The Illusion of Secularism
In the 17th century, when people from Britain began settling the American colonies, many of them were seeking refuge from religious persecution. At the time the Anglican Church held considerable influence in political matters, and the king of England was none too accommodating of those with different beliefs. When the new nation was founded, one of the first things the founding fathers felt was necessary was to create a land where people could practice their faiths without fear, but also a place where no one religion – as was the case with Anglicanism in England – dominated the others or overtly shaped public policy. However, disparate as their particular creeds may have been, the settlers mostly had one thing in common: their Christianity. While it probably was not the intention of the founding fathers – or at least Jefferson, who was a deist – to create a Christian nation, there was no avoiding it, given that the majority of the new citizens were Christian.
It followed in short order that the political and cultural developments of the next two centuries would be inevitably shaped by the Bible, or rather, the people’s interpretation of it. It is obvious in almost every aspect of American life, from our fluctuating but never disappearing sanctification and/or demonization of sexuality, to the “under God” in our pledge of allegiance. Now one could argue that sexual taboos and the word “God” aren’t unique to Christianity, and certainly they are not, but when a U.S. president quotes the Christian Bible in a state address, only replacing “Jesus Christ” with “America”, the evidence that we live in a “Christian nation” isn’t so subtle or ambiguous. The statistics tell a similar story as well. According to a survey conducted by the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) in 2005, just about 77% of Americans identify themselves as Christian.
The same survey also shows that this percentage has decreased from 86% in 1990, while the percentage of people who do not identify with any religious group, or simply refused to answer the question, increased by 6% and 3% respectively. Is America becoming less Christian? That is one conclusion, but another even more likely possibility is that many Americans are becoming more wary of wearing their religiosity on their sleeves. Stephen Carter, in his book The Culture of Disbelief, tells a similar story. He says that although surveys show that most people in America are quite religious, and that it has much to do with their daily decision-making and general ethical framework, people are becoming more disinclined to reveal that fact in public discourse.
In the American mainstream…those who believe in God are encouraged to keep it a secret, and often a shameful one at that. Aside from the ritual appeals to God that are expected of our politicians, for Americans to take their religions seriously, to treat them as ordained rather than chosen, is to risk assignment to the lunatic fringe.
The reasons for this are not difficult to grasp. In the 1980s, 1990s, and perhaps even more so in the current decade, there was a resurgence of the religious right. On top of that, there has been a marked increase in terrorist activity with an underlying religious motivation. Both of these groups – the overt religious right, and religiously-motivated terrorists – make it obvious that their actions are driven by faith. Out of fear of being classified alongside them, and further justified by repeat citations of the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment, Americans have become wary of religion in the public square. As a result, we have – at least publicly – styled ourselves as a secular nation, even though the actuality of our religiosity hasn’t changed much at all.
There is a precarious balance struck here in America between freedom of religion and the avoidance of religious dominance in public policy. It often seems as though the two ideals are irreconcilable. If someone is criticized or ostracized the moment they speak religious rhetoric in public discourse, then that would seem to be the very opposite of freedom of religion. For this reason, Carter – who claims to be a firm believer in the separation of church and state – questions the taboo on public religious expression. Yet, as is the case with many ethical quandaries and issues of proper etiquette, politicians are held to a different standard than the average person. Actually, it is not that they are held to a different standard, but that their adherence (or failure to adhere) to the general standards is always under the public microscope.
Many others have written on this issue, and some of them suggest that there is a danger in restricting religion from the public discourse. They argue that if religion is the foundation for our ethical framework, then suppressing our religious identity may cause us to stray from our moral ideals. Despite America being a fundamentally Christian nation (not to be confused with a fundamentalist Christian nation), there is a great diversity of people and ideals that must be represented by our public policy. In order to accommodate that diversity, it is not prudent, nor is it even polite, for people to overtly espouse their religious views in the public square.
It seems to me to be a simple matter for people to adjust their discourse without compromising their ideals. As political discourse in particular is mostly rhetoric anyway, there is no reason not to structure our language as to be more universally applicable to the people at large. Still, in any case, in spite of any secular tone, it is no secret that the moral choices Americans make are shaped by religious values. This is true even of atheists, because whether or not they wish to acknowledge it, the whole of western society has been irrevocably shaped by Christianity, and therefore so has the entire context of American identity. To suggest that such decisions are made with complete disregard to religion would be a complete misrepresentation of the facts. As Richard John Neuhaus states in his book, The Naked Public Square:
Without such an engagement of religion [a public ethic] cannot be reestablished in a way that would be viewed as democratically legitimate. The reason for this is that, in sociological fact, the values of the American people are deeply rooted in religion.
Under the pretext of separation of church and state, we disregard religion’s continued role in public policy, which allows it to operate subversively in influencing the socio-political sphere. The danger of “secularism” is not – as religious pundits declare – that is compromises moral values, nor is it – as Carter argues – that it leads to any suppression of religious expression. The real danger is that if we, as a secular society, pretend that religion is irrelevant, we ignore the very real ways that it affects us. It is much the same as the difference between the overt racism of an organization like the Ku Klux Klan and racism of the more subtle and institutionalized variety. Give me the former over the latter anytime, because at least I can see it coming, and can prepare myself to deal with it.
Now perhaps I am not giving the American public enough credit, and indeed my assertion that we take the role of religion in the public ethic for granted is mostly based on conjecture. The reason for this is that many grievous wrongs have been and continue to be committed in the name of religion, or with a religious motivation. While many of these actions are carried out by, or on behalf of the religious right, the rest of us seem to stand idle and complacent, which in a democratic society also makes us complicit. If I am to have any faith in Americans as a whole, then, I must assume that they are simply unaware of what’s happening right under their noses.
For example, let us consider the issue of school vouchers. School vouchers are financial grants given to families by the government, under the pretext of providing their children with more educational options – namely, making private schools more affordable. The whole idea seems to be based on the assumption that if people are presented with a choice of either sending their children to public schools – havens for liberal depravity to hear the religious right speak of them – or a private school, then of course they’ll choose the latter. What is the real motivation here?
It seems to be a curious coincidence that the program finds strong support from the religious right, and that the majority of private schools are parochial. This being the case means that federal money is indirectly being used to support religious institutions, which goes completely against the constitutional mandate of church and state separation. And is it just another coincidence that the money for these vouchers is drawn from the general education budget, the same one that is supposed to fund the renovation of the public school system? The motivation behind the school voucher program – at least for the purposes of the religious right – is the complete destruction of the public school system. Never was the goal stated so explicitly as by Robert Thoburn in The Children Trap:
Our goal is not to make the schools better…the goal is to hamper them, so they cannot grow…Our goal as God-fearing, uncompromised Christians is to shut down the public schools…step by step, school by school, district by district.
There seems to be a similar motivation behind the “No Child Left Behind” program (NCLB), an act whose name represents the kind of lofty rhetoric that keeps the goals of the Christian Right and the administration they advocate afloat. The general terms of NCLB are that students will be given aptitude tests, and where scoring is the highest, federal funding will be provided. Schools that score low will be punished by a withdrawal or withholding of funding. The logic here is as spurious as only providing overweight people with food because they have the appetites to accommodate it, while withholding food from the malnourished because they cannot eat as much, and therefore would only waste it.
To hear supporters tell it, NCLB will encourage teachers and administrators to push their students harder, to make sure they perform admirably on these tests. Surely, they think, that can only be better for the children. That point of view, of course, is contingent upon the false pretext of all things being equal, which simply is not the case. Many children in public schools, which are under- funded and under-managed, do not have access to the best education, and therefore are ill-equipped to meet the arbitrary standards set by NCLB. No matter how much teachers pressure their kids, it is likely that the schools that already have the best resources, i.e. those with the most money, will score highly while those with meager resources (urban) will score lower. Is it too difficult to see the glaring flaw in this plan? It is actually quite possible that this is a provision of the act, rather than a flaw, although its creators would never say as much explicitly.
The result is that many of these under-funded institutions will be forced to shut down altogether – as has already been seen with the closing of several public schools. It is not difficult to make the connection between the public school sabotage agenda of the Christian Right and No Child Left Behind. Perhaps it is not clear why the religious right would want to destroy public schools. If private schools are predominantly parochial, then children attending them are bound to be indoctrinated with religion – and that, above all else – is the goal. It is a plan based on the assumption that the public school system cannot be “saved”, in spite of countless attempts by the religious zealotry, such as mandating the teaching of creationism alongside evolution or school prayer.
For those who are unaware of this kind of subversive maneuvering, it is easy to simply observe any given political agenda superficially, and fail to recognize the underlying religious motivations. After all, we live in a secular society. Another example of hidden religious motivation can be found in America’s foreign policy. By now, even the President himself has admitted to making a mistake in committing so many lives, so much money, and so much time, to the Iraq war, which is far removed from the original stated objective of protecting America from terrorism. Given the fact that there is anti-American sentiment all across the globe, why did America turn to Iraq? Meanwhile, North Korea continued to present a more deliberate threat to the safety of America and its allies, plainly admitting to the development of nuclear weapons, and even testing them in the sea near Japan. Yet we seemed more concerned with Iran’s nuclear program, in spite of their government’s claim that they are developing nuclear power only as a resource. So the question must then be why is America so preoccupied with the Middle East?
The answer is simple: because the Middle East is a stronghold for Islamic belief, which ever since the Middle Ages means it is a threat to Christendom. And lest we forget, America is a Christian nation, and for some believers, the head of the spear in Christianity’s fight against all other faiths. But we are nearly a millennium removed from the Crusades, and since then, Christendom has learned to fight the battle more subversively. However, it still retains the nasty practice of sending children needlessly to their deaths.
That underlying the other conflicts is a fundamentally religious one becomes obvious in the case of Iran. In 1979 the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had come into power due in no small part to financial support from the United States, was dethroned and exiled. The leader of the revolution which deposed him, and his successor, was Ayatollah Khomeini, recognized by the people of Iran as both a political and religious leader (an imam). It is an essential characteristic of Islamic culture for politics and religion to blend together. There is often not a clear delineation between religious and political leaders, or religious and political decisions. The Qur’an is recognized as the foundation for the laws of many Muslim states.
One of the main differences between Islamic states and America is that the fusion of religion and politics in the former is obvious. It is not taken for granted nor denied, Muslims take pride in a system built upon the Qur’an. Today, Iran is governed by a democratically elected president, who for the most part conducts public policy, but the people – including the president – also defer to the “Supreme Leader”, or Ayatollah, who is also the religious leader. Despite our delusions to the contrary, America is also a religious state, and so it is not Iran’s religious character in itself that is a problem, but that the religion in question is not Christianity. If viewing Iran not from the perspective of American safety, but from a need to protect the sovereignty of Christendom, it is easy to see how their nuclear program would be seen as a greater threat than the boastful performance by North Korea.
To go on a brief tangent, I would like to state my opinion that were Iran to fully develop its nuclear program uninhibited, and were to as it claims, use it only for power, then it would establish itself as a viable Islamic power in the world. A strong economic foundation in the Middle East could presumably bring prosperity for the people living there, which would in turn make the harvesting fields for terrorism less fertile. In the long term, this would seem to be a better strategy against terrorism than America’s seeming desire to undermine all attempts for political and economic growth in the region. If this is true, then it again becomes clear that the religious motivations of U.S. Christendom supersede even the safety of its citizens.
The Iraq situation, on the other hand, has been one disaster after another. Here is another case which begins with the United States intervening in foreign affairs where perhaps it was best to stay out. The chief fear during the Cold War was countries “succumbing” to the promises made through Communist ideology. It was primarily by that motivation that the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein’s rise to power. Hussein, in spite of being a self-identified Sunni Muslim, led Iraq as a mostly secular state. That a secular state was almost entirely ill-representative of his constituency is a topic for another paper, but in any case it is easy to see the underlying Christian motive behind America’s choice of Hussein. In the name of “secularism” – a term which here most importantly signified “not Muslim” – the United States was willing to ignore decades of human rights violations, terrorism, and genocide committed by Hussein against his own people.
That was until President Bush – on the basis of absolutely no information, and in fact a wealth of information to the contrary, connected Hussein to Osama bin Laden, a well-known religious zealot and terrorist. This non-fact alone was enough to stir up fears of an Iraqi alliance with the massive and ephemeral entity known as “terrorism”, which is at war with America. This non-fact, not his countless other crimes, was enough of a reason for the United States to depose a leader they had helped into power in the first place. Bin Laden is somewhat unique amongst those who engage in terrorist activities, because his actions are not out of desperation, although he recruits those who are themselves desperate. Bin Laden’s goal is nothing less than the establishment of a new Islamic Caliphate – a Muslim balance to the Christian America. Saddam Hussein knew this, and it was because such a thing would not benefit the rich circumstances he had already established for himself under a secular pretext that he rejected bin Laden, and why the two were ideological enemies.
In a recent speech, President Bush made a call for the principles of secular humanism to be exercised worldwide. This would seem to be a complete contradiction to the views of the religious right with which Bush has so clearly aligned himself. If we take his words at face value, one could say that perhaps the president is changing his tune. However, if we look deeper, perhaps we will uncover more of the subversive maneuvering that I have been discussing so far. The prevailing context of the speech – as the president can hardly say a word on foreign policy without mentioning it – was the Iraq war. Is it really any compromise in his position, then, to call for secularism anywhere in the predominantly Islamic Middle East? Absolutely not. He has said many times that it is America’s goal to instill within Iraq the values of freedom and democracy. Like Neuhaus said, those values – by American standards – simply do not exist independently of the values of Christianity. So the real plan, it would seem, is to diminish the role of Islam in fashioning the new Iraqi state, under the guise of “secular humanism”, while introducing Christian values, encoded as they may be within non-religious rhetoric.
It would be well beyond the scope of this paper, and perhaps even an impossible task to fully document all of the hidden religious motivation behind American public policy. The purpose here was simply to bring to light some of these agendas, and to demonstrate just how subversive religion can be in shaping the American socio-political climate, both domestically and abroad. In our “secular” American society, we assume that the decisions made which affect us are made without respect to religion. This in turn makes us ignorant to the fact that many politicians, business leaders, and lobbyists conceal very religious agendas with secular rhetoric. As would-be participants in the most powerful democratic republic in the world, one that not only determines how we live, but is also playing a large part in the lives of people around the world, it is our duty as Americans to be well -informed as to the motivations and agendas behind our politics.