A Long Arc of Gradual Decline

w
Arguably, religion is the greatest signifier in American culture. Religion drives attitudes and behaviors. The so called culture wars of recent years is anecdotal evidence supporting these contentions.

Religion is a cultural phenomenon in flux. Today the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published a report: "U.S Religious Landscape Survey." Counting shifts within Protestantism, some 44 % of Americans have changed religious affiliations.

According to this comprehensive survey, nearly 20% of men, mostly under 50, have no affiliation, as compared to 13% of women.

The unaffiliated are growing, while the Protestants are declining. Now 51% of the population, Protestants in the 1970s made up nearly 2/3rds of the population. Catholics have suffered a net decline, too, though immigrants have buoyed their ranks.

Statistics such as these can be interpolated in varying ways.

In my estimation these findings presage a decline of organized religions' general influence. While the U.S. is behind the decline-curve compared to Europeans and Canadians as well, I've long predicted a similar cultural shift for American culture. It won't be sudden and dramatic as was the "greening of Quebec." But it appears to me that a younger generation is leading an inevitable decline. The reason? I'd say its a matter of traditional religion's decreasing relevance. To use a biblical reference: "You don't put new wine in old wineskins."

Obama on the Role of Faith in American Political Life

Arguably, the most important contemporary remarks regarding the place of faith in American political life were made to the Call to Renewal convention in June 2006, by Barack Obama. Mr Obama declared “secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King— indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history — were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause.” Yet Mr. Obama also argued that those motivated by faith must seek universal values (to persuade even non-believers) when seeking to implement their faith based objectives in the political arena.

Mr. Obama has posted this address on his website: http://obama.senate.gov/speech/060628-call_to_renewal/

I recommend that you visit YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz4nPeC8SIM, to hear this keynote address.

In my estimation this speech is worth the attention of study groups on both the religious and secular side of the separation of church and state debate.

A Lenten Piece 2008 : Jesus, a Revolutionary

[A local newpaper, The Hinsdalian, asked me for a Lenten meditation. though I'm not a Christian, I nevertheless see Jesus an examplar, at least as understood through the contemporary lens of the Jesus Seminar. John Dominic Crossan presents Jesus as a social revolutionary.]

A Revolutionary Message

The contemporary quest for the historical Jesus has convinced me: Jesus, the man who lived so briefly some 2000 years ago, was a revolutionary. Jesus’s teaching stripped away the unessential to touch the very heart of the human condition. And he practiced what he preached.

He grounded his teachings in a doctrine of love. A teacher of the law once tried to trick him by asking which of the commandments was the greatest. Jesus sidestepped legalisms by replying, “First love God. And second love others as you love yourself.”

Jesus taught and lived a radical egalitarianism in which the underclasses of his day, including women, were lifted up to the level of the social swells and the political powerful. He was an itinerant activist; and his radical teachings got him into trouble with authorities who didn't want their order upset and their power challenged.

Using the cruelest and most humiliating of means, the authorities who executed Jesus failed to silence his message. To the contrary, Jesus's influence was magnified through his followers until a religion about Jesus became the state religion of Rome and eventuality the dominant religion of Western Civilization. Such a victory is nearly incomprehensible, except for the precept that “love endures all things.”

In spite of all the concretions of theology about Jesus devised through the ages, many antithetical to the radical vision he preached and lived, the core of his transformative message survives, summarized as divinity, egalitarianism, and love. Strip away ancient mythologies of dying and rising gods that seeped into Christianity, there is nevertheless a reality that doesn't die.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once characterized Jesus as the “one man [who] was true to what is in you and me.” Jesus, in person and in practice, proclaimed the transcendent worth and dignity of each and every person.

This season compels us to search ourselves. Do we realize our inherent worth and dignity? Do we respect the worth and dignity of others? What is our call and capacity to love?

Candidates and Beliefs

In a Septermber, 2007 posting, the PEW FORUM looked at religion and politics. Among diverse findings, the PEW FORUM offered this: "Roughly six-in-ten Americans (61%) say they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who does not believe in God, while 45% say they would be reluctant to vote for a Muslim. At the same time, more people express reservations about voting for a Mormon (25%) than about supporting a candidate who is an evangelical Christian (16%), a Jew (11%) or a Catholic (7%)." (http://pewforum.org/surveys/campaign08/)

In my estimation such statistics place a distinct burden on candidates to proclaim belief, and perhaps of a particular kind. And isn't this a tacit religious test contrary to the spirit of the First Amendment?

I'd love to see a candidate or two move us toward a greater appreciation of what freedom of religion means in the grand and great scheme of the Republic. As I look back over the past couple of months, Mitt Romney had the opportunity to do so but pandered to the 61%.

The Seven Unitarian Universalist Principles in Film

In my estimation film (cinema) is our age's primary art form. Films are accessible and popular. In 2007-2008 I'm hosting a film series, "The Seven Unitarian Universalist Principles in Film."

• "Fried Green Tomatoes" (1991), The inherent worth and dignity of every person: Lesbian lovers, an extended African American family, a mid-life woman seeking her identity, an aged woman in a nursing home present layers of the human condition . The story jumps back and forth from the 1920s to the 1990s in the relatively rural South. A capable cast, including Kathy Bates as the over the top mid-life woman, wring out the emotions.

• "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962), Justice, equity and compassion in human relations: This classic and always highly ranked film features Gregory Peck as the American father figure. Harper Lee's bestselling novel of the same name resonated to the great civil rights movement about to happen. Palpable evil and violence testify to a troubling aspect of the American soul.

• "Twelve Angry Men" (1957), The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large: The movie is faithful to the play that preceded it. Henry Fonda once again personified the virtuous American male, who stands alone at first but ultimately persuades eleven fellow jurors to acquit a defendant being tried for murder. The characterizations of the jurors deftly paint portraits of types of men circa 1950. Shot in one room with carefully contrived camera angels add to the films understated power.

• "Joyeux Noel" (2005), The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all: A French film with subtitles, the story recasts an actual event that occurred along the Western Front at the beginning of World War I. Romanian and German troops strike a Christmas Eve armistice with French and English troops. The Holiday Season proved to be a particularly meaningful time to view this offering that questions the sanity of war.

• "Koyaanisqatsi "(1982),Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part: This cult film appeared just when the ecological/environmental movement was gaining traction. Both lyrical and tumbling images build on the sometime liquid, sometime frenetic score by Philip Glass. The title relates to a Hopi term meaning "life out of balance."

• "The Truman Show" (1998), A free and responsible search for truth and meaning: Jim Carrey, playing the title character, has his entire life broadcast on television for the entertainment of all. His world is one big set populated by actors. Directing The Truman Show is puppetmaster Christof, played by Ed Harris. The result is another thoughtful and artful production by Peter Weir, prescient of the current craze for reality shows. Will Truman escape and realize his freedom?

• "The Breakfast Club"(1985), Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations: Five high school students, each a sterotype (a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal) band together against a common enemy, and in the process learn about one another during a Saturday detention in a Northshore (Chicagoland) high school. One of several John Hughes' films about the teenage condition. The message: "We were brainwashed."