Homo
sapiens is a religious species and for decades, formal religious
affiliation declined in America. A void was there to be filled and
The Cult of Obama became an overnight religious awakening.
Obamacism
could not have thrived in an era dominated by traditional religion.
Idolatry would not have taken root and the act of deliberately
cultivating worship would have been met with harsh disapproval. The
Obama Halo would have been recognized as blasphemous. The White
House's demand that Jesus's name be covered when the president spoke
at Georgetown--a demand the craven wafers granted without a
fuss--would have sunk every other politician's career. In another
era, celebrities would not refer to the president as lord and savior
and had there been a YouTube it would not feature videos of people
praying to a politician.
Why religion? It could be that we are genetically
programmed to believe in celestial affairs. As such, do we favor
religions that promote our survival and well being and shun those
that do not. Then again, maybe sociobiology doe not explain
everything.
Maybe a spiritual realm does indeed exist and religion
is our way of speculating on its nature while also safely harnessing
our spiritual exploration. Some, like the late Robert Anton Wilson,
are fortunate enough to “see God out of the corner of my eye.”
Some of us will experience a freakish moment where we blurt out the
lines of a TV show right before the character speaks his part. Most
of us witness just enough telepathy, clairvoyance and premonition to
make us say, “There is something more than the material realm.”
Why the decline in traditional formal religious worship?
When eggheads compile their list of most influential books or most
important books, they never include Raymond Moody's “Life After
Life.” Published in 1975, this book concerns case studies of what
would later be called near death experiences or NDE's. Never mind how
many copies were sold. This book opened the floodgates. Soon, so it
seemed, everyone's Aunt Zelda had seen the light.
It should be noted that NDE's became more common with
the advance of medical technology that allowed patients to come back
from a state of near death and tell all about their experiences. We
tend to think of technology as an opponent of spirituality but
defibrillators changed the ontological perspective of many a person.
Regardless of one's opinion of NDE's, they have shaped
popular belief and popular culture. No more physically rising from
the grave on Judgment Day. No more souls frozen in dormancy until
Kingdom Come. “Grandma saw the light right away. She reviewed her
whole life and it was a pleasant experience. She didn't want to come
back.”
A few people have undergone hellish NDE's, but most
comeback kids experience something unspeakably wonderful. It's not
just Lutherans or Protestants or Christians who experience the
conversations with deceased relatives, the journey through the
tunnel, the warm, comforting light and so on. Experiences did not
seem to vary between baptized and non-baptized, believer and infidel.
Why worship at The One True Faith if we all end up in
front of the light? Might as well sleep in on Sundays. There are many
roads to salvation. In the wake of the NDE phenomenon idiosyncratic
religions flourished. Traditional religions have not fared so well.
It is not just NDE's that have emptied the pews. Many of
us are critical of traditional religion for its focus on sexuality to
the exclusion of just about everything else. I would like to see
religions address public vs. private morality, property rights,
volition, voluntarism, temperance of plunder, cruelty for cruelty
sake and a boatload of other topics concerning the moral issues we
discuss on a daily basis. Religious leaders need not draw the same
conclusions I draw but they should at least mention the subjects.
More idealistic souls would like to see religious
leaders condemn war or at least submit guidelines as to when war is
moral and just. Other people would like to see environmental issues
addressed from the pulpit. Still others would like to see the clergy
at least examine issues of animal welfare. Unfortunately, the ethos
of the day is never on the menu.
I take evolutionary theory, or sociobiology as it was
originally called, with a grain of salt. It does not sufficiently
explain adoption of children genetically dissimilar to the parents.
It does not explain voluntary celibacy, voluntary sterilization,
homosexuality and other non-reproductive sexual practices. What
sociobiology does explain is how religions became obsessed with
matters below the waist.
In an era when venereal disease was rampant and there
were no cures and no means of prevention, sexual restraint was the
pinnacle of virtue. In an age when children of two parents were
unlikely to see adulthood and the fate of illegitimate children was
even worse, sexual mores defined the person. When larger battalions
were needed, sexual practices that did not produce future soldiers
were condemned.
Once more, technology challenges our morality. Condoms
and antibiotics make sexually transmitted diseases significantly less
threatening. Birth control options influence people's attitude
towards marriage. Universal access to indoor plumbing changes....it
changes a lot of things. One can shout “moral relativism” but
isn't moral relativism what the clergy endorse when they ignore the
previously mentioned hot button topics?
When a sect emphasizes sexual behavior as the gold
standard of morality, they will fill their pews with the timid more
than the virtuous. So too, the old, the feeble, the lonely, the
unwanted. They will reap a harvest of impoverished men and dowdy
women. Mostly, people who live a moral lifestyle by default.
Institutional religion has not weathered eclecticism
very well. In places like the rural South, rural Utah, the Middle
East and and Northern Africa, formal religion reigns supreme because
just about everyone is of the same faith. So too, traditional
religion does well in urban neighborhoods with tight ethnic
identities. This is especially true when those ethnic groups feel a
rivalry with people of a different faith. The Catholics of Belfast
unify around their perceived persecution by the British. The
Protestants of Belfast unify around their perceived persecution by
the Catholics of Belfast. Neither group seems influenced by
eclecticism.
Technology has not been kind to traditional religion.
Yes, we have televangelists and websites devoted to devotion but all
in all technology has been disruptive to worship as it was once
defined. The automobile might have given to the rise of the
megachurch but before doing so it gave rise to suburbs.
The deck got shuffled in the suburbs. When a kid grows
up in an Italian American Catholic neighborhood, he will probably
remain Catholic for the rest of his life. When an Italian American
grows up on a suburban street where the next door neighbor is Mormon
and his next door neighbor is Nada and his nest door neighbor is kind
of New Age and his next door neighbor grew up Catholic but then
married a Baptist but then married a Buddhist and then married
someone who is “deeply spiritual but not religious,” his
religious destiny is not so readily determined.
Spiritual values transcend time and place and
circumstance. How religions adapt to technology, mobility and
eclecticism remains to be seen. So far, religious leaders have not
figured it out. Religious trends are a fascinating subject but for
now, they are beyond the scope of our attention. Let us focus on the
decline of traditional religion and the spiritual void that is left
in its wake. For some people that spiritual void was filled by Barack
Obama.
American religions have slowly lost members, influence
and clout over the course of several decades. In 1948, Gallup
reported only 2% of the population
considered themselves unaffiliated with any religion. In 2008, that
number rose to 12%. This number taken by itself might not be so
alarming but the degree of involvement has decreased among the
“affiliated.”
Protestant and Roman Catholics have been hit hard.
Whereas the Mainstream Protestants have lost more members, the
Catholic Church has suffered sharper decreases in attendance and
participation. From Kenneth Jones' “Index of Leading Catholic
Indicators” :
Priests: From 27,000 in 1930 to 58,000 in 1965...
45,000 in 2002.
Ordinations: 1,575 in 1965...450 in 2002.
Priestless Parishes: 1% in 1965...15% in 2002.
Seminarians: 49,000 in 1965...4,700 in 2002.
Sisters: 180,000 in 1965...75,000 in 2002.
Parochial Grade School Students: 4.5 million in
1965...1.9 million in 2002.
The Sacraments: 45 million Catholic Americans and 1.3
million infant baptisms in 1965.
65 million
Catholic Americans and 1 million infant baptisms in 2002.
126,000 converts
in 1965...80,000 in 2002.
352 Catholic marriages in 1965...256,000 in 2002.
Sunday Mass Attendance: 74% in 1958 (Gallup.) 26.6% in
1994 (University of Notre Dame.)
Meanwhile the Protestants lost almost 5 million members
from 1990 to 2000.
This same period saw an almost 20% decline in all church
attendance.
In 2010, Southern Baptists reported four straight years
of declining membership. They also reported a 4.98% decline in
baptisms from 2009 <lifeway.com>
Every year more than 4000 churches close their doors
compared to just over 1000 new church starts.
<churchleadership.org>
We have focused only on Christians but Jews have also
grown more secularized. Estimates of non-practicing Jews range from
60 to 75%.
Near death phenomena, psychedelic drugs and pop culture
have spurred interest in the paranormal but the “other world” is
impossible to harness. One can do many things with paranormal
activity except institutionalize it. Spiritualist churches are
something like Lincoln's Ax, changing both congregation and meeting
place with such frequency as to question the institution's very
existence. Spiritualist churches do not have lifelong
multigenerational families. They usually rent space from function
halls to perform their rituals.
Americans had become Spiritualists in the sense that
they entertained fleeting, ephemeral interests in matters celestial
alongside their congregation of dilettantes. It was a perfect storm
of sorts. A religious species in a traditionally religious land,
spiritually stimulated but spiritually unanchored. Tinder awaiting a
spark. And out of the screen would pop this dashing figure who would
ask us only to “Believe.”
There is a free-floating assertion that the
non-religious are more rational, less easily duped, than the
religious. Unfortunately, not every atheist is Bertrand Russell, The
“Whatever” school prevails. Jesus is boring and god is like, old.
But Barack Obama is “The One.”
Religion can be a bit like eroticism. People return to
both activities because they enjoy them. But in both pursuits, the
object of fascination is not always so easy to find. Barack Obama is
to religion what the Playboy centerfold is to eroticism. Finally, the
fickle are pleased.
America has always been a hotbed for religious cults.
Nascent religions were usually subjected to a period of scrutiny that
could last decades. The establishment was traditionally skeptical of
charismatic cult leaders who lined feathered their own nest at the
expense of the gullible. The faithful were usually unfriendly to cult
leaders who sought worship for themselves.
The critics fell silent for Barack Obama. Truth is, a
lot of ministers, such as the previously mentioned Andrew Greeley,
were mesmerized by Barack Obama. If they did not buy into his
divinity, they did not challenge it either. Sure, he cultivated his
own adoration but who are we to judge? Wasn't Christianity just a
dress rehearsal for Obamacism?
There is a new savior in town.
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