Viewpoint
U.S. religiosity in a self-imposed straightjacket
By GEORGE J. BRYJAK
A recent international survey
conducted by the Pew Research Center found six in 10 Americans agreeing that
“religion plays an important role in their lives,” by far the highest
of any modern industrial society investigated. This figure represents
approximately twice as many self-proclaimed religious adherents as reside in
Great Britain, Italy and Canada, and about five times more than in France, the
Czech Republic and Japan.
The paradox of the Pew findings in the wealthy nations surveyed is
that high religious affiliation is associated with low levels of equality
across societal institutions and policies and vice versa. For example, a
2001 World Health Organization report of 191 countries found that the
United States ranked 37th in overall health care services behind almost every
European country as well as Morocco, Oman and Costa Rica. A just-released study
by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation concluded that nearly one in three
non-elderly Americans (about 75 million people) did not have medical coverage
for some period over the past two years. While many believers in the this
country are apparently content with a medical system that excludes millions of
their fellows, individuals in significantly less religious France and Italy
have created health care systems ranked one and two in the world
respectively.
We have the highest degree of economic inequality in the
industrialized world. The Washington-based Economic Policy Institute notes that
while the wealthiest 1 percent of stockholders account for just under 50
percent of all stocks by value, one of every six children lives below the
official poverty line.
Full-time working women earn about 77 percent of what full-time
employed men do in the United States. In Great Britain, Italy and France, these
figures are 80, 82 and 88 percent respectively. Among modern industrial states,
Japan alone lags substantially behind the United States in economic gender
equity.
Only the United States continues to execute offenders --
including, on occasion, mentally retarded individuals -- despite recent
findings that the criminal justice system is replete with errors, and that the
capital punishment convictions of factually innocent defendants are hardly
uncommon.
At a time when most prosperous nations have a system of compulsory
military service, the United States maintains voluntary armed forces. Fighting
and dying on the battlefield have become the plight of lower- and middle-class
males, while sons of the wealthy stay home and enjoy the economic benefits of
their privileged positions.
What is it about our religious beliefs or the relation between
religion and other institutions that has prevented the weaving of the golden
rule into the fabric of American society as it has in more secular nations? In
other words, why do the religious convictions of so many Americans exist in a
kind of schizophrenic detachment from their brethren in the wider social
world?
To begin, we seem to be of two minds when it comes to social
justice issues and the application of the “do unto others” dictum. As
far as helping victims of tragedies such as the recent terrorist attacks and
natural disasters, we Americans have always been generous with our time and
money. However, as a nation we are unwilling to institutionalize our individual
good will on issues such as universal health coverage, a livable minimum wage,
and gender and racial equality. We are loath to help people designated as
unworthy of societal generosity, as in the distinction between the
“deserving” and the “undeserving” poor.
A partial explanation for the gap between religious beliefs and
societal practice can be found in the nation’s intellectual history.
English philosopher and pioneering sociologist Herbert Spencer (1820-1903),
whose Social Darwinism swept across the United States in the 1880s (the term
“survival of the fittest” comes from Spencer, not Charles Darwin),
gave a pronounced boost to a mindset of rugged individualism already entrenched
in this country.
According to Spencer, wherever one found himself or herself in the
system of inequality that’s where he or she deserved to be. Wealth was a
natural outgrowth of intellectual and moral superiority, while poverty was a
product of intellectual and moral inferiority. By definition, the wealthy were
justly prosperous, the poor rightly impoverished. Yale professor William Graham
Sumner (Spencer’s most prominent American disciple) wrote a 145- page
treatise titled “What Social Classes Owe Each Other” that can be
summarized in a single harsh phrase: nothing at all.
For all of our self-proclaimed piety and impressive rates of
church attendance, it appears that the golden rule has been overwhelmed by
Spencer’s legacy and smothered by the thick veneer of narcissistic
materialism that is contemporary American culture. We strive to be the richest
(“fittest”) in a culture where, as sociologist Richard Robbins notes,
“virtually all of our everyday activities -- work, leisure, the
fulfillment of social responsibilities -- take place in the context of
commodities.”
Complete with rock bands and laser light shows, some forms of
religious expression are more entertainment than devotion as spirituality is
reduced to another commodity to be bought and sold in the marketplace. My guess
is that for many of these adherents, “Jesus Christ Superstar” has the
same impact on their lives as Mariah Carey superstar.
Finally, over the past 40 years there has been a shift in
religious orientation on the part of many, emphasizing a “one-to-one”
relation with God and redemption as a personal journey. This spiritual
orientation separates people from concerns about, and participation in, the
larger society. With the rise of “God Box” or television preachers,
one need not leave the house to experience religious fulfillment.
To be sure, not all religious adherents and leaders have succumbed
to lives wherein success is measured by material possessions and salvation is a
solitary journey. The relentless struggle of Martin Luther King Jr. and others
illustrates how people have made enormous sacrifices working collectively for
social and economic justice. Unfortunately, these individuals are a minority of
the population. The true religion of contemporary American society is
consumption, as an excursion to our real houses of worship -- shopping malls --
will attest.
The United States appears to be the lone wealthy nation where an
undercurrent of Social Darwinism intersects with crass materialism and an
exclusionary, personal quest for salvation to yield a narrow interpretation of
the golden rule. This is a rendition wherein individuals comfort family and
friends but refrain from striving for equality and justice at the societal
level.
A man of deep religious convictions, the 19th-century Danish
philosopher Søren Kierkegaard had nothing but disdain for what he called
“Christendom,” the “herd” mentality of worshipers who
weekly marched into churches as if attending a social function, then stomped
out again, indifferent to the true message of their faith. For Kierkegaard,
“Being a Christian in Christendom ... is as impossible as doing gymnastics
in a straightjacket.” We have become a nation of religious adherents in
self-imposed straightjackets, indifferent to much of the suffering and
injustice in our midst.
George J. Bryjak is professor of sociology at the University of
San Diego.
National Catholic Reporter, March 28,
2003
|
