This morning, I was on a panel, so I couldn’t take the best notes, but I can give a summary of what happened. As much of yesterday was focused on Islam and the Muslim world, today we had a panel to help journalists in the Muslim world better understand religion in America and the role it takes in our public life. On the panel were Ari Goldman, the professor in charge of the religion program at Columbia University’s journalism school, David Briggs, formerly with the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, and yours truly.
It was very unnerving to be on a panel with men who have had years of experience, compared to my measly five. In fact, when International Center for Journalists’ president Joyce Barnathan introduced us, I couldn’t help but laugh, which she didn’t appreciate very much. But I found it humorous to hear Ari’s books and David’s books listed, followed by “Matthew has five years’ experience,” if only funny in a self-deprecating way.
Ari began with a general overview of American religion, saying that America is a broadly religious country, with 90 percent of Americans identifying with a faith, but only about 40 percent attending church, mosque or synagogue weekly. More than 80 percent of Americans are Christian and only 2 percent are Jews and another 2 percent are Muslim, he said, mainly quoting Pew, which is an American religion journalist’s best friend. (I say that a bit tongue-in-cheek, but reliance on Pew is too big a subject to talk about now.
He also mentioned the recent Mumbai attacks and how the American press covered the religious angles. He said that Muslims were again cast as terrorists and Americans, Britons and Jews were cast as victims, even though the story was much more complicated than that. Even the stories about Hindu-Jewish solidarity seemed to set them up against a common enemy.
Then, David talked about the American election, and how it revealed historic levels of acceptance of blacks, women and Mormons, but also showed we have a long way to go in accepting Islam. In an election where Obama won small but critical gains among nearly every major religious group by joining Republicans in talking about religion, both sides avoided being associated with major Muslim groups. He illustrated this with the example of the two women in Muslim headscarves who were asked to remove themselves from sight by Obama staffers at one of his rallies.
He said the media’s preoccupation with rumors that Obama was a Muslim lacked so little substance that it had a negligible effect in educating the public. He said the conversation about the New Yorker that cover that depicts Obama as a terrorist should have been directed more toward the casual association of Islam with terrorism than its impact on Obama. In other questionable coverage, the media also was preoccupied with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but with an appalling lack of context on the black church and black theology.
Lastly, I spoke. I was so nervous that I started my speech with a bit of self-deprecating humor, warning people that I’d probably start speaking faster and faster, and in a higher tone, which I do when speaking in public. But, all in all, I think I did pretty well. I talked about my generation of Christians and the future of the culture wars in America, and what they mean for international diplomacy.
I began with a bit of explanation of the “Me Generation,” with its advent of personal spirituality, elevating personal growth over religious dogma. The 1960s and 1970s saw the blossoming of New Age religion, increased interest in Buddhist and other Eastern teachings, and increased “smorgasbord” spirituality, with people taking a little
of this and a little of that. It was also the time of the boom of Christian publishing and non-denominational churches. That’s part of the reason why when you go to mainstream Protestant churches with withering attendance, you generally just see people in their 70s and 80s, without the younger generations. The baby boomers stopped going, and didn’t raise their children to go as much.
Currently, there are a lot of people in my generation who have no inherited church, and are seen as “seekers.” Rather then going for individuality, they are looking for community, but because they have no inherited church, a lot of times they will find a faith based on their socio-political beliefs. This is causing stratification. Mainstream Protestant churches are dwindling. Pew said in 2006 that 20 percent of young people say they have no religion, are atheist, or are agnostic. That’s more than twice the number for the baby boomer generation. Most of these non-religious people, whom I’m willing to bet are mostly agnostic rather than atheist, are on the liberal side.
But that’s not to say that there aren’t liberal churches that are growing. But the trope in them is localism. Unitarian Universalism is one the rise, and in every city, there are some mainstream and liberal nondenominational churches that are bucking the shrinking trend. Nevertheless, these are locally based, and unrepresentative of a national denominational movement.
On the conservative, end however, youth are coming together to build national movements. The conservative churches that are thriving – Mormons, Pentecostals and Evangelicals, rely heavily on the young and are very outwardly oriented. In contrast to their parent’s generation, young conservatives are becoming very outward-looking. Parachurch organizations among youth are becoming huge, such as Campus Crusade for Christ, Young Life, and Youth for Christ.
The difference is in youth attendance in these conservative churches versus mainstream churches is astounding. In 2001, the National Opinion Research Center of Chicago found that youth are twice as dominant in the makeup of conservative churches – 27 percent of the congregations of conservative churches were from Generations X and Y, while only 15 percent of mainstream churches were that young. That’s a huge difference, and doesn’t bode well for mainstream denominations.
Those that herald the end of the culture wars in America generally point to issues like gay marriage and women’s status, which my generation is more accepting off across the board. But they’re missing the big picture. Conservative Christian youth are ready to change the world, and are assembling in ways people are missing. I relayed the increasingly competitive language I’ve been hearing at many churches, including an analogy that religion in the world is like the Super Bowl, and either Christianity wins or it loses.
I think that the culture wars are far from over in America, and while social issues as we think of them may not be the most prevalent in the future, religion in the public sphere is going to take increased prevalence. Conservative Christian youth want increased facility for prayer in schools, religion in the public arena, and even Christian global outreach, with America becoming a Christian bastion in the world. They also really want to push for a unified Christian church that spans denominations. I think there’s a bigger fight on peoples hands than they realize.
