The decline of religion is the catastrophe of my lifetime. During my first sixty years, if you’d forecast my saying this, I’d have called you mad. Religion was a weakness of humanity, no advantage. It lessened self-reliance, infantilized, imbued prejudice, separated mankind into warring tribes. The starchy Protestantism of my boyhood seemed to desensitize my parents and narrow their outlook. The earth shook when I married a Jew. My first wife’s parents felt the same way about her marrying a Christian. To hell with that!
By religion I mean what my OED means in its fifth definition: “Belief in or acknowledgement of some superhuman power or powers (esp. a god or gods) which is typically manifested in obedience, reverence, and worship; such a belief as part of a system defining a code of living, esp. as a means of achieving spiritual or material improvement.” Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, their aim is the same, to cohere human tribes into contented collectives, where individuals cooperate for the good of all. Myths and rituals vary but seldom a religion’s intent, to tamp unruly rivals into one. Other species coordinate instinctively; only humans need to be ruled. If the divine is our commander, who dares squawk?
I and my generation disliked being told what to do. We doubted God dictated hair length or prohibited pot-smoking or endorsed racism or promoted unjust wars. Gradually, inexorably, we quit going to worship services to be preached at. We’d worship God on the golf course or ski slope or, better yet, never mention Him.
The problem with such individualism is license leading to chaos. If both you and I do as we please, we’re likelier to collide than collude. Antagonisms take hold, leading to acrimony. A guy like Trump, my contemporary, dares society to stop him, acknowledging no higher authority. He accedes to no God, unless it be himself.
All religions command individuals to defer to the interest of the group, to “love thy neighbor as thyself” or the equivalent. By encouraging compliance and community, they make society pleasanter and more companionable for most. Everybody gets along at church, even if they hate one another’s guts.
One might think decent behavior was obvious, but it’s oh-so-evidently not. Observe Congress. These belligerent tots misbehave in ways no conscionable religion would condone. Imagine having to explain to people why truth, justice, civility, fairness, kindness, even freedom itself matter! Have any of these self-advertised Christian hotheads ever read the Sermon on the Mount!
Society slid away from religion when we needed it most. A century ago, community enforced conformity. Neighbors counted on one another. Machinery, mobility, economics corroded community. Losing touch with one another, we retreated into lonely cubicles. New congregations and creeds are springing up to compensate for our loss, like shoots through the sidewalk, but these are nascent, scattered. We continue our descent into discontent, grumping at everything: full wallets, empty souls.
Religion will reawaken – I’m sure of it – it’s the most durable of human needs – but only terror will convince us to combine. What will that terror look like? Impossible to predict. Doesn’t it feel we’re inching toward it, with all the fire-breathing rhetoric and dire threats? Surely, if the hooligans of January 6 are heroes, our world is turning upside down.
One can debate whether the decline of religion is the cause or effect of our despair. Both, I suspect. As a believer in the value of religion, though conscript of no creed, I hope for a new age of holiness, though it will cost us freedom. Prosperity will never cure misery. We must feel together again.