The Atheism Problem in American Politics

In an interesting new article on Politico, author and atheist Jennifer Michael Hecht suggests that the election of atheists is the last political taboo in the United States.  Part of the problem lies with American voters, who are less willing to vote for atheists than for members of any other group tested.  Indeed, no sitting member of Congress, and only a handful of politicians at the state or local level, is willing to self-identify as an atheist.  Hecht contrasts this with the situation in 19th-century America, or even early in the 20th century, when deists like Jefferson and Madison, or people of ambiguous or uncertain religiosity like Lincoln or Taft, could rise to the highest office in the land.  Since the Cold War, she argues, religiosity has been increasingly prevalent in American politics, bringing us to this current situation.

While I think the Cold War is an important touchstone, the issue of atheists facing roadblocks in politics goes farther back than that.  Though the presidents she identifies had non-conventional religious beliefs, they each paid at least lip-service to a higher power.  They were participants in the great American Civil Religion which, I have noted elsewhere, was an idea most associated with the late sociologist Robert Bellah.  It comprises a set of references to God that in theory unties Americans in higher purpose.  Ultimately the aim is to insure, as it says on the Great Seal of the United States, that “[God] looks with pleasure on our new order of the ages.”

So, we have “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, “in God we trust,” on our currency, “God Bless You; God Bless America,” at the end of nearly every political speech, “God Bless America” sung in the seventh inning stretch.  While the instance of these certainly increased with the Cold War, the putative deity has always been lurking in the background of American public discourse.  Indeed only one inaugural address, Washington’s second given in 1797—a marvel of efficiency, it is only fourteen words longer than this paragraph—has failed to mention God, or Divine Providence, or the Almighty Being.  Most sought his aid and protection for the nation, guidance in our affairs, and invoked his generosity towards the American people.

Small wonder, then, that atheism is a problem in American politics.  The charge was often hurled against Jefferson, and its inability to keep him from the presidency is more a testament to the state of party politics in the early 19^th century than to general broad-mindedness.  Today the charge, were it substantiated, would be a political death sentence.  In eschewing belief in God, one opts out not only of formal religion, but of the American Civil Religion as well, and its relaxed central tenet that what one believes is not so important as that one believes.

A small consideration for atheists.  But not, it turns out, to most religious believers.  As I have discussed elsewhere, outward religiosity serves as a marker of trustworthiness for many believers.  There are reasons in deep time for this, stretching back to the very origins of belief in deities.  Belief in gods, it has been argued, arose as an efficient method for policing morals in groups.  Outsourcing this duty to deities was a good way to free up energies of members of the group towards the business of survival.  Outward appearances of religiosity serve as markers of membership in the group, that one can be trusted.

This even extends to very cosmopolitan societies.  Roman society, for instance, was as the historian Ramsay MacMullen noted “complete, and completely tolerant, in heaven as on earth.”  Religious authorities went to great pains to assimilate the gods of conquered territories to Roman gods.  Even the Jews frequently got a pass (except when they were actively rebelling), as the Romans respected the antiquity of their faith and chief among Roman religious virtue was adherence to the beliefs of one’s fathers.  Christians, however, were trouble.  They had left Judaism or—as Gentiles converted—traditional pagan religions, a most impious act.  Worse still, they denied the existence of all other gods leading to accusations of…wait for it…atheism.  Occasionally targeted for persecution, they were suspected of disrupting religious harmony and bringing the disfavor of the gods upon the empire.

When in the fourth century Constantine legalized Christian worship, he declared in the Edict of Milan that each person should pursue “that religion which he should think best for himself, so that the Supreme Deity (to whose worship we freely yield our hearts) may show in all things His usual favor and benevolence.”  This supreme deity would be the same one worshiped by educated pagans of the time, and would be adored, even by Christians, for the good of the empire.  Constantine’s restoration of goods and buildings seized from Christians in the recent persecution, and the financing of new church construction, was accompanied by investment in pagan temples, presumably in pursuit of his stated goal.  His attempt was to rehabilitate Christians of the charge of atheism and to restore the unity in heaven that had existed before.

So it goes even now.  Historically, of course, Christianity became a dominant force in the empire and in its successor states, and famously intolerant of competitors.   This intolerance was transmitted, in varying degrees, to the colonies that formed the United States.  Even though the Constitution stipulates that there be no religious test for public office, religiosity remains for many a marker of trustworthiness.  Is there nothing to be done?

Yes.  The same researchers who asserted this connection between religiosity and trustworthiness also note that reminders of secular governance can help ease the distrust.  Apparently, being reminded of membership in a larger group (e.g. American citizens) can downplay the “tribal” distrust of believers for non-believers.  I believe a version of this same phenomenon underlies the polarizing politics of the moment, which sees the unraveling of rights gains made by women and minorities.  Atheists do not appear to have the same problems in thoroughly secularized nations. 

Whether reminders of secular authority can convince atheists to trust believers more has not, to my knowledge, been explored.  One suspects the mistrust is returned, and for similar reasons.

However, the very fact that this mistrust can be mitigated suggests a path forward—secularism.  For those problems which have political solutions, in fact, secularism is the best answer for atheists and for believers.  It allows government to deal with religious and non-religious actors equally, and provides a middle path between theocracy and strict separationism.  It speaks to the aspirations not only of non-believers, but of the faithful who are wary of government entanglement with the personal questions of faith.  

It also requires respect.  Religious secularists must respect the right of the non-religious not to believe.  Non-religious secularists must respect the right of the religious to believe.  The goal of a society where all can pursue their aspirations is much more important than purity of belief (or non-belief).  Secularism requires a sort of philosophical laissez-faire when religious and non-religious people work towards common goals.  As far as is practicable—and there will be points where the groups simply cannot agree—secularism is a path we must walk together.  

There are several reasons for this.  Religious belief is not going anywhere, and the ranks of believers far outnumber non-believers.  Were we, as atheists and assorted non-believers, to engage only those with whom we agree, we would quickly notice that it’s always the same old people in the conversation and would achieve nothing but our own frustration.  Working with the faithful, we can build alliances with those who share our goals, marginalizing the reactionary forces seeking to impose religious strictures (ham-handed attempts at proselytizing the atheist message, at arguing believers out of their beliefs, do not help us in this regard).  

If any creed can join us, it is the message of equality contained in our founding documents and which has been the most contested idea in the public arena.  It is the concern for the future shared by all of us, religious and non-religious.  Secularism has been our greatest strength and can be again.  Embracing its value decreases the value of religious belief (or non-belief) in the political realm, making it possible for atheists to openly serve their fellows, in order to build a more perfect Union.

Enough with the quotes, already!

"The thing about quotes on the internet is that you cannot confirm their validity."Abraham Lincoln

Honest Abe, had he ever actually been able to utter those words, would have been uncharacteristically wrong.  It turns out that, for the most part, it’s embarrassingly easy to verify quotes on the Internet.  The big obstacle is the desire to do it.  Just type the quote, or a few choice words from it, into a Google search and among your top ten searches (after the quote sites, about which more later) chances are someone has either confirmed or debunked it.

The ease of checking makes the proliferation of bogus quotes in arguments that much more troubling.  We’ve all seen them on Facebook or Twitter.  They come with a placard featuring a picture or painting of Famous Individual.  Over this background, usually in some era-appropriate script, come the words of wisdom:

“A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.”  George Washington

Rock on, General Washington!  Take that, anti-gun pansies!  The ultimate unimpeachable source has just confirmed that the founders themselves saw the right to keep and bear arms as a bulwark against the tyranny of the government they worked so hard to create.  This quote scores on a number of points: it confirms an individual, as opposed to collective, right to keep and bear arms; it plays on the well-attested suspicion the Framers had of centralized authority; it strikes out against the putative gun-grabbers in modern days.

There’s only one gaping flaw in this.  Washington never, ever, as far as can be determined, uttered such words.  The words he did utter on this topic, the words that someone has altered, the ones that come from his first State of the Union message, are as follows:

“Among the many interesting objects which will engage your attention that of providing for the common defense will merit particular regard. To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.

A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.

The proper establishment of the troops which may be deemed indispensable will be entitled to mature consideration. In the arrangements which may be made respecting it it will be of importance to conciliate the comfortable support of the officers and soldiers with a due regard to economy.”

 This quote is completely different.  Yes, there is the idea of an armed populace, but one that is disciplined, it seems, by government, giving perhaps a little backup to those who argue that the Second Amendment places the right to keep and bear arms in the context of a militia.  This armed populace is to be ready for war and has some connection to the legitimate armed forces.  Washington was not suggesting that the people be ready to take arms against a tyrannical government.

Such quotes abound.  Washington is extremely popular for obvious reasons: he was the “father of the country;” he is seemingly above partisan affiliation; he argued that America should remain as aloof as possible from the affairs of other nations.  But all of the founding generation is liable to turn up on your feed supporting one position or another.  Most often, these are positions associated with the political right or libertarians (though the left is not immune).

What’s going on here?  Why are these spurious quotations getting circulated and why do those sharing them never seem abashed when called out on it?

To find the answer we must look to our charged political environment.  Since the end of the Cold War, in the absence of an existential threat from outside, we have turned more viciously on one another.  As the last few elections have shown, the electorate is deeply, and narrowly, divided, and the needle doesn’t move far in either direction.  Any tool that might lend an advantage is one that will be used.

The founders of the United States can be deployed in this way.  It is unusual for a nation to have historical founders, people whose names have been signed to documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, people whose thoughts we can access through voluminous writings.  Since the American Revolution, the founding generation has been elevated to near godlike status in the American imagination, mostly on the strength of their propaganda.  We accept their argument that they were freedom-loving patriots fighting a cruel tyranny.  

This conditioning lends their words particular weight in political discussions.  There is a strain of thought that suggests the arc of American history since the founding is one of decadence, as we move farther and farther from the ideals of the framers.  It is hard not to look at the disputes among the founding generation—over the ratification of the Constitution, over the type of nation we would have, over the extension of the franchise, over the initial party split—and not see the present moment predicted.

And, we should be fair, they said a great many wonderful things.  Who would not be stirred by the first section of the Declaration of Independence and its radical claim that “all men are created equal?”  The endurance of the American republic can be offered as a testament to the strength of their vision.  But while we might justly praise this vision, we should also be aware of its limits.  We tend to think of the founders as anything other than the self-interested, elitist, political animals that they were.  We forget that, for the most part, they were afraid of democracy (there’s a reason that another bogus quote, this one attributed to Jefferson claiming, “Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% of the people may take away the rights of the other 49%” rings true).  In other words, they were just like us.  If you think politics today are dirty, look at the rhetoric employed in the election of 1800.

Because we see them as somehow different, more virtuous, possessing greater vision, we use quotes from famous people to support our positions.  We find them on quote sites that uncritically report quotes without providing proper attribution.  We accept them without question from partisan historians (e.g., the "historian" David Barton).  It's hard to resist giving our views the imprimatur of those wiser than us.

And when someone using the quote is called out, the response is usually an admission that the quote was passed along without research and a rejoinder along the lines of, “It doesn’t matter.  The words are true no matter who said them.”

If that’s the case, then why bother with the false attribution?  Is it because the words of Thomas Paine, voice of revolution, carry more weight than those of Michael Bazemore, professor of history and occasional blogger?  In a word, yes.  Quoting the founders, or anyone for that matter, in the service of the argument is simply an appeal to authority.  It is an attempt to win an argument without doing the work of logic, and a tacit admission that your point can't stand on its own.  Or, even worse, to win by cheating, by fabricating quotes, in a transparent attempt to give one’s own words added weight by placing them in the mouths of others.  Passing them along makes one an accessory to the dishonesty.   

This practice of appealing unthinkingly to authority, and accepting its pronouncements (true or fabricated) as evidence poisons debate.  It substitutes sound bites for reasoned thought.  In other words, the quote does what posters intend it to do.  For all intents and purposes deploying authoritative quotes is a means of closing debate, to say, as it were, "George Washington said it, I believe it, end of story." The tragedy is, with all due respect to Internet Lincoln, that it’s easy to confirm the validity of Internet quotes, to puncture the bubble of respectability . It takes only a few keystrokes and a desire for the truth.

 

The Pledge of Allegiance, Atheism, and American Civil Religion

When I was sixteen (or perhaps seventeen) I wrote a letter to the editor of my local paper, the Daily Press of Newport News, Virginia.  It concerned recent remarks in that paper concerning the necessity of saying the Pledge of Allegiance in remembrance of our forefathers who had apparently come to Virginia seeking religious freedom.  Of course, as a history student, I knew this was untrue, that the Virginia Company was first and foremost a company and that the original settlers were employees there to make a living.  

The Pledge was important at that time because there was a presidential campaign on, and George Bush (père) was making a big deal of it.  In a stunning rejoinder--this is my memory; I'll remember it as I like--I reminded the original commenter and the larger public of the historical fact, adding that many of the Founding Fathers were deists.  For the coup de grâce, I included the text of the original Pledge, written in 1892:

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 

I concluded the letter by noting that the phrase "under God" in the pledge had been added in 1954, suggesting that the original commenter was mixing things up.

The Pledge became my pet cause that year.  In a mock Congress, I brought a bill removing the phrase from it within one vote of passing.  This may have had something to do with the realization that, by neglect more than trauma, there was no longer room in my life for God.

Now, a quarter-century later, the Pledge is once again in the news, this time with a case in Massachusetts with plaintiffs claiming that the offending phrase "under God" is a violation of the Massachusetts state constitution which guarantees equal protection based on creed.  This is a new tactic; establishment-clause challenges have been declared non-starters as long as participation in the pledge is voluntary.

The current challenge has been brought by an anonymous atheist parent, who has argued that the phrase "under God" discriminates against his or her child by excluding the child.  David Niose, attorney for the plaintiffs (full disclosure: I have a passing, on-line acquaintance with Niose, which means we follow one another on Twitter and have exchanged a tweet or two), has argued that when the Pledge as it currently stands is spoken, atheists and, presumably, other children who may not believe in a single deity, "are denied meaningful participation in this patriotic exercise."  Further, he argues, the Pledge "validates God belief as truly patriotic and actually invalidates atheism."

This argument, which I think is probably the best one leveled against the practice of saying the Pledge as currently written, is interesting.  With it, Niose positions his clients as patriotic Americans whose chief desire is to have their children be able to say the Pledge with conviction.  Suggestions that the children simply not say the Pledge at all fall flat since standing up to peer pressure and the connivance of authority figures seems a bit much to ask of young children.

Of course, resistance is predictable.  Niose and his clients are not just striking at the placement of God in the Pledge, they are striking at the heart of what the late sociologist Robert Bellah called the American Civil Religion (ACR).

The ACR is a set of references and symbols, invocations of God, that serve to call our attention to the "higher purpose" of the nation and to remind us that political authority is grounded in the otherworldy.  They remind us, in a sense, that we are answerable in our political actions to a higher authority and that, when this duty is observed, that authority will look with pleasure on our new order of the ages as the Great Seal (not to mention the dollar bill) has it.

Bellah's contention was that ACR was invoked when politicians make ritual references to God in speeches, in the Pledge, and in the motto "in God we trust."  Such routine use had effectively neutered any sectarian content--Bellah was writing in the 1960s, when the tendency for politicians to wear religiosity on their sleeves was much less pronounced--and were, in a way, proof of how secular American culture had become.

Indeed, the insertion of "under God" into the Pledge bears out the ideas of the ACR.  Bellah quotes Eisenhower as saying "Our government makes no sense unless it is founded on a religious faith- and I don't care what it is" (emphasis added).  It was during Eisenhower's administration, as the Cold War was getting into full swing that the words were added.

As I have suggested elsewhere, when faced with an existential threat we, as a nation, have adopted stances to rally as many Americans as possible in support of the country.  Adding the words "under God" was one such action, though it assumed belief in the deity was somehow normative.  By this addition, the unspecified deity was enlisted in the American cause.  Americans, for their part, could find assurance that they had the support of divine providence, unlike the "godless communists" who opposed them.

The ACR, then, was a component of the American orthodoxy which, as much as any orthodoxy, functions to give form to what it means to be an insider and helps identify the outsider.

At their best, constructions like the ACR can provide a sense of unity.  This sense of unity is at its base a religious sense, but the ability to unify is one reason religion has persisted.  But in order to maintain its force, it requires an outside threat.  Once the outside threat is gone (in this case the "communist menace") the weapon itself remains, often to be wielded against internal dissidents.

This is what the plaintiffs in the Massachusetts case are up against.  They perceive the reference to God in the Pledge as invalidating their core belief.  Originally intended to unite, the words have become a wedge.  Their opponents wield the sword of ACR in an attempt to bring them back into line.  They will argue that this is a slippery slope, which will lead to the erasure of all mentions of God from the public square.  

Perhaps this erasure would be a good thing; it is not my purpose to argue that here.  Rather I would like to point out that the reference in the Pledge is fundamentally different from, say, references on coins or in political speeches in that it is a daily affirmation in public schools of the deity. 

In the Pledge case before the court, then, it seems that these facts are relevant: some Americans don't believe in God; requiring (or strongly encouraging) them to affirm belief in a higher power violates their rights of conscience; atheistic Americans are as American as anyone else.

Further, as we reflect on this, we should remember how the Pledge came to be in the first place.  It was written in 1892, for a nation not yet thirty years removed from the trauma of the Civil War and which was celebrating the 400th anniversary of Columbus' first voyage.  Francis Bellamy, the author, was a reform-minded minister, a socialist, and deeply interested in stressing American unity.

Bellamy did not find it necessary to invoke God to serve this purpose.

When God was introduced in those Cold War days, the introduction must have seemed necessary.  But the crisis that occasioned that introduction is gone.  We may soon reach the point--we may already have reached the point--where words once meant to unite have ceased to do so.

Which means it's time to change the words.  If the Pledge is to be meaningful, it must allow all Americans to say it honestly.  And it's not as though there's no precedent for change...