Ye Shall be Gods
The Decline of Religion and the Rise of Political Polarization
America is experiencing a period of intensified political fervor. Politics is inherently combative, but the animosity between our political parties has developed from serious disagreement into personal grievance, with political leaders often assigning apocalyptic stakes to political outcomes. Concomitantly, the influence of organized religion, with its legitimately apocalyptic stakes, is waning. Religious adherence, particularly within mainstream Christianity, has declined since the mid-20th century. Even if Generation Z exhibits a high degree of spirituality, youth are less likely to engage with traditional religious institutions than previous generations. The speculated Christian revival among Generation Z appears to be occurring among a small devout minority, while the majority express their religiosity outside of conventional religious institutions. Broadly considered, America as a nation is becoming less religious. This decline in formal religion explains the eroding standards of decency in the public square.
Secularization and political intensification are not unrelated trends. Instead, the iconoclastic fervor in contemporary politics is evidence of religious sentiment redirected. Society has a natural demand for a form of religion to address people’s associational and spiritual needs.1 When traditional organized religion no longer satisfies that demand, people find other communities as an outlet for what previously was expressed as religiosity.2 Political institutions increasingly assume that role. They are well-equipped for such a task: to a unique degree, politics contains the necessary elements to supplant organized religion. A political programme functions as a creed; a country’s founding myth is its creation story. In America, political factions offer distinct ways of living, as seen by the diverging aesthetics, lifestyles, and consumer habits of Republicans and Democrats. And, of course, politics provides an in-group community tied together by a higher sense of purpose.
Yet, there is a significant difference between politics and religion in how they realize their purpose. Politics seeks to effect change in and to the world, whereas religion begins with effecting change in the individual. For the religious, problems in this world are addressed by remediating deficiencies in the human condition, including in the self. There is a greater standard to which the self must be conformed: allowing us to conform to this standard is the function of spiritual practices, codes of behavior, and submission to sources of religious authority. The importance of improving the self is accompanied by a general distrust of human nature. Man is considered sinful, or at the very least broken, and it takes work for him to become righteous. The Good demands limits on our base desires.
Politics is not oriented toward influencing the world through the difficult work of changing the self. Rather, a political faction’s primary objective is conforming the rest of society to a standard internally defined by the community’s members. The politically-minded seek an economic structure that rewards the worker, or the manager, or the philosopher; a legal system that protects their community’s interests; a culture that transmits their particular customs and worldview. Crucially, this vision is an expression of, rather than a restriction on, the desires of the community. Politics is oriented toward satisfying those same personal desires which religion teaches the individual to reform. As politics supplants religion, personal desire becomes not only acceptable, but even righteous.
The leaked messages from the Young Republicans group chat provide an instructive example of the consequences of this replacement of religion with politics. Commentators quickly latched onto the leaked messages as evidence of political radicalization and ideological hypocrisy. But the evil of the messages—including inviting the deaths of political opponents and celebrating sexual assault—illustrates a problem more fundamental than just ideology. These individuals exhibited character failures. They openly indulged in vice. In a previous era, religious and moral leaders would have placed strong enough standards on the public square that this kind of person could not easily rise to power. Politics alone, however, is ill-equipped for reforming personal behavior. Politics does not reward the cultivation of virtue; it rewards the realization of desired external outcomes. It is more interested in what the individuals accomplish for the political faction than who they are.
The shift from religion to politics also recasts the conception of sin. In the view of religion, transgressions occur because an individual has indulged their base desires rather than conforming to a greater standard. That standard is universal. All members, including religious leaders, are continuously aiming to satisfy it. The religious community thinks in terms of moral versus immoral, or of holy versus unholy. For a political community, the higher program or vision to which they appeal is one defined by the leadership, either current or historic. Political judgment, then, must be cast in terms of loyalty or disloyalty to the community. It is therefore licit for political actors to commit egregious personal acts so long as they are not rendered “un-American” or a “traitor” to the party. Moreover, a morality based on loyalty lends itself to radicalization because the question becomes who can satisfy, in the most public, extreme way, the agenda of the leadership.
This is not to say that political engagement is inherently morally bankrupt. What it does mean is that moral standards cannot originate from a political community because the political community is concerned with loyalty to an agenda rather than the conduct of a person. If political communities supplant religious or moral communities as most foundational in the life of an individual, then the sense of obligation to external standards disappears as well. The best way to stem immoral behavior in politics is for most individuals to identify primarily with some external religious or moral community that provides reasonable restrictions on behavior. Unfortunately, for many Americans, this is no longer the case.
Some may respond that many of the loudest political leaders publicly invoke religious ideas. Admittedly, strong religious convictions can motivate political action, but it is hard to blame religion for the combative, prejudicial form of radicalization about which this essay is concerned. After all, the world’s most prominent religious leaders, including the recently appointed Pope Leo XIV, are advocating greater charity in the public square. Politics would improve if more people listened to these leaders. The true problem seems to be religious ideas entering the political discourse while the accompanying religious behaviors are checked at the door. Religion may be important to these indecent politicians. But by abdicating the behavioral standards underpinning their avowed beliefs, however, they have made religion subservient to their political vision.
A community that encourages people to satisfy their immediate desires will always be more enticing than one that encourages reform, as humans would naturally rather accumulate power over others than master themselves. Discouragingly, nothing short of a total loss of confidence in political institutions and the self-indulgent perspective they rely upon could bring Americans back to religion. But such a phenomenon can happen and has happened before. A common theme throughout the history of American religious revivals has been the triumph of conviction over the depravity of man. The Great Awakenings featured fiery ministers who preached messages of original sin and grace. In recent times, Billy Graham would begin his sermons with an honest, and quite negative, assessment of the human condition; only then would the altar call be effective. For Americans to return to religion, they need to be once again disillusioned by the fruits of entertaining their own desires.
Reminding the world of just how bitter those fruits are must be the job of our leaders. Playing the role of the prophet is difficult. An accusatory sermon will always be rejected with displeasure up until its climax, when the audience is finally convicted of its own imperfect state. It is far easier to levy critiques at political leaders selectively so that the preferred side will provide favor and protection, or even to abdicate the prophetic office entirely. But the prophet must speak truthfully, for only truth is weighty enough to defend the faith.
Stark, Rodney, and William Sims Bainbridge. The Future of Religion: Secularization, Revival and Cult Formation. University of California Press, 1985
Köhrsen, Jens. “Supply-side theory.” The SAGE Encyclopedia of the Sociology of Religion, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529714401.n457.
See also the ideas of Abraham Kuyper
Ibid.
To support of the spread of conservative values at Harvard, there is a need for conservative writers to develop a solid intellectual foundation for the idea that American Conservatism is not equal to 1930's Naziism. It is something entirely different. In fact, American Conservatives played a key role in defeating Nazism in the 20th Century.
Most Trump voters already know this, but the liberal Northeast and particularly Harvard has been thoroughly duped into believing that American Conservatives are equivalent to 1930's German Nazi's. It is, of course, a fallacy ... an accusation that bears very little resemblance to reality. It does, however, seem to convince many voters, especially those who have neither the time nor the brainpower to study it carefully. A conservative professor dedicated to the study of 20th Century European history, would also help.
If there is one point that the Salient can make, decisively and persuasively, over the next 12 months, this one would probably be the most impactful. A conservative professor at Harvard, who is dedicated to the study of 20th Century European history, would also help.
Born in 1966, I am Gen-X. I was raised Episcopalian-ish. At age 37, I converted to the Latter-day Saint sect. Now, at age 59, I live in Provo, UT. My wife and I are raising four children in this faith, and they are all doing very well.
My children are Gen-Z. They embody the trend of "religion first" in their lives. My oldest served a 2 year mission for the Church. He helped numerous individuals find the LDS Church and convert to it. His enthusiasm for the Church is strong. The classic Mormon expression to describe a person like this is "he is strong in the Gospel." He is now a freshman at BYU-Provo and loves it. His name is Ben.
Ben doesn't smoke. Never has. He doesn't drink. Never has. He doesn't do drugs. Never has. Although he has not yet chosen a major, his first goal is to marry and start a family before leaving BYU.
I am thrilled with how he and the others are developing. Raising them LDS is the best decision I have made in my life!
Jonathan "Jono" Gal
AB Biology 1989.