Fox News host Tucker Carlson argued the prevailing secular materialism of the West has left many people in the United States spiritually ill-equipped to grapple with the upheaval of a pandemic and the possibility of premature death.
“I actually think part of the problem and the root of the public’s fear — and my fear, too, I’m not judging anyone — is an unwillingness to acknowledge that, on the big things, we are not in control,” Carlson said during a Thursday interview with Spectator USA editor Freddy Gray. “And that’s basically a theological precept that we’re not comfortable with because we don’t ever talk about anything that’s not rooted in materialism.”
“But in times of life and death, you’re forced to, because that’s the only language that explains it,” continued Carlson, who is Episcopalian. “And so you’re dealing with a country, the first really large-scale experiment in secular democracy ever. You can say the Soviet Union was secular, but really it wasn’t: It was a religious cult based on, you know, Das Kapital. They were still a very religious country.”
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Acknowledging that secular materialism has proven to be a successful philosophy for a society that values economic prosperity above all else, Carlson warned, “What it doesn’t do a very good job of is explaining death. That’s really where it falls down. And so, our response has been to basically ignore death and put poor people in homes, and then, they just kind of disappear, and no one talks about what happened. But in a time like this, death is at the forefront. You can’t ignore it. We’re all brooding about it.”
Both the people of the U.S. and their leaders often lack the context to discuss such topics, Carlson said, adding, “And so let me just suggest, as a non-theologian, a not especially faithful Christian, that the thing to remember is you don’t have control. You weren’t responsible for your birth. You likely won’t be able to choose the moment of your death. This is what it is to be human. I don’t have an answer as to why it’s that way, but it is, always has been, always will be. And the sooner you internalize that, the clearer you’re thinking can become.”
Gray, who is British, made the point that while the U.S. may be sagging in its historical Christianity, it remains less secular than his home country and asked if that offered America an advantage. Carlson, who described the U.K. as “the most aggressively, angrily secular place I’ve ever been,” contested the idea that the U.S. is very far behind.
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“And if you look at the polling on religious faith, just even on church attendance, it has dropped off a cliff,” said Carlson. “This country has become more secular more quickly than any place in the world other than maybe Spain after 1975 when [Francisco Franco] died, which really did become almost immediately non-observant. But America has really changed in the last 10 years.”
Conceding that such trends might be agreeable to people who like to have sex with strangers easily, Carlson warned that “the downside is it leaves us much less prepared, psychologically and spiritually, for a pandemic.”
Reflecting on how he knows to have been exposed to at least three people who tested positive for the coronavirus, Carlson said, “I’m not repeating the Nicene Creed every morning over coffee, but I do remind myself throughout the day — because I’ve got my nose in all these coronavirus horror stories, all of which are real — I keep reminding myself: You don’t have control.”
“I feel fine,” Carlson said, “but there have been moments where your skin crawls when you think maybe I have this or, you know, I smoked for so long. I just keep reminding myself it’s beyond human control, as so much is.” He revealed that his children know a 25-year-old college athlete without any known pre-existing conditions who could die after contracting the coronavirus and being placed in a coma.
“It kind of leaves you facing the truth, which is you can make predictions that are broadly true, but in the end, fate still exists. And I wish it didn’t. I wish everything were predictable, but it’s not, and that’s just the nature of life. And we have spent too little time thinking about that.”
