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September 11, 2000

Religion in the public square

Clifford Orwin

National Post

It's an old American Jewish joke, which pictures the inauguration of the first Jewish president. In the

crowd sits his mother, whom he has flown in specially for the occasion. He ascends the platform to

take his oath. Unable to restrain her pride, she blurts out to the strangers beside her: "See that boy up

there? Both his brothers are doctors!"

Time will tell whether Joseph Lieberman's mother will come to wish he had become a doctor. He may

yet sweep to triumph with Al Gore, and be able to claim some of the credit for their having done so.

The odds of their victory seem pretty good at this point. He certainly seemed like an inspired choice at

the time, and those who suspected his Judaism would prove a liability were confuted by the initial poll

results. These showed that far from holding his Judaism against him, the broad American public holds

his religiosity very much in his favour. Sectarianism (even the sectarianism of Christians toward Jews)

is dead or moribund in America, but religiosity is very much in vogue. But this religiosity is weak beer.

And that's why Mr. Lieberman's marginally more robust version has lately been held against him.

The emergence of generic "religion" reflects the decline of denominational sectarianism. Sectarianism

has waned for two reasons that may seem contradictory but aren't. On the one hand all particularism

dissolves in the backwash of the Enlightenment: the culturally levelling and homogenizing forces of

mass education and the mass media. On the other, the massive influx of immigrants from

non-Western countries multiplies denominations, vastly broadens the spectrum they cover -- and,

paradoxically, tends to blur all distinctions among them.

The struggle between Catholics and Protestants is yesterday's news in North America. Nor do Jews

and Christians any longer represent a fundamental diversity and antipathy. After all, they're close kin

compared to the more exotic latecomers. The challenge is no longer for them to co-exist with each

other, but rather for them as "Judeo-Christians" to co-exist with all the others. Growing up Jewish in

Chicago in the 1950s, I was routinely assaulted by Irish kids on the way home from school. It mattered

to them that the Jews killed Christ, and they weren't shy about letting us know it. Children of the two

faiths played together until we were seven or so; after that we lived in two solitudes except for these

hostile encounters. My children, on the other hand, growing up in Toronto in the Nineties, did not

encounter a whiff of such hatred. Some of their best friends are Irish (and ours too). The relevant

difference here, needless to say, is not between Chicago and Toronto, but between the Fifties and the

Nineties. The Fifties were a decade of still tight ethnic and religious communities, which naturally

mistrusted one another. In those days even Catholics were deemed unelectable on a national ticket,

and Mr. Gore's nomination of Mr. Lieberman would indeed have been unthinkable.

But everything has changed (and not in all respects for the better). William Julius Wilson, the brilliant

American sociologist, has written from a quasi-Marxist perspective of "the declining significance of

race." His phrase applies equally to religion. This decline is vast and obvious. The real threat facing

North American Jews today is neither intolerance nor evangelism nor the "Aryan" lunatic fringe. Rather

it's an aspect of excessive tolerance (of nominal Christians toward Jews and of nominal Jews toward

Christians). The 17th-century Jewish renegade philosopher Spinoza dreamed of a liberal world where

Jews would cease to be Jews even as Christians ceased to be Christians. That world now looks

uncomfortably close to realization. Intermarriage rates have soared exponentially, because to so many

young people (and, increasingly, their parents) the old distinctions just don't matter. If your child is

marrying a nice person, you don't ask for more.

What remains of religion in mainstream North America is one thing only: a diffuse moralism

accompanied by a vague conviction that religion supports morality. Polls purporting to show that

Americans are highly religious reflect only this. (Try asking an American to explain what distinguishes

his denomination from others. He'll soon assure you that all religions are the same at bottom.) Most

Americans simply equate religion with morality. Whether the moral person is Christian or Jewish or

Sikh or a native American shamanist just doesn't matter anymore. (When I lectured in Massachusetts

recently a Wiccan cabdriver explained to me what his alleged paganism stood for: feminism,

environmentalism and the Golden Rule.) Americans may go to church more often than other modern

peoples, but what they learn in church is this gospel of universal toleration. All good people go to

heaven.

Now Americans have noted the clear relationship between the decline of religion and that of the family,

always the moral cornerstone of American society. Attachment to family is what animates their

religiosity. Supposing, therefore, that belief in God supports morality, they're dubious of public

atheists. (Rightly so, in my opinion. A noisy public atheist -- a Sinclair Lewis, for example -- is an

infantile show-off and a troublemaker. And almost every great political philosopher has concurred with

the American public on this point: While a given atheist may be moral, atheism is bad for public

morality, and for liberal democratic public morality no less than other kinds.) Americans are not in the

least inquisitorial. If a public official not only proclaims his belief in God but (wonder of wonders) acts

as if he believes in Him -- that is, behaves morally -- no one is going to question the sincerity of his

belief.

So for a major Jewish organization such as the Anti-Defamation League to chide Mr. Lieberman for his

public professions of faith is just silly. It shows how far behind the learning curve they are, fighting the

Jewish battles of two generations ago. There's no danger whatever that any religion will come to

dominate American politics except for the one that does so already, vapid non-denominationality. As

for the notion that "separation of church and state" prohibits leaders from voicing their belief in the

Creator, it's bunk. American presidents have always proclaimed their faith, albeit non-denominationally.

They have regularly and conspicuously attended the churches of their respective faiths, while making it

clear they approved of all faiths. (Here the model has been George Washington's wonderful letter to the

Jewish community of Newport in 1790.) Nothing that Mr. Lieberman has done has deviated from this

pattern. In making up their minds whether or not to vote for the Democratic ticket, voters (including

Jewish ones) should look to the real issues of the campaign.

Clifford Orwin is professor of political science at the University of Toronto.

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