A New Secularism?

If you've spend anytime in bookstores -- real or virtual -- recently, you can't help but notice the recent spate of books on atheism. Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion," Sam Harris's "Letter to a Christian Nation," and Christopher Hitchens' "God is Not Great" have heralded a comeback for the unbelievers. We have always had doubters, of course -- from Epicurus and Lucretius in ancient times to Nietzsche and Bertrand Russell in modern times -- but atheism has never gained public respectability in the United States. It is one of history's great ironies that the United States, with its religious freedoms and "godless" Constitution, has always been one of the most Christian, church-going countries on earth. One can scarcely imagine a professed atheist running for any notable office in the reasonably foreseeable future, for example.


As these books demonstrate, however, atheism, or at least skepticism, might be finding more fertile ground in early 21st century America. Not that the United States is experiencing the early throes of the secular shift that is already taking place in Western Europe (and that is so vexing to Benedict XVI), but the country is ripe for a more critical look at the role of religion in public life. There are many reasons for this. For one thing, in the last 30 years evangelical Christians have become an integral component of a Republican Party that has won five Presidential elections and captured Congress for the first time in 50 years (only to lose control again after 12 years). Their mounting influence in the party has alienated the libertarian wing of the party, as well as independent voters, who were content to go along for the ride until differences with the Bush Administration over Iraq, government spending, immigration, domestic security, and simple competence finally rent the party. Although these particular ills were not caused by the "values" wing of the party, their stance on "moral" issues such as gay marriage and abortion seem increasingly counterproductive to old guard Republicans and independents who simply want the government to do what it is supposed to do in a competent manner and otherwise get out of the way.


At the same time, the Catholic Church has lost a great deal of credibility with the country at large, including many Catholics, for its longstanding inability -- or refusal -- to expose and punish pedophiles in its ranks. In the world at large, Islamic extremists have assailed the very idea of not only free speech, but of rational thought itself. And as Christopher Hitchens rightly points out, the teachings of the Enlightenment and the still-young science of evolutionary biology are now available, through the Internet, to everyone -- not just the academic elite. The wider dissemination of scientific knowledge can only lead to increased skepticism towards policy prescriptions explicitly based on religious faith, such as the teaching of Creationism in public schools.


Hitchens' thesis is that "all major confrontations over the right to free thought, free speech, and free inquiry have taken the same form -- of a religious attempt to assert the literal and limited mind over the ironic and inquiring one." As Hitchens seems to recognize, however, this theory broke down in the 20th century, which saw the advent of murderous, avowedly atheistic regimes in the Soviet Union, China, and Germany, among others. Hitchens responds by emphasizing the quasi-religious cult of personality and mythology that infected these regimes; even "Stalinist" North Korea is a weird hybrid of Communism, Confucianism, and ancestor worship. But a better answer is that modern atheism does not demand that religion be stamped out and replaced with fresh dogma, but instead exhorts humankind to transcend what Hitchens calls the "infancy" of the species and adhere to the rationalism of the Enlightenment. Sam Harris puts it less pointedly than Hitchens, advocating a humble, moral atheism that seeks to maximize happiness and alleviate suffering.


What does all of this mean? It surely does not mean that organized religion faces imminent and inevitable collapse in the United States. Christianity is too integral a part of the national fabric to fade away anytime soon, and very few Americans would want it to. But increased religious skepticism could shape the national debate over issues such as abortion, stem cell research, and gay marriage by emboldening secular-minded Republicans and Independents to challenge religiously-based assumptions emanating from the other side of the culture war. And it could make religious skepticism more respectable with the public at large. (It is, of course, already quite respectable in many quarters, especially college campuses, which unfortunately have their own brand of intolerance and group-think.) If nothing else, any trend that results in a more engaged, more enlightened, and more skeptical public can only augur well for the civic health of the nation.