Atrios and others have got themselves into a lather about this Steven Waldman article in Slate (which when I just retrieved the URL was receiving undeserved on its merits top billing on Slate) that says
if Kerry's uncomfortable with religion then he's uncomfortable with Americans .... If Kerry's really secular, he's abnormal.
Depends what you mean by "abnormal", "really" and "secular" I suppose.
Let me get my own beliefs upfront first, so you know where I'm coming from. I am generally an atheist, though occasionally I'm agnostic or apathetic about the question of whether a God exists. More importantly, I think that whether people believe in God is their own private question, and that religious belief should be a private matter. My Quaker upbringing predisposes me to believing that organized religion, in the sense of priests/ministers/rabbis etc. mediating between God and its flock is a bad thing.
Abnormal: Evan allowing for the self-presentation aspect of the responses where people say they're religious because they think that's what's socially acceptable, it's probably still true that a majority of Americans believe in God and attend church regularly, even if that's declining.
[here's an academic article idea for someone to follow up on, and please acknowledge my suggestion if you do this: look at the General Social Survey questions on religion, and compare them to the Time Use survey data from 1965,75,85 and 95]
So yes, in a vaguely statistical sense people who don't attend church at all, don't believe in God and believe religion should be kept out of public life probably are abnormal in the United States. (The question of why America is so much more spiritual than the rest of the wealthy Western world, yes, including Japan, is a good one, but irrelevant for this discussion).
Really: What does Waldman mean by "really secular"? Does he mean "really" in the sense of authentically or truly; or does he mean really in the sense of strongly?
In a way it probably doesn't matter because Kerry does not appear to be truly or authentically secular. If he was truly secular he wouldn't go to church at all, even for the appearances. There was a more secular candidate in the race, and look where he's gone.
Secular: If by secular Waldman means that Kerry believes that public effusions of religious belief should be moderated in a political campaign, again, it's just not true. Kerry has talked about his religion, but he doesn't liberally sprinkle references to his faith, and code worded waves to the religious right, throughout his speeches like the president.
American beliefs about how much religious piety they demand from their presidents has waxed and waned in the past century. No-one really cared much about FDR or Truman's religious beliefs, because there were much bigger issues to worry about at that time. Roosevelt was a man of [to quote Waldman] "real strength" but he didn't lard his speeches with references to how faith would get us through.
If Waldman thinks that talking more about religion will help in the war on terrorism he's totally misguided. The last thing America needs to do when there is an increased risk of terrorism from people who are typically of another religious faith is to start relying on their own faith more. Some more scepticism about the role of religion in public life would go a long way to making things better in America and the Middle East.
Posted by robe0419 at July 2, 2004 04:13 PM