Religion in America: Why Many Democrats and Europeans Don't Get It

I'm an atheist liberal academic who strongly leans Democrat. But I'm stunned at how blind so many of my colleagues and soul mates are to the historical underpinnings of American political culture and the genuine appeal of religious conservatism for so many of our fellow citizens.

Recent economic studies (most notably Unequal Democracy by Larry Bartels, a professor of political science at Princeton) show that when Democrats were in the White House, lower-income American families experienced slightly faster income growth than higher-income families, and that the reverse was true when Republicans were in control. If people vote rationally for their economic interests, one would expect Democrats to be perennial favorites among working poor and middle class, and especially so in this year of economic downturn. Why then does polling show the election a tossup?

Conservative whites who vote Republican generally cite patriotism and national security as the most important issues in deciding who should be president. Over the last few generations, it's only when these voters perceive economy to be in dire straits, or when a previous Democratic administration has been successful in palpably increasing their prosperity, do patriotism and national security take on slightly less value than usual. Patriotism and national security are about binding and preserving what has become the primary reference group for political identity in the modern world, the nation.

In The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin wrote that:

"The rudest savages feel the sentiment of glory... A man who was not impelled by any deep, instinctive feeling, to sacrifice his life for the good of others, yet was roused to such action by a sense of glory, would by his example excite the same wish for glory in other men, and would strengthen by his exercise the noble feeling of admiration."

The official website for John McCain's candidacy headlines a quote from his book Faith of My Fathers as his banner:

"Glory is not a conceit. It is not a prize for being the most clever, the strongest, or the boldest. Glory belongs to the act of being constant to something greater than yourself, to a cause, to your principles, to the people on whom you rely, and who rely on you in return. No misfortune, no injury, no humiliation can destroy it."

As cross-cultural findings by psychologist Jonathan Haidt show, morality is (pretty universally) not just about treating others fairly, but also "about living in a sanctified and noble way." That's a reason why John McCain's appeal is powerful.

Among many Republican conservatives, one factor strongly correlates with patriotism and national security, is of even more overriding concern in daily life, and stands inseparable from love of country. Religion. A Gallup poll found, for example, that nearly two thirds (65%) of highly religious American white voters would vote Republican, no matter what their interests in other issues are. If one looks at recent Gallup polls inquiring into religious devotion in the USA, as indicated by belief in the Bible and church activity, the classic division between the blue states of the east and west versus the red states of the south and Middle America is apparent.

A culture's moral compass is not an innate or logical determination, but an underdetermined product of historical contingency and willful choice. Belief in moral "rightness" or "truth" is always a matter of faith rather than reason. Only some professional philosophers, jurists, scientists and academics believe that the principal point of political argument (or most any argument) is, or ought to be, truth rather than persuasion, and that an argument's principal appeal should be reason rather than passion. To paraphrase Karl Rove: reason may be fine for studying and analyzing history and politics, but not for living or making them. Faith in what is felt and hoped for but cannot be proven or demonstrated in the here and now is vastly more effective in mobilizing people to create change. Barack Obama's appeal to many people who previously voted Republican, and upon whom victory depends, requires inciting such hope, not harping back to traditional democratic "issues."

What's Universal about Morality and What's not?

Primatologist Frans de Waal finds that even capuchin monkeys have a sense of fairness: if an experimenter offers cucumbers to a pair of capuchin monkeys, both eagerly grab the cucumbers; but if one of the monkeys is offered grapes, the other will throw the cucumber in the experimenter's face. This is a primitive version of the outcome to an "Ultimatum Game" that all human cultures seem to subscribe to. Anthropologist Joe Heinrich and his colleagues went to more than 20 small-scale and large-scale societies with offers to split the equivalent of a day's wage between two anonymous players who had done no work for the money. The researchers found that there is always some lower bound that one of the players finds unacceptable, although this varies across cultures (average cutoff may be close to 50-50 in some societies, as in America and China, but only 80-20 in others, as in some native cultures of the Amazon and New Guinea).

Studies by social psychologist Richard Nisbett and colleagues suggest that human cultures fall into two broad categories, individualist (mainly the U.S. and Western Europe) and collectivist (the rest of the world). Anthropologist Richard Shweder argues that for so-called collectivist societies there is also a strong "ethics of community" (authority / respect, duty / loyalty); often there is an "ethics of divinity" (purity / sanctity) as well. Experiments by Haidt involving thousands of subjects suggests that all of these elements may be part of every culture, but each element to a different degree. In our own society, liberals tend to insist on individual rights and are uncomfortable with pronouncements and institutions built on "the ethics of community" and the "ethics of divinity" because they often lead to patriotic jingoism (overblown loyalty), inequality (subordination of the weak or disadvantaged) and exclusion (racism, proscriptive nationalism and other forms of purification). Conservatives want a richer, more interdependent social life, which requires a regulation of relationships that goes beyond harm and fairness to individuals. This includes limits to sexual relations, management of obligations and authority, and control of group boundaries and borders. Liberals see conservatives as "repressive." Conservatives see liberals as "irresponsible."

The original American revolutionaries mixed the universal elements of morality in a very particular way. The "self-evident" aspects of "human nature" that The Creator supposedly endowed us with -- including "inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" -- are anything but inherently self-evident and natural in the life of our species: cannibalism, infanticide, slavery, racism and the subordination of women are vastly more prevalent over the course of history than "human rights." It wasn't inevitable or even reasonable that conceptions of freedom and equality should emerge, much less prevail. Nevertheless, the new ideal of individual liberty required upgrading the element of individuality, that is, our innate awareness of individuals as self-motivated agents who can act on their own to achieve goals. The focus of empathy shifted to people as individuals and voluntary participants in civic communities.

The Americans also downgraded elements of authority, loyalty and purity then current in European politics. The French revolutionaries who followed lowered the importance of the individual while raising that of one group, the nation. That's why whole classes of counter-revolutionaries, rather than individuals alone, could be collectively condemned and punished regardless of any individual crimes they may have committed. Most modern revolutions and regimes follow the French example more than the American.

Why Sarah Palin Appeals to the Religious Community and Traditional Mainstream America

Unlike the centralized European and Canadian churches, whether Catholic or Protestant, American congregations were, and still are, concretely rooted in local communities with strong personal ties. Americans voluntarily chose and supported their community church, internalizing and shaping the community's egalitarian moral values, instead of being compelled to belong to a state-subsidized, hierarchical institution. Where American churches have emphasized the God-given individual impulsion to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England in Canada have stressed the social virtues of that country's first constitution (The British North American Act): "peace, order and good government." American churches have been more risk prone, preaching practical working values over humanistic doctrines. "American denominations had to compete like business for customers, for support for income," noted political sociologist Seymour Lipset.

Unlike in other countries, Americans often opt to go to different churches depending on changing personal social, economic or political preferences. It's as acceptable to change churches as it is to change shopping brands provided that your choice is also motivated by moral conscience rather than mere personal opportunity and benefit. For example, Obama has changed churches a few times. But the last change almost derailed his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. This was both because of his long-term association with a church that tolerated seemingly anti-nationalist preachings, and because people felt that the political pressure for him to leave the church trumped his pronounced reasons of conscience for leaving it.

Sarah Palin grew up as a member of the Assemblies of God, the largest Christian Pentacostal movement (about 66 million members worldwide). The movement consists of a self-described "cooperative fellowship" of self-propagating, self-supporting, and self-governing churches. All profess faith in the deity of Christ, the original fall and final salvation of man through belief in Christ's blood sacrifice and his Second Coming, and the evangelical mission to spread this belief in order to save as many other souls as possible. The movement also acknowledges loyalty to the national government, but allows each church and believer to take the stance they feel most appropriate, and to support or not support national wars as their conscience tells them.

Although Palin grew up as a Pentacostalist, in her adult life she attended a number of different churches. She is now part of the evangelical movement of Christian Charismatics, the fastest growing religious movement in the world (over 450 million adherents). The Charismatic movement is noteworthy for how it sees the relationship between individuals and institutions. Charismatics tend to be more wary of institutional authority than classic Pentacostalists, more causal in their attire, more innovative and modern in their forms of outreach. Sports, the media, advertisement and public education are all useful means for bringing lost and scattered souls into the flock. But towards those who consciously choose to remain outside and reject salvation, like many secular liberal Democrats, there can be little room for concession or compromise.

Charismatics also tend to believe that religious experience shouldn't be restricted to church-related activities, but ought to morally motivate and infuse as much of a person's social, economic and political life as possible, even as Church and State remain separate. "Action," "challenge" and change" are watchwords of the Charismatic movement, which encourages people to "leave the comfort zone" to wage "spiritual combat" in any realm of life where the forces of good and evil, God and Satan, may battle. In this sense, the Charismatic movement is arguably both revivalist and "conservative" in the traditional sense of seeking to be consistent with the founding organizational principles and moral ethos of the Republic. "Change" is not a politically expedient notion for Charismatics, but a guiding principle of life and renewal.

America's vigorous religious ethic not only allows novelty and surprise, but encourages them as long as they give profit and competitive advantage to sectarian interests. A Gallup poll some years back asked: "Some people are attracted to new things and new ideas, while others are more cautious about things. What's your own attitude?" Nearly half the Americans (49%) said they were attracted to novelty, only 13% favored caution. Canadians preferred caution (35%) over newness (30%). As New York Times columnist David Brooks recently put it: "From voters, the demand is: Surprise Me Most." That's something which makes a Frenchman cringe.

In Europe, there has been a spate of academic analyses of religion in America on the heels of Sarah Palin's nomination for the vice presidency under the Republican banner. What's stunning is how well the analysts describe the trees but miss the forest. In a September 11 article in the leading French newspaper Le Monde, titled "Sarah Palin, a funny kind of parishioner" (Sarah Palin, une drôle de paroisienne) sociologist Yannick Fer gives a competent overview of the Charismatic movement to which Palin belongs, but his conclusion is widely off the mark:

"The [political] positions inspired by this religious conviction are conservative, to the point opposing the autonomy of the individual in the quest to impose 'the values of the Bible' on all of society; for, it is a mater of "saving" the nation as much as individuals. The Charismatic creed here reaches the point of contradiction: everyone is free and responsible for their choice, but there is only one path ─ A fundamental ambiguity that makes for a political object that is poorly defined, unstable and problematic."

In fact, a 2006 survey by the Pew Research Foundation in Washington found that a majority of U.S. Charismatics believe that Bible and the right path in life are open to interpretation.

In France, ever since 18th century philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau proclaimed the secular sanctity of the "social contract," successive French leaders from the French revolution to the present have repeated the mantra that, beyond the individual, "the only community is the nation." That's why notions of multiculturalism and religious sectarianism have little place in French political philosophy. Although European Enlightenment values of individual freedom and choice also entered strongly into the American Republic's political constitution (especially via Thomas Jefferson & friends), the fundamental social constituent of economic and political culture in the United States was neither the individual nor the state, but the sectarian community. The religious community in the USA was a civic as well as moral community, a combination which infused American economic and political culture with particular dynamism.

Ironically, it was a French nobleman who first noted this novel historical condition. Alexis de Tocqueville stressed in Democracy in America, his masterful analysis of our young republic written in 1835, that religious conservatism in America does not mean sacrifice of individual interest for group interest, or subservience of the individual to the state or any other ruling collectivity. Rather, religion mitigates the selfishness of unbridled individualism and "private animosities," while shoring up free institutions that engage "aspiring hopes" as against "general despotism [that] gives rise to indifference."

"It must be acknowledged that equality, which brings great benefits to the world, nevertheless... tends to isolate them from each other, to concentrate every man's attention on himself; and it lay open the soul to an inordinate love of material gratification.... Religious nations are thus naturally strong on the very point on which democratic nations are weak, which shows of what importance it is for men to preserve their religion as their conditions become more equal..... Thus it is, that, by respecting all democratic tendencies not absolutely contrary to herself, and by making use of several of them for her own purposes, Religion sustains a successful struggle of that spirit of individual independence which is her most dangerous opponent.... As soon as several of the inhabitants of the United States have taken up an opinion or feeling which they wish to promote, they look out for mutual assistance; and as soon as they have found out each other they combine. From that moment they are not longer isolated men, but a power seen from afar, whose actions serve as an example, and whose language is listened to."

De Tocqueville surmised, correctly it seems, that religion in America would give its democracy greater vigor, endurance, cooperative power and competitive force than any strictly authoritarian regime or unbridled democracy.

In 1852, communism's co-founder Frederich Engels wrote to Karl Marx that California's sudden rise as a social and economic force "out of nothing" showed was "not provided for in the [Communist] Manifesto... We shall have to allow for this." He puzzled over the apparent exception of "Yankee blood" to the universal rule of "historical determinism." During a brief visit to North America in 1888, Engels observed that unlike the case for Canada or Europe: "Here one sees how necessary the feverish spirit of the Americans is for the rapid development of a new country."

The great German political economist Max Weber attributed this "feverish spirit" to American capitalism's peculiar "Protestant ethic." An anecdote of his illustrates the religious sentiment that seemed to pervade American business life which depended on personal trust and long-term credit relations. In 1904, on a long railroad journey through what was then U.S. Indian territory, Weber sat next to a traveling salesman of "undertaker's hardware" (iron letters for tombstones) and casually mentioned the strong church-mindedness of Americans. The salesman responded:

"Sir, for my part everybody may believe or not believe as he pleases; but if I saw a farmer or a businessman not belonging to any church at all, I wouldn't trust him with fifty cents. Why pay me, if he doesn't believe in anything?"

Americans have traditionally tended to build economies on credit and trust in the future and others, rather than with cash and legal contracts. (Although involvements with cultural strangers in a global economy are changing things. More generally, Americans rank at the top in terms of how fairly people treat members of their own culture. But Americans -- at least policymakers and negotiators -- tend to treat members of other cultures, such as political rival Russia or economic rival Japan, with greater distrust and self-serving bias -- "our side is inherently fairer than yours" -- than some other cultures treat one another.)

American Religion: Cooperate to Compete

Humans often use religion to cooperate to compete. (For example, it was only in the 1950s during height of the Cold War, that the Pledge of Allegiance was altered to include God). As Darwin noted, in competition between groups with similar levels of technology and population size, those groups will tend to win out that favor and transmit willingness to sacrifice some self interest for group interests (that also promote individual interests in the long run). Religions with morally concerned deities arguably made the rise of civilization and large-scale cooperation between genetic strangers possible (historical and cross-cultural analyses of 186 societies finds that the larger the population, the more likely it has deities who are concerned with management of morality and the mitigation of selfishness).

Most cultures celebrate costly personal commitments as morally good and glorious. Many such celebrations are time-worn collective rituals -- including quasi-religious religious national celebrations -- with proven success in fostering cooperation within the group and making it more competitive with other groups. That basic dynamic is still with us and is unlikely to go away. It is especially palpable in traditional mainstream America, even more so than in other modern societies. Republicans intuitively get it; Democrats often don't. But Democrats do get more the meaning and message of the Enlightenment, which may allow in a wider world if only they can learn better from Republicans how to gather up the country first.

Comments

[Yannick]

Thanks Scott for having mentionned and commented my article in Le Monde.
Maybe you could mention more clearly where are the quotations from my article, in the two paragraphs about relationships between individuals and institutions ; sports, media and education ; no concession ; a religious experience beyond the church walls ; "change" and spiritual warfare.
About my conclusion now, I don't think I am so much off the mark! I also mentionned the results published by the Pew Research Forum in my paper and that's why I said Charismatics are more concerned about the "spirit" than about the "letter" (unlike Fundamentalists). You can also add another outcome of this study: only 33% of US Charismatics agree with the idea that "God fulfills his purposes through politics and elections" (46% of Pentecostals).
So the issue is not the Charismatic credo in itself but its political translation by those who choose to get involved in the political competition. And what can be right on a personal or local community's levels (as described by Tocqueville) can get wrong in this political field, because the translation in political terms is influenced by the theology of Spiritual Warfare. That's why I wrote this is problematic. And it's not only an American issue, I've been able to observe the same kind of things in other countries with similar Protestant cultural background, like New Zealand.

[Doofus]

'The Libs think they are smarter than the conservative
Christians and this, only, should lead them to victory?'

Hah. The average iq in any proper Demo-voting secular/progressive
voter is around 125. The average iq among self-respecting Repos
must be around 75, by the law of averages. This alone, however, does
not explain how Repos keep winning the presidency. For that you have
to consider that evolution has somehow imbued the Repo voter with
an excess of shrewdness & political saavy, to compensate them for
their otherwise general dimness.

[applebutter]

Perhaps liberals are simply outnumbered. Liberals, concerned about overpopulation, and preferring science/birth control/choice to abstinence policy, aren't breeding as rapidly as their conservative counterparts. On political saavy: repeat lies until they become facts, wave a flag, thump a bible, and remind the fearful of the boogyman that only the bully candidate can save them from at every opportunity.

[Doofus]

It seems obvious that at best, the number of liberals roughly matches
the number of conservatives, and there's a larger number of people who
aren't either, or a little bit of both. But, to be a proper conservative, your iq has
got to be no higher than about ninety, ninety-five tops. Darwinism is definitely not
helping, however.

[SolarPowerGuy]

It's not the Republican voters -- they aren't the smart ones. Republican LEADERS are every bit as smart as Democratic leaders.

But Republican leaders also have a greater share of a special political gift: unscrupulousness. They know how to manipulate the people in the 80-IQ cohort, and they are delighted to do so, if it serves their own interests.

[OkieIntellectual]

FTA: "In fact, a 2006 survey by the Pew Research Foundation in Washington found that a majority of U.S. Charismatics believe that Bible and the right path in life are open to interpretation. "

Oh Really? I'd sure like to know how strong the internal and external validity was in this survey, along with the nunmber of people surveyed and the demographic cross-section of the study. I grew up in the "evangelical-charasmatic-fundamentalist-whatever you call it" movement (thankfully they never really got their hooks in me),

I know these people and I have never know one of them to say that the bible is open to interpretation. They strongly believe that the bible is the literal, unchanging word of god, and that it means exactly what it says. The only "interpretation" they believe in is that which comes from their leaders, who are seen as direct conduits to the Will and Word of God. Even when you show these folks the varied and numerous contradictions in the bible, they stick firmly to the idea that the bible is, by necessity, a perfect document because it was authored directly by god (albeit thgouth the hands of men).

[Yannick]

Here is the question asked by the Pew Research Forum :
Do you agree with this proposition "there are clear guidelines about good and evil that apply to everyone regardless of their situation" ?
I think because Charismatics emphasise individualisation, personal experience and context, they don't like this kind of general stance. But of course, they are strongly convinced that each person is "in one kingdom or in the other"...

[Gould123]

Mccain/ Palin hasn't proven their good christians! they lie in their ad's and speechs at every turn! Yet those who clain to be christians worship them, and will vote for these sinners?

[iloveiowa]

why is it encumbent on me to "get it?" why do i have to get "true believers," who, according to the analysis in the book of the same title, are the most dangerous type of people in the world? there is a clear, black and white thinking that pervades them and may make them politically expedient at times but it also makes them managerially deficient in a complex world. look, the ideological division in this country runs close to 50/50, and there have been several prominent politicians who have acted so as to bridge this divide, and others who haven't. and when rove-like tactics are used by republicans to try and divide people, articles like this come along essentially asking people to "understand" them. i don't understand that.

[standard]

Why do you--why do we all--we have to "get" true believers?

Because there are so many of them and if we don't "get" them, we wind up with Ronald Reagan breaking down the barrier between church and state, George H.W. Bush demonizing the word "liberal" and George W. Bush sending thousands of hapless National Guard members to their needless deaths, undermining our legal system by abolishing the need for judicial warrants, gutting habeas corpus (and so, the right not to be imprisoned indefinitely without charges, without access to an attorney and without a right to a fair trial); and turning the reins of our government over to a small group of ruthlessly greedy multi-millionaires to run for their own, personal benefit.

Otherwise, it doesn't matter.

[N2theblue]

The USA is one of the few (if not only) countries in the Western world where religion is so prominently
mentioned in our politics and elections. Our candidates have to "prove" that they're "good Christians".
This doesn't happen in Canada, or any country in Europe. Whatever happened to the separation of church and state???????????

[Zanti]

Are you paying taxes to a national church? Does your state have an established church that you pay taxes to?

No on both?

Then separation of church and state is alive and well.

[DCinFrance]

If only that were the extent of it. In fact, aside from perhaps some mainstream churches, they are big business, operate tax free and push a political agenda. If they are moving merchandise whose profits go untaxed, then yes, I am paying taxes on what they do not. Not that it matters in that I would not be paying any less taxes if they were given the billions a month we are borrowing for an illegal war.

[ScienceLady]

Churches are exempt from paying certain taxes. The government gives public money to private, religious schools. Political ideology is used to take, away or limit, health choices and marriage choices. The separation of church and state is not alive and well.

[WASanford]

I'm sorry Zanti, but I think you are wrong. A goodly portion of my taxes goes into Bush's "Faith based initiative." You know, the one where church organizations get to use my tax money for their "charities" instead of for running our government as originally intended.

I put the word charities in quotation marks because I don't believe that you can steal from the rest of us to support your good works and still call what you're doing "charity."

We'll have real seperation of church and state, when an athiest can run for president and win. Until then, we're simply lying to ourselves about religious freedom.

[applebutter]

Separation of church and state is threatened by the religious right and must be safeguarded. The Republican Party is a theocracy, and contributing to its success either through financial contribution or voting right wing evangelicals into office moves this country away from democracy toward Christofascism. For more information, Google Hagee or Christian Dominionist movement. It's real, and it's happening. Wake up.

[jbatch]

Actually, taxes and an official church are not the only manifestation of this social disease we call evangelicalism. Have states proposed teaching creationism? have congressmen proposed teaching it? Yes.

Have Congress and the President banned stem cell research, a branch of science that could result in life-saving therapies and possibly reverse paralysis and cure Alzheimers? yes.

How about banning abortion, restricting birth control, opposing gay marriage, and restricting a families' right to decide when and whether their terminally ill son or daughter should be allowed to die?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

I could go on, but I think you get the point.

[bakingmom]

Great post. Ought to be a book and required reading.

Thank you for taking the time to write this.

[bront]

Stott Atran is the author of In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), and many other brilliant works. Check him out.

[SolarPowerGuy]

"A Gallup poll found, for example, that nearly two thirds (65%) of highly religious American white voters would vote Republican, no matter what their interests in other issues are."

That settles it, I was born in the wrong country. However, so were a large number of my fellow Americans -- and not all of us can afford to move, nor should we have to.

Why don't we offer the people who meet this description -- "highly religious American white voters" -- the historic lands of Dixie, where they can have their own country and laws. Give everyone ten years to relocate to whichever side of the new Mason-Dixon line they prefer, and then be done with it.

In exchange for giving them their own country, they agree to get out of our business for good -- oh, and they have to renounce all claim to possess nuclear weapons.

[SurrealPumpkin]

We are one nation, we need to learn to embrace our diversity not reject those who don't agree with us. Remember that rejection of a group does not change the objectional behaviors it reinforces the strength of committment.

That said everytime someone starts telling me how important it is to have the ten commandments posted in public places I ask if he/she can only remember and follow the commandments if reminders are posted everywhere.

[SolarPowerGuy]

I am one half of a mixed-race couple, and I have lived in a Muslim country. I do embrace diversity quite deeply in my own life.

But let's look at these "highly religious American white voters [who] would vote Republican, no matter what their interests in other issues are."

What is their primary interest. Religion. What do they think their religion is telling them to do? To turn America into a "Christian nation," and to keep picking a fight with the Muslim world until "we win." Some of them are hoping to hasten the end of civilization because they believe that Jesus will swoop in and take them (maybe not us, but do they care?) to a better place.

It doesn't sound to me like THEY embrace diversity in the least. Don't all the groups concerned need to be accommodating, in order for "one nation" to work?

We can't avoid sharing our world with these people. But perhaps we can avoid supporting their authoritarian and apocalyptic projects with our tax dollars. (Remember: Blue states are net contributors to the Federal budget, and Red states are net debtors.)

And if they got something out of the deal that would make them happy, perhaps it would work out for everyone.

[jbatch]

Great idea. I would actually give them Texas, then wall it off and restrict immigration from there. but I could go with Dixie if you excluded Virginia and Floerida.

[Michael7843853]

A few selected quotations and bold unsubstantiated simplistic assertions can not mask the fact that you are attempting to define the essence of human society, not just American society, in a brief essay, from a restricted perspective. Several books would not be sufficient.

[cmolsen]

Thank you for this post.

[William1950]

I would like to see our "religious" citizens act as if they really believed and understood what they profess... I really think that faith and religion does help some people find common ground, and a sense of inner peace ... however too often they use it to judge and justify ... to condemn and villify.
I always find it ironic that the American south, the seat of the bible belt, is the area that as a general rule the citizens are the most racist, the economy is the poorest, the children are the least educated, and the environment the most polluted. Why is that?

[SurrealPumpkin]

Post civil war. GWB would not have handled the Reconstruction any differently.

[justobserve]

"too often they use it to judge and justify ... to condemn and villify"
Exactly! It's the proof that people who boasted of their Chistian values do not live them.

[applebutter]

We all saw them hoot and holler (apx 30% of their party is now evangelicals) as they derided liberalism and community organizers at the RNC. They really like Palin as vitriolic, untruthful, and unqualified as she is. The important thing to them is gaining power in government. In his primary campaign, Huckabee came right out and said he would redo the Constitution to bring it more in line with his Bible.

[likewoah]

Mr. Altran - great post. One comment:

"Conservatives want a richer, more interdependent social life, which requires a regulation of relationships that goes beyond harm and fairness to individuals. This includes limits to sexual relations, management of obligations and authority, and control of group boundaries and borders.

I find this to be somewhat counterintuitive. Granted, conservatives want to regulate CERTAIN relationships (i.e. homosexual ones), but at the same time, at least some of them, including the most "religious" among them are staunchly opposed to regulating relationships between, say, consumers and a corporation (i.e. Enron). Conservative focus on social responsibility stops somewhere between the bedroom/altar and the pocketbook. Then they seem to get VERY individualist. I agree the conservative view of faith (both belief and practice) is "collectivist." Can we apply that adjective to any other aspect of conservative ideology? I don't see how.

[iloveiowa]

i agree: the central claim of cooperation in religion, which arguably leads to better competition among other groups, is a very limited argument because one of the central rallying cries of conservatives has always been the notion of individual economic competition. i would argue that conservatives don't get themselves; rather, they embody a fundamental contradiction: socially woven together yet pulled apart in the marketplace. this is why many republicans vote against their own economic interests; and in the past, before globalization, their contradictory economic decisions could be made without extreme repercussions. but in a global environment, the lack of educational preparedness of blue collar, religious republicans (those that form the base), who often disdain education (the "elites") and cling to parochialism will end up hurting mightily. they long for a smaller world, a closed world where their views hold sway. but history and time are not on their side. there is strong demographic evidence to suggest that their influence will wane over the years. david frum, a prominent conservative, has written on this. it is, in fact, they who must eventually "get" the rest of the world.

[BadChristian]

Thank you Mr. Atran. I found this very interesting. Yet, I am still very curious about this relates to the obvious divide that exists between urban centers and rural "Small towns" (or no towns).

It appears to me that the greatest factor to judge whether someone will vote conservative or liberal is the size of the community from which they draw their "values." No matter how many times the electoral maps come back showing "red seas" and "little blue islands," it seems the analysts are capable of finding something other than population density... Yet, when I hear the current mantra of "Small Town values," without any real definition of them, the hidden sub-text seems to be a populist movement driven by the definition of a common foe. For most, that common foe seems to be the "big city folks." I know plenty of urban Christians who vote Democrat as faithfully as anyone.
No matter how often I hear people talk about unity, when I drive across the country, whether I am in Florida of Georgia or Minnesota or Ohio or Pennsylvania or New York, what I hear from residents of the rural zones is a sense of fear, hatred and derision for urban residents, which, I think, has been the corner-stone upon which the "Culture War" of America has been fought. I think they believe we are trying to "ruin their country."

[Fernando]

Well, this is a long-winded (albeit well-written) blog to state something that was more clearly captured in the book What is the Matter with Kansas? By Thomas Frank. He examines how the right has used the discourse of conservatism and values to manipulate voters in voting against their economic interests.

For me, I find it most stricking that the number of abortions were lower during the Clinton years than during the conservative Bush years because, as some experts say, the diminishing of the safety net and lack of affordable health care under Bush contributes to women choosing abortions.

The right wing is riddled with conflicting goals and policies: Pro-life but anti-pill, pro-death sentence but cutting back on education, pro-free market but big on subsidies for big corporations, pro-traditional values but also pro-Karl Rove tactics. For anyone who actually thinks about the issues this is not news.

[queenmjd]

Wow. That's a lot of verbiage to say what?
The Libs think they are smarter than the conservative Christians and this, only, should lead them to victory?
You cannot understand what you do not believe to be true, so you will never get it. It is not some empirical science experiment.
So analyze it to death, but you will not find the answer as evidenced by the fact that you had the election locked up and now it hangs in the balance.

[standard]

"You cannot understand what you do not believe to be true . . . "

According to this remarkably curious thesis, then, the university system throughout the history of Western civilization from the 13th century on (in which scholars teach philosophies and theologies not all the tenets of which they personally embrace) has been a useless sham? Are Christian conservatives equally incapable of understanding those who are liberal, non-Christian, or both?

[hypnotoad72]

It is unfortunate, as in action the Democrats are (stereotypically) more likely to act in the ways of Christ. The Republicans (stereotypically) tend to proclaim "Family values!" yet to date have done more to help companies make life more difficult FOR families; right down to divorce as it's also a stereotype most divorces come about due to financial issues (e.g. husband or wife losing their job).

That IS a blanket statement and not entirely fair on my part either, so do take it with a grain (if not bucket full) of salt.

[Susej]

And your point is?

[January]

Derrida writes that if one wished to produce an adequate written description of religion today, one would need an institution as large as the library of France to house the text. So any one article like this can hardly avoid being underdetermined. Responsible writers know how to focus their thoughts on a carefully articulated topic.

To live up to my stated ideal, what one finds in traditional religion (that 65% who vote Republican like automatons) is backward looking, i.e., traditional. Hence it is not the mythos that is mistaken; it is change that is bad. Those opposed to change are those who have most of what they want.

Opposed to that are people who expect conditions--whether political, economic, or even religious--to evolve. They are political and economic and religious liberals. Progressives learn from mistakes rather than spend all their attention blaming others for making them.

See. It's clear. And no studies, polls, or turgid treatises are necessary. But what else can we expect from an academic.