Lecture II: Religion and Polarization

Date: 

Thursday, November 3, 2005, 4:30pm to 6:00pm

Location: 

Lowell Lecture Hall, Oxford & Kirkland Streets

Speaker: James Q. Wilson, Ronald Reagan Professor of Public Policy, Pepperdine University

The second Tanner lecture centered on the role of religion in American polarization. "Religion may be one of the most important sources of polarization in American politics" (Wilson 2, 1) because of the extent of religiosity among Americans and because of the kind of religiosity a country such as America, with a clear separation of church and state, develops.

With respect to religion, America provides a stark contrast to Europe, “where religion has almost ceased to have any cultural or political role at all…” [Wilson 2, 7] Wilson argues that the case of America and most of the rest of the world disproves secularization theory. This holds that modernization, “by which is meant the growth of rational and instrumental inquiry, leads to a decline in the social significance of religion,” [Wilson 2, 8]. Europe, argues Wilson, is the exception, not America.

Given the historical connection between the U.S. and the U.K., Wilson finds the difference between the two countries particularly striking. Whereas church attendance was about equal in America and Britain until about a hundred years ago, today about 50% of American adults go to church compared to less than 5% of British adults.

In his attempt to account for this difference, Wilson rejects the explanation that immigrants import their religion from their home country, since church-going tends to be strong in counties with relatively few immigrants. Religiosity was high in the U.S. long before the Irish and Italians arrived in large numbers. The rapid growth of Mormonism cannot be explained through immigration since it is not a faith that relies in any way on immigration. In the case of German immigration to the U.S., whereas the first generation was as Lutheran and as low-frequency church-going as their fellow Germans in Germany, third generation Germans have joined Baptist, Methodist and some evangelical churches and attend services as frequently as most other Americans.

According to Wilson, the more persuasive explanation for the difference in church-attendance between Britain (and Europe at large) and the U.S. is that in Europe the church has traditionally been, and still is, intimately connected to the state (churches that are “recognized” as such finance themselves through state taxes, for instance). This has lead to the fact that political and religious identification have a tendency to go together. This, in turn, often means that opposing the party that endorses a particular religion means opposing the religion and not just the politics of the party.

There is no comparable situation in the U.S., where the First Amendment enforces a separation of church and state. This is in part grounded in an idea of religious tolerance but also, and even more importantly according to Wilson, in the impossibility of achieving national unity under a government with religious powers. Thus, from the beginning of the constitutional system and until the Supreme Court ruling of 1947 (which extended the Establishment Clause to the states), religion was seen as being a matter that should be left to the individual states. States were serious about religion and yet the people identified less with their religious affiliation than with “the American Creed as set forth in the Declaration of Independence” [Wilson 2, 16].

A result of churches being supported neither by federal tax money nor by governmental endorsement, “American churches find themselves in a free market where their existence and growth depends entirely on their own efforts.” [Wilson 2, 17] Wilson concludes that this, in turn, has had the same effect on churches as privatization has had on business: it has encouraged growth.

Moreover, in the free religion market, those churches that are more demanding, i.e. stricter and less tolerant of other religious views, grow faster than those that are less demanding, i.e. the more tolerant and more mainstream. At the same time, Wilson maintains that “the very factors that encourage religious organizations (free markets, a decentralized government, a localized media) are the very things that discourage religious activists from having much impact on national or even state policy,” because religion has to compete with rival interests. [Wilson 2, 23] Moreover, the “American creed” with its belief in democracy and individual rights was powerful enough to make churches adjust to its basic premises because, as Wilson puts it, “to persuade Americans, you must be American.”

Wilson argues that “the effect of religion on political polarization in America is unmistakable. Religious conservatives have become an influential part of the Republican Party and secular liberals an important part of the Democratic Party. ” [Wilson 2, 37]
With regard to the effect of religiosity, Wilson cites what he calls “a growing body of evidence” that suggests that “other things being equal, people with a strong religious faith are more likely to live in two-parent families, achieve upward mobility, resist the lure of drugs and crime, overcome health problems, and give money to charity (including nonreligious charities).” [Wilson 2, 30]
Wilson concludes: “believers are full citizens of the United States, and it is time to make peace between them and the rest of the world.” [Wilson 2, 38]

In his brief response, Alan Wolfe rejected the basic premise of Wilson’s lectures, maintaining that America is, in fact, not polarized. Certainly it is divided on certain issues and there is a deep frustration with this division. What is needed and wanted, above all, is good, unifying leadership. You can vote only for the choices you are offered, and if the choices are polarized ones, so inevitably is the vote. However Americans are divided, Wolfe continued, religion is not the cause; on the contrary, religion acts as a unifier.

Wolfe doubted that regular church-goers overwhelmingly vote Republican or that the strictness of a church attracts more members. It is entirely possible that people who vote Republicans exaggerate their church-attendance. As far as strictness is concerned, when you look at the “content” of “strictness” it becomes apparent that what attracts people to these places of worship is not so much the ceremony or strict teachings, but the self-help groups, the religious fêtes, and the rock concerts (among other such non-religious-specific events and initiatives) organized by many of these churches. In that sense, Wolfe maintained, Evangelicals have entered a Faustian bargain by “using” the culture to achieve growth. Thus, religion in America turns out to be extremely democratic - why should it lead to polarization?

Wilson disagreed. Evangelical self-help groups may be non-religious, but what brings people to these groups in the first place?

A lively Q&A ensued. Supposing that America is, in fact, polarized, how strong is religion as an independent variable? Picking up on Wolfe’s point, how reliable is religious self-reporting and can social science data truly account for the complexities of religiosity? How, it was asked, do religious and political polarization go together, or is it not more likely that religion actually neutralizes political polarization by causing “out-of-the-box” choices by its adherents: opposition to capital punishment and war, but also to abortion, for example? Other members of the audience were concerned with the sources of religion: how much, for instance, 9/11 may have contributed to an increase in religiosity in America, and the two World Wars to a decrease of religiosity in Europe. A number of questions concerned the possible harmfulness of religion: should we not care that religion does not stand up to rational reasoning? As citizens, should we not be concerned with the sources of belief, even if we acknowledge that religious belief may have the positive outcomes (on marriage, health and crime, for instance) that Wilson claims?

See also: Ethics