Michael Gerson served as a speech writer in the Bush administration while at the same time functioning as liaison for Bush with the Evangelical community. As Gerson is a bona fide Evangelical, complete with the spurs that came from graduating from Wheaton College, I never cared much for Gerson. He always had that air of Evangelical compromise about him and like most Evangelical movers and shakers he was (and is) completely tone deaf to Worldview complexities.
Today Gerson writes an article at,
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/05/09/nones_and_nuns_96399.html
In this article Gerson reviews a forthcoming book entitled, “American Grace: How Religion Is Reshaping Our Civic and Political Lives,” whichg is being written by Robert Putnam and David Campbell. Gerson describes the book as a classic piece of sociological analysis on American culture. The strength or weakness of a book that attempts to do sociological analysis is the presuppositions that are used to organize and read the collected sociological data. Now, this genre is seldom written from a Christian worldview but there are times that much benefit can be collected from such books when a kind of hard pragmatic approach rides shotgun on the pagan authors worldview. Such efforts by authors such as Neil Postman, Christopher Lasch, or Marshall McLuhan suggest that this genre can be read beneficially at times.
However, the book that Gerson describes does not sound like it will be one of those types of books. It seems that Putnam has at the core of his book the presupposition that such a thing as religion-less Americans exist. Gerson tells us that, “Putnam outlined the conclusions of “American Grace,” based on research still being sifted and refined. Against the expectations of hard-core secularists, Putnam asserts, “religious Americans are nicer, happier and better citizens.” This is like my saying that research indicates that people who inhale and exhale live longer lives, all the while noting that such a conclusion is against the expectations of people who don’t inhale and exhale.
The point here of course is that there is no such thing as religion-less people. Therefore for Putnam’s coming book to get off the ground he is going to have to tell us just exactly what constitutes religious people and what constitutes hard core secular people and he is going to have to defend this distinction from those of us who will use his definition of “religious” to show how religious his hard core secularists really are.
A few other tidbits from Gerson on Putnam’s upcoming book indicate to us that Putnam is operating from some strange assumptions. Putnam offers,
“Against the expectations of many religious believers, this dynamic (being better people) has little to do with the content of belief. Theology is not the predictor of civic behavior; being part of a community is.”
One hardly knows what to do with such a quote. Putnam seems to assume that communities are not crafted and constituted by what the members of the community believe. Does Putnam really believe that belonging to a religiously Muslim community that prizes Jihad won’t yield different civic behavior then belonging to a religiously Christian community that prizes Christian Worldview? Further, is Putnam really suggesting that the different civic behavior that comes from each respective community isn’t driven by the theology that has crafted and constituted the community from which different civic behavior arises? I don’t know what research Putnam is reading but I do know, from the quote above that his worldview is shaping his conclusions in a irrational direction.
Putnam cites the reason for what he styles the secularizing of America as
“Baby boomers being far less religious than their parents at the same age — the probable result, says Putnam, of a ‘very rapid change in morals and customs.'”
But what reason can there be for this “very rapid change in morals and customs,” except for a change in religion and theological belief? Baby Boomers didn’t become more secular or irreligious because of the rapid change in morals and customs, rather Baby boomers brought in a rapid change of morals and customs because they changed their religion and theology. Now certainly, the religion and theology of Baby boomers may be less officially organized than their parents religion and theology but that organizational lack doesn’t make their new religion, irrelgion and shouldn’t be styled as “secular,” unless one wants to speak of religious secularism.
Putnam offers as proof for his thesis that 30-35% of his 20 something respondents have checked “none” as their religious preference. But this only tells us that his respondents are not self conscious about their “religious preference,” or that they don’t do religion that is officially organized or structured. It most assuredly doesn’t tell us that his respondents are not religious in the sense of being a people who are shaped by convictions, and are involved in habits and rituals, that are informed by a belief system that is anchored by some god or god concept. All people are equally religious, though all people are not equally self conscious about their religiosity.
Putnam does mention the polarization phenomenon we are currently experiencing as Americans.
“There are fewer liberals in the pews and fewer unchurched conservatives.”
Now it is interesting here that Putnam in his nomenclature suddenly goes from “irreligious secularists” to “liberals.” If there is anything we know about political “liberals” is that their political liberalism is the result of their religious and theological liberalism. Fewer liberals are in the pews not because they are not religious or theological but because they have a different religion, theology, and church from those churched conservatives that Putnam mentions.
Putnam goes on to explore the implications of the above statement,
“The political implications are broad. Democrats must galvanize the “nones” while not massively alienating religious voters — which is precisely what candidate Obama accomplished. Republicans must maintain their base in the pew while appealing to the young — a task they have not begun to figure out.”
What Putnam is saying here is that in order for America not to be hopelessly divided the parties have to find candidates who can build coalitions between the religious people who hate the God of the Bible (Putnam’s “nones”) and people who are rooted in historic Christianity. Putnam insists that is what Obama did but the polling evidence doesn’t align with that as exit polling from the last election revealed that Obama did not get a greater “Evangelical vote” than Bush did in 2004.
Putnam’s conclusions are disconcerting.
“Putnam regards the growth of the “nones” as a spike, not a permanent trend. The young, in general, are not committed secularists. “They are not in church, but they might be if a church weren’t like the religious right. … There are almost certain to be religious entrepreneurs to fill that niche with a moderate evangelical religion, without political overtones.”
I don’t know what rock Putnam is living under but legion are the names of religious entrepreneurs who are already hustling to fill the niche he speaks of.
What Putnam is saying here is that if a Christian evangelical religion can be constructed that doesn’t upset the politically liberal agenda of the young then that new religion will be able to take off. Can this explain the popularity of the Radical Two Kingdom movement? R2Kt sells itself as a religion that is a-political. In R2Kt Churches liberals can be converted without having to give up their liberal social agenda. Jesus can live with Marx.
It’s difficult to believe that the Church could be any more compromised but since the Church is currently a institution that is driven by marketing and demographics we can expect to see a burgeoning movement that reflects what Putnam anticipates here.
Gerson finishes the article by saying,
“In the diverse, fluid market of American religion there may be a demand, in other words, for grace, hope and reconciliation — for a message of compassion and healing that appeals to people of every political background. It would be revolutionary — but it would not be new.”
Does Gerson really believe that American Christianity today doesn’t already offer “grace, hope and reconciliation?” Does it take the affirmation of a new political movement in order for “grace, hope and reconciliation” to be present?
Gerson, once again reveals the chief quality of compromise that is so characteristic of Evangelicalism.