What ails America?

It seems like Americans agree on few things these days. Perhaps the one thing almost all Americans agree on is something is wrong in America. Even there, the agreement is only skin-deep: progressives and conservatives have decidedly different opinions on what is wrong, yet agree that something is wrong.

For conservatives, America has lost its moral bearings, forgotten its past, and seems dead set on atomizing into various victim-groups competing for an ever more debt-fueled federal largess. Progressives see a people unwilling to remember its failings, unable to accept new rights claimants, blind to racism, sexism, and ever-greater economic inequality. For the moment, I’m willing to stipulate that both are correct, and at the same time, totally irrelevant. Why? Because both are focused on symptoms, not the problem.

America is unique among nations because it is a nation based on a notion. That notion is a complex mix of individual liberty, collective responsibility, and the right to be left alone. It was heavily influenced by English common law and traditions, and deeply embedded in a Judeo-Christian background. I would characterize that background as America’s Soul. The Founders, from a variety of religious backgrounds, were clear:

• Washington: Religion is “a necessary spring of popular government.”
• Adams: Leaders “may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.” and “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
• Franklin: “the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this Truth–that God governs in the Affairs of Men. . . . I also believe that without his concurring Aid, we shall succeed in this political Building no better than the Builders of Babel.”

I am not engaging in the tiresome “is America a Judeo-Christian nation?” argument. I am stating that the notion that is America rests upon a Judeo-Christian heritage, which is now only tenuous. The Deism that animated so many of the Founding Fathers was a Christian heresy (technical term, not derogatory). Their ‘Watchmaker’ God was not Zeus; He only makes sense as a derivative of Yahweh. And that connection is practically lost today.

The notion of America has changed subtly over time. Jefferson foresaw a nation of land-owning farmer-gentlemen. Lincoln envisioned a born-again Republic free from its original sin. Roosevelt sought solidarity among the classes and the birth of a world power. Reagan proclaimed the triumph of that power and renewed personal freedom.

All different, all variations on a theme.

The American people are once again in the process of debating that theme. During our recent visit to the States (grandkids & vaccinations), Gallup released poll data showing, for the first time, Church membership in the United States fell below fifty percent. As recently as the turn of the century, almost seventy percent of Americans belonged to a Church, and the decline since has been precipitous. This is something new: the theme is up for discussion, but so is the background.

The answer is not simply a call to return to the pews (as much as I would welcome that). America experienced a series of Great Awakenings, Protestant revivals that corresponded to various American crises. But today’s problem is not simply the dramatic decline in American Protestantism, but the deeper loss of any American connection to its Judeo-Christian heritage.

“Who cares about religion, anyway, can’t we just live by the Golden Rule?” That rule exists in nearly all religions and cultures, so I would respond with “how has that worked out for the world so far?” Its secular limits are many and obvious: “others” not defined as people, the narcissist who expects to be taken advantage of, the problem of scale. The Judeo-Christian elaboration on the Golden Rule provided means to address these problems, and provided a check on the way we respond to each other’s disagreements. That people at times violated these rules no more invalidates the rules than a murder invalidates the crime of murder.

This all plays out in complex ways, across a spectrum of issues. The First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion was a rational attempt to avoid favoring one religion over another in order to avoid the religious wars which plagued Europe. Extended today to the relationship between religion and unbelief, it becomes untenable: you can’t interpret law to be neutral to both a positive concept and its denial. This has lead to increasingly complex and contradictory Supreme Court rulings, wherein individuals seek more restrictions on religious activities and various faiths seek more and more exemptions from existing law.

Shorn from the Christian dictum to “care for your neighbor (and who is your neighbor?),” conservatives feel free to ignore family separations and leave the old and sick vulnerable to pandemia. Progressives discover a new Gospel. In their telling, Jesus says to the rich man, “Go, support a huge government program for the poor, use the right #hashtag, and you will inherit the Kingdom of God.”

Science advances apace, but in what direction? Moral questions of whether we should do something are pushed aside in favor of simple utilitarian answers. Scientists in California and China teamed up to create chimeras: embryos that are part monkey, part human. They claim to be addressing the need for more organs to transplant, and deny any ethical issues. Should we follow this science?

The absence of Christian charity in our exchanges should be obvious: it is why we often immediately question the motives of any who disagree, characterize any transgression as evil (I would say mortal sin), and refuse to offer or accept simple forgiveness. Our American system of government is full of checks and balances, and therefor it requires compromise to function. But now both sides seem more interested in scoring points or dominating, not cooperating.

I could cite a thousand examples, from hate crimes to tax policy to road rage to immigration to, well, you get the point. America is losing, perhaps has lost, its Soul. It wasn’t the fault of any faith, political party or movement. It wasn’t simply the aggregation of a trend by millions of individuals deciding just to sit home and watch the NFL on Sunday. It happened over a long period of time, mostly as a result of neglect: a simple lack of understanding of the role our Soul played in the notion of the nation of America.

Am I overstating the role of Soul? Look at the Presidents we most admire, and see how they all intuited, and used, our reliance on Soul. Lincoln, himself not a Christian, was the greatest practitioner: calling on God time and again, citing our better angels, readily pulling memorable quotes from the Bible. Roosevelt’s “nothing to fear” line directly mirrors “Be not afraid” while he characterized the New Deal as “the path of faith, the path of hope, the path of love.” Reagan constantly borrowed the optimistic view characteristic of Christianity.

As Lincoln so well put it, “‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’. . . I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided.” Americans face a choice: what is to be our Soul? There has to be an underlying principle to our notion of a nation, one that all Americans can accept. Just as not all 18th Century Americans were Protestants, our new Soul need not be the creed for every American, but it must be accepted by all.

I recently watched an entertaining debate between Alex O’Connor, a well-followed British atheist who runs The Cosmic Skeptic YouTube channel and Bishop Robert Barron, the prolific Catholic apologist of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and Word on Fire.

During the debate, O’Connor noted that as an atheist, he has an advantage in that he need not put forward a rival worldview, but only need point out inconsistencies in the faith-view; the onus was on those who believe. This is absolutely true in such a debate, but I believe the opposite pertains in the argument over America’s Soul. There, the existing connection (to Judeo-Christian beliefs) has been challenged, so the onus is on the challengers: what comprehensive, attractive and feasible concept do you propose?

If we were a nation based on race or ethnicity, this discussion would be unnecessary. But as a nation based on a notion, we must not only have the discussion, we must come to a conclusion. Arguing against the Judeo-Christian background is not enough; in the end, what holds US together?