Has the Right surrendered in the culture war?
By: Chris Stirewalt
Political Editor
April 9, 2009
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| Leah McElrath Renna, left, Rosemary McElrath Renna, 3, and Cathy McElrath pose for a portrait in Washington, on Tuesday, April 7, 2009. The group will be attending the Easter Egg Roll at the White House on April 13, 2009. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) |
As some 240 million American Christians observe the most sacred week of their religious calendar, the nation reached a pivot point on faith and values.
Demonstrating the lessening influence of Christianity on American public life, President Barack Obama, addressing a group of Muslim students in Turkey, said that one of the great strengths of the United States is that “we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation, or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation.”
The “Christian nation” locution has long been a freighted one in America. Many who cherish the separation of church and state nonetheless think of America as religiously and culturally Christian. They cherish the idea that America was a Christian nation not by federal decree but by the free expression of its people.
Obama was offering encouragement for Turks who, despite a population that is more than 99 percent Muslim, operate a secular democracy. As when the president bowed down before Saudi King Abdullah when the two met in London, Obama was effacing
America’s dominant culture in an effort to heal divisions between East and West.
But the fact that he can now brush aside the “Christian nation” concept and other orthodoxies shows how things have changed.
The United States, still almost 80 percent Christian, once operated more like Turkey or the Indonesia of Obama’s youth, where about 86 percent of the inhabitants are Muslim. The dominant religion needed little government support because there was so little competition.
But Obama has correctly observed that the growing number of American nonbelievers (now 4 percent) and practitioners of a cafeteria-style spirituality have America looking much more like Western Europe. There, religion is like antique furniture, admired for its beauty but used only sparingly.
Obama, like many politicians, has been preparing voters for the transition to a more multicultural nation for some time. As a candidate, he explained that Americans have to appreciate that “we are no longer a nation of just Christians.” In his inaugural address he gave a nod to American “nonbelievers.”
Long-term demography doesn’t necessarily mean that the Christian influence on American public life will continue to wane forever — Hispanic immigrants will continue to increase the number of Catholics and even evangelical Christians.
But in the immediate future, the resurgence of traditional Christian mores and culture that began in the late 1970s has ended. The movement toward a more inclusive, multicultural, and less explicitly Christian society that dates back to the early 20th century is again ascendant.
There were some raised eyebrows when the White House sought out gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender parents to bring their children to the Executive Mansion for the annual Easter celebration as a show of inclusiveness. But there wasn’t the kind of shock and outrage that would have greeted the move a decade ago.
Similarly, the fact that gay marriage is now a foregone conclusion is met with mostly a shrug. With Vermont’s move to pass a law allowing the practice, every state will eventually have to acknowledge the legality of gay vows administered elsewhere. Keeping local restrictions will seem pointless and out of date when the laws actually do nothing to prevent the practice.
In much the same way, changes to the way the government treats abortion and embryos provoked some quibbling but mostly silence.
Exhausted by decades of the culture war and afraid of further economic setbacks, the silent majority hasn’t been roused by the issue. Perhaps it isn’t even a majority anymore.
The American Left is offering a new, less demanding version of civic religion, based on the common commandment of all major religions to aid the needy. Groups argue the idea that Christians, Muslims, Jews and others can unite to seek a more generous allotment of taxpayer dollars. This is more the role that the overtly religious minority still plays in Europe, rather than the American model of demanding that national policy not run afoul of widely accepted doctrine.
There is outrage growing among Catholics at seeing their leading university, Notre Dame, preparing to honor Obama, who rejects the conventional Christian definition of human life. But one suspects that it will pass like a spring storm.
Newsweek is trumpeting “The Decline and Fall of Christian America” in a cover line provocatively arranged in the shape of a cross — the symbol of godly sacrifice that Christians will venerate Friday.
Not long ago, writing off Christian America would have caused wide offense. But the tenets of the faith that gave America its moral bearings and a sense of spiritual destiny don’t arouse much passion anymore.
