in question is all
too often about personal behaviors that ought to be matters of free choice
in a democracy.
Which brings us to the next danger: Words alone are rarely enough to
reassure the uncertain. In fact, the more people rely on faith talk to
pursue certainty, the more they may actually reinforce both anxiety and
uncertainty. It's a small step indeed to move beyond the issue of individual
self-control to controlling others through the passage of laws.
Campaigns to put the government's hands on our bodies are not usually
missionary efforts meant to make us accept someone else's religion. They are
much more often campaigns to stage symbolic dramas about self-control and
moral reassurance.
Controlling the Passions
American culture has always put a spotlight on the question: Can you control
your impulses and desires -- especially sexual desires -- enough to live up
to the moral rules? As historian of religion John F. Wilson tells us, the
quest for surety has typically focused on a "control of self" that "through
discipline" finally becomes self-control. In the 2008 presidential campaign,
this still remains true. Listen, for example, to Barack Obama [14]: "My
Bible tells me that if we train a child in the way he should go, when he is
old he will not turn from it. So I think faith and guidance can help
fortify. a sense of reverence that all young people should have for the act
of sexual intimacy."
Mitt Romney fit snugly into the same mold. He started his widely-heralded
statement on religion by talking about a time when "our nation faced its
greatest peril," a threat to "the survival of a free land." Was he talking
about terrorism? No. He immediately went on to warn that the real danger
comes from "human passions unbridled." Only morality and religion can do the
necessary bridling, he argued, quoting John Adams to make his case: "Our
constitution was made for a moral and religious people" -- in other words,
people who can control themselves. That's why "freedom requires religion."
All too often, though, the faith-talk view of freedom ends up taking away
freedom. When Romney said [15] he'd be "delighted" to sign "a federal ban on
all abortions," only a minority of Americans approved of that position (if
we can believe the polls), but it was a sizeable minority. For them, fear of
unbridled passion is stronger than any commitment to personal freedom.
In the end, it may be mostly their own passions that they fear. But since
the effort to control oneself is frustrating, it can easily turn into a
quest for "control over other selves," to quote historian Wilson again,
"with essentially bipolar frameworks for conceiving of the world: good
versus bad, us versus them" -- "them" being liberals, secular humanists,
wild kids, or whatever label the moment calls for.
The upholders of virtue want to convince each other that their values are
absolutely true. So they stick together and stand firm against those who
walk in error. As Romney put it, "Any person who has knelt in prayer to the
Almighty has a friend and ally in me."
That's the main dynamic driving the movements to ban abortion and gay
marriage. But they're just the latest in a long line of such movements,
including those aimed at prohibiting or restricting alcohol, drugs,
gambling, birth control, crime, and other behaviors that are, in a given
period, styled as immoral.
Since it's always about getting "them" to control their passions, the target
is usually personal behavior. But it doesn't have to be. Just about any law
or policy can become a symbol of eternal moral truth -- even foreign policy,
one area where liberals, embarked on their own faith-talk campaigns, are
more likely to join conservatives.
The bipartisan war on terror has, for instance, been a symbolic drama of "us
versus them," acting out a tale of moral truth. Rudolph Giuliani made the
connection clear shortly after the 9/11 attack when he went to the United
Nations to whip up support for that "war." "The era of moral relativism.
must end," he demanded [16]. "Moral relativism does not have a place in this
discussion and debate."
Nor does it have a place in the current campaign debate about foreign
policy. Candidate Huckabee, for example, has no hesitation about linking war
abroad to the state of morality here at home. He wants to continue fighting
[17] in Iraq, he says, because "our way of life, our economic and moral
strength, our civilization is at stake. I am determined to look this evil in
the eye, confront it, defeat it." As his anti-gay marriage statement [18]
asks, "What's the point of keeping the terrorists at bay in the Middle East,
if we can't keep decline and decadence at bay here at home?"
On the liberal side, the theme is more muted but still there. Barack Obama,
for instance, has affirmed [19] that the U.S. must "lead the world in
battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good. I still believe
that America is the last, best hope of Earth." Apparently that's why we need
to keep tens of thousands of troops in Iraq indefinitely. Clinton calls for
[20] "a bipartisan consensus to ensure our interests, increase our security
and advance our values," acting out "our deeply-held desire to remake the
world as it ought to be." Apparently that's why, in her words, "we cannot
take any option off the table in sending a clear message to the current
leadership of Iran."
When words and policies become symbols of moral absolutes, they are usually
about preventing some "evil" deed or turning things back to the way they
(supposedly) used to be. So they are likely to have a conservative impact,
even when they come from liberals.
The Future of Faith Talk
In itself, faith in politics poses no great danger to democracy as long as
the debates are really about policies -- and religious values are translated
into [21] political values, articulated in ways that can be rationally
debated by people who don't share them. The challenge is not to get religion
out of politics. It's to get the quest for certitude out of politics.
The first step is to ask why that quest seems increasingly central to our
politics today. It's not simply because a right-wing cabal wants to impose
its religion on us. The cabal exists, but it's not powerful enough to shape
the political scene on its own. That power lies with millions of voters
across the political spectrum. Candidates talk about faith because they want
to win votes.
Voters reward faith talk because they want candidates to offer them symbols
of immutable moral order. The root of the problem lies in the underlying
insecurities of voters, in a sense of powerlessness that makes change seem
so frightening, and control -- especially of others -- so necessary.
The only way to alter that condition is to transform our society so that
voters will feel empowered enough to take the risks, and tolerate the
freedom that democracy requires. That would be genuine change. It's a
political problem with a political solution. Until that solution begins to
emerge, there is no way to take the conservative symbolic message of faith
talk out of American politics.
Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado
at Boulder and author of Monsters To Destroy: The Neoconservative War on
Terror and Sin [22].
Copyright 2008 Ira Chernus
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
By Tom Engelhardt
Created Jan 14 2008 - 9:13am
- from TomDispatch [1]
Here's the strange thing: If we are in a political "season of change" [2]
and "change" is now the word most used by presidential candidates, change
isn't exactly valued when it comes to presidential runs themselves. Take,
for example, the Democratic debate [3] moderated by ABC News' Charlie Gibson
a week ago. In that mere hour and a half of television, Gibson, his TV
sidekicks like George Stephanopoulos, and the four candidates managed to use
the "C" word some 48 times -- being "agents of" or "power voices for
change," "making," "delivering," "producing," "advocating for," "fighting
for," "believing deeply in," "loving," even "embody[ing] change." In the
process, they just about ground change into the dust. But lurking in the
background was another use of that word -- as an accusation -- and it went
unnoticed.
Here's Hillary Clinton, for example, launching an attack on Barack Obama:
"You know, I think that, two weeks ago, you criticized Senator Edwards in
saying that he was unelectable because he had changed positions over the
course of four years, that four years ago he wasn't for universal health
care; now, he is. Well, you've changed positions within three years on, you
know, a range of issues that you put forth when you ran for the Senate, and
now you have changed."
To which, Obama had to respond: "I have been entirely consistent in my
position on health care."
This is typical of our electoral moment and it's another little legacy [4]
of the Bush era. You can probably thank Karl Rove for this one because in
2004, handling a notoriously single-minded, inflexible, and stubborn
candidate, he managed to turn the "C" word into a curse no one is likely to
forget. To change, you remember, was actually to "flip-flop." [5] And if
there's one thing in the post-2004 era that no candidate can now afford to
be charged with, it's flipping and flopping like a fish on the deck of a
ship.
John Edwards, for instance, recently changed his position [6] on Iraq in a
significant way. While still in the Iowa caucus race, he called for the
withdrawal within 10 months of all American troops in Iraq (except for a few
thousand soldiers left to guard the Baghdad embassy), including the trainers
of Iraqi troops. Previously, like the other two leading candidates, he had
only called for [7] the withdrawal of American "combat troops" who make up
perhaps half of the U.S. troop contingent. He was not challenged on this in
the debate, but had he been, he would surely have little choice but to claim
that he, too, had somehow been "consistent," that he hadn't flip-flopped on
Iraq.
As a result, the "change" candidates of 2008, wielding the "C" word for an
audience "fired up" for. well, you know what, so just shout it out. must
themselves swear that they are "consistent" in their positions, that, in
short, they do not change. The one thing these candidates of change can't go
out in public and say is something like: "Well, that was 2002, but in the
intervening years, I've done a lot of thinking, had new experiences, grown,
matured. changed, and so has my position on [you fill in the issue]."
Change may, or may not, turn out to be the Pied Piper of 2008 for the
American voter, but it surely will remain the Scylla and Charybdis of
twenty-first century presidential politics. So watch out. be consistent. go
(like the Republican candidates [8]) for the "eternal" verities. and, while
you're at it, consider the nature of religious consistency in politics,
because this election is, so far, not just the non-flip-flop election, but
the "faith" election in which even Hillary Clinton has [9] a "Faith, Family
and Values" team on her campaign staff, while John McCain claimed on the
campaign trail that he thought the Constitution had established a "Christian
nation". but let Tomdispatch regular and professor of religion Ira Chernus
tell you the rest.
-- Tom
Is Religion a Threat to Democracy? Faith Talk on the Campaign Trail
By Ira Chernus
It's a presidential campaign like no other. The candidates have been falling
all over each other in their rush to declare the depth and sincerity of
their religious faith. The pundits have been just as eager to raise
questions that seem obvious and important: Should we let religious beliefs
influence the making of law and public policy? If so, in what way and to
what extent? Those questions, however, assume that candidates bring the
subject of faith into the political arena largely to justify -- or turn up
the heat under -- their policy positions. In fact, faith talk often has
little to do with candidates' stands on the issues. There's something else
going on here.
Look at the TV ad [10] that brought Mike Huckabee out of obscurity in Iowa,
the one that identified him as a "Christian Leader" who proclaims: "Faith
doesn't just influence me. It really defines me." That ad did indeed mention
a couple of actual political issues -- the usual suspects, abortion and gay
marriage -- but only in passing. Then Huckabee followed up with a red
sweater-themed Christmas ad [11] that actively encouraged voters to ignore
the issues. We're all tired of politics, the kindly pastor indicated. Let's
just drop all the policy stuff and talk about Christmas -- and Christ.
Ads like his aren't meant to argue policy. They aim to create an image -- in
this case, of a good Christian with a steady moral compass who sticks to his
principles. At a deeper level, faith-talk ads work hard to turn the
candidate -- whatever candidate -- into a bulwark of solidity, a symbol of
certainty; their goal is to offer assurance that the basic rules for living
remain fixed, objective truths, as true as religion.
In a time when the world seems like a shaky place -- whether you have a
child in Iraq, a mortgage you may not be able to meet, a pension threatening
to head south, a job evaporating under you, a loved one battling drug or
alcohol addiction, an ex who just came out as gay or born-again, or a
president you just can't trust -- you may begin to wonder whether there is
any moral order in the universe. Are the very foundations of society so
shaky that they might not hold up for long? Words about faith -- nearly any
words -- speak reassuringly to such fears, which haunt millions of
Americans.
These fears and the religious responses to them have been a key to the
political success of the religious right in recent decades. Randall Balmer,
a leading scholar of evangelical Christianity, points out that it's offered
not so much "issues" to mobilize around as "an unambiguous morality in an
age of moral and ethical uncertainty."
Mitt Romney was courting the evangelical-swinging-toward-Huckabee vote when
he, too, went out of his way to link religion with moral absolutes in his
big Iowa speech [12] on faith. Our "common creed of moral convictions. the
firm ground on which Americans of different faiths meet" turned out, utterly
unsurprisingly, to be none other than religious soil: "We believe that every
single human being is a child of God. liberty is a gift of God." No doubts
allowed here.
American politicians have regularly wielded religious language and symbolism
in their moments of need, and such faith talk has always helped provide a
sense of moral certainty in a shape-shifting world. But in the better years
of the previous century, candidates used religion mostly as an adjunct to
the real meat of the political process, a tool to whip up support for
policies.
How times have changed. Think of it, perhaps, as a way to measure the
powerful sense of unsettledness that has taken a firm hold on American
society. Candidates increasingly keep their talk about religion separate
from specific campaign issues. They promote faith as something important and
valuable in and of itself in the election process. They invariably avow the
deep roots of their religious faith and link it not with issues, but with
certitude itself.
Sometimes it seems that Democrats do this with even more grim regularity
than Republicans. John Edwards [13], for example, reassured the nation that
"the hand of God today is in every step of what happens with me and every
human being that exists on this planet." In the same forum, Hillary Clinton
proclaimed that she "had a grounding in faith that gave me the courage and
the strength to do what I thought was right, regardless of what the world
thought. And that's all one can expect or hope for."
When religious language enters the political arena in this way, as an end in
itself, it always sends the same symbolic message: Yes, Virginia (or Iowa or
New Hampshire or South Carolina) there are absolute values, universal truths
that can never change. You are not adrift in a sea of moral chaos. Elect me
and you're sure to have a fixed mooring to hold you and your community fast
forever.
That message does its work in cultural depths that arguments about the
separation of church and state can never touch. Even if the candidates
themselves don't always understand what their words are doing, this is the
biggest, most overlooked piece in today's faith and politics puzzle -- and
once you start looking for it, you find it nearly everywhere on the
political landscape.
The Threat to Democracy
So, when it comes to religion and politics, here's the most critical
question: Should we turn the political arena into a stage to dramatize our
quest for moral certainty? The simple answer is no -- for lots of reasons.
For starters, it's a direct threat to democracy. The essence of our system
is that we, the people, get to choose our values. We don't discover them
inscribed in the cosmos. So everything must be open to question, to debate,
and therefore to change. In a democracy, there should be no fixed truth
except that everyone has the right to offer a new view -- and to change his
or her mind. It's a process whose outcome should never be predictable, a
process without end. A claim to absolute truth -- any absolute truth --
stops that process.
For those of us who see the political arena as the place where the whole
community gathers to work for a better world, it's even more important to
insist that politics must be about large-scale change. The politics of moral
absolutes sends just the opposite message: Don't worry, whatever small
changes are necessary, it's only in order to resist the fundamental
crumbling that frightens so many. Nothing really important can ever change.
Many liberals and progressives hear that profoundly conservative message
even when it's hidden beneath all the reasonable arguments about church and
state. That's one big reason they are often so quick to sound a shrill alarm
at every sign of faith-based politics.
They also know how easy it is to go from "there is a fixed truth" to "I have
that fixed truth." And they've seen that the fixed truth in question is all
too often about personal behaviors that ought to be matters of free choice
in a democracy.
Which brings us to the next danger: Words alone are rarely enough to
reassure the uncertain. In fact, the more people rely on faith talk to
pursue certainty, the more they may actually reinforce both anxiety and
uncertainty. It's a small step indeed to move beyond the issue of individual
self-control to controlling others through the passage of laws.
Campaigns to put the government's hands on our bodies are not usually
missionary efforts meant to make us accept someone else's religion. They are
much more often campaigns to stage symbolic dramas about self-control and
moral reassurance.
Controlling the Passions
American culture has always put a spotlight on the question: Can you control
your impulses and desires -- especially sexual desires -- enough to live up
to the moral rules? As historian of religion John F. Wilson tells us, the
quest for surety has typically focused on a "control of self" that "through
discipline" finally becomes self-control. In the 2008 presidential campaign,
this still remains true. Listen, for example, to Barack Obama [14]: "My
Bible tells me that if we train a child in the way he should go, when he is
old he will not turn from it. So I think faith and guidance can help
fortify. a sense of reverence that all young people should have for the act
of sexual intimacy."
Mitt Romney fit snugly into the same mold. He started his widely-heralded
statement on religion by talking about a time when "our nation faced its
greatest peril," a threat to "the survival of a free land." Was he talking
about terrorism? No. He immediately went on to warn that the real danger
comes from "human passions unbridled." Only morality and religion can do the
necessary bridling, he argued, quoting John Adams to make his case: "Our
constitution was made for a moral and religious people" -- in other words,
people who can control themselves. That's why "freedom requires religion."
All too often, though, the faith-talk view of freedom ends up taking away
freedom. When Romney said [15] he'd be "delighted" to sign "a federal ban on
all abortions," only a minority of Americans approved of that position (if
we can believe the polls), but it was a sizeable minority. For them, fear of
unbridled passion is stronger than any commitment to personal freedom.
In the end, it may be mostly their own passions that they fear. But since
the effort to control oneself is frustrating, it can easily turn into a
quest for "control over other selves," to quote historian Wilson again,
"with essentially bipolar frameworks for conceiving of the world: good
versus bad, us versus them" -- "them" being liberals, secular humanists,
wild kids, or whatever label the moment calls for.
The upholders of virtue want to convince each other that their values are
absolutely true. So they stick together and stand firm against those who
walk in error. As Romney put it, "Any person who has knelt in prayer to the
Almighty has a friend and ally in me."
That's the main dynamic driving the movements to ban abortion and gay
marriage. But they're just the latest in a long line of such movements,
including those aimed at prohibiting or restricting alcohol, drugs,
gambling, birth control, crime, and other behaviors that are, in a given
period, styled as immoral.
Since it's always about getting "them" to control their passions, the target
is usually personal behavior. But it doesn't have to be. Just about any law
or policy can become a symbol of eternal moral truth -- even foreign policy,
one area where liberals, embarked on their own faith-talk campaigns, are
more likely to join conservatives.
The bipartisan war on terror has, for instance, been a symbolic drama of "us
versus them," acting out a tale of moral truth. Rudolph Giuliani made the
connection clear shortly after the 9/11 attack when he went to the United
Nations to whip up support for that "war." "The era of moral relativism.
must end," he demanded [16]. "Moral relativism does not have a place in this
discussion and debate."
Nor does it have a place in the current campaign debate about foreign
policy. Candidate Huckabee, for example, has no hesitation about linking war
abroad to the state of morality here at home. He wants to continue fighting
[17] in Iraq, he says, because "our way of life, our economic and moral
strength, our civilization is at stake. I am determined to look this evil in
the eye, confront it, defeat it." As his anti-gay marriage statement [18]
asks, "What's the point of keeping the terrorists at bay in the Middle East,
if we can't keep decline and decadence at bay here at home?"
On the liberal side, the theme is more muted but still there. Barack Obama,
for instance, has affirmed [19] that the U.S. must "lead the world in
battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good. I still believe
that America is the last, best hope of Earth." Apparently that's why we need
to keep tens of thousands of troops in Iraq indefinitely. Clinton calls for
[20] "a bipartisan consensus to ensure our interests, increase our security
and advance our values," acting out "our deeply-held desire to remake the
world as it ought to be." Apparently that's why, in her words, "we cannot
take any option off the table in sending a clear message to the current
leadership of Iran."
When words and policies become symbols of moral absolutes, they are usually
about preventing some "evil" deed or turning things back to the way they
(supposedly) used to be. So they are likely to have a conservative impact,
even when they come from liberals.
The Future of Faith Talk
In itself, faith in politics poses no great danger to democracy as long as
the debates are really about policies -- and religious values are translated
into [21] political values, articulated in ways that can be rationally
debated by people who don't share them. The challenge is not to get religion
out of politics. It's to get the quest for certitude out of politics.
The first step is to ask why that quest seems increasingly central to our
politics today. It's not simply because a right-wing cabal wants to impose
its religion on us. The cabal exists, but it's not powerful enough to shape
the political scene on its own. That power lies with millions of voters
across the political spectrum. Candidates talk about faith because they want
to win votes.
Voters reward faith talk because they want candidates to offer them symbols
of immutable moral order. The root of the problem lies in the underlying
insecurities of voters, in a sense of powerlessness that makes change seem
so frightening, and control -- especially of others -- so necessary.
The only way to alter that condition is to transform our society so that
voters will feel empowered enough to take the risks, and tolerate the
freedom that democracy requires. That would be genuine change. It's a
political problem with a political solution. Until that solution begins to
emerge, there is no way to take the conservative symbolic message of faith
talk out of American politics.
Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado
at Boulder and author of Monsters To Destroy: The Neoconservative War on
Terror and Sin [22].
Copyright 2008 Ira Chernus
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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
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