Mark Steyn, in an interview with John Hawkins:
John Hawkins: In your opinion, why is it that Europe has become so much more secular than the United States, where Christianity is still strong?
Mark Steyn: The short answer is separation of church and state - and I use that phrase as it was intended to be used: The founders’ distaste for "establishment of religion" simply means that they didn't want President Washington also serving as head of the Church Of America and the Archbishop of Virginia sitting in the Unites States Senate - as to this day the Queen is Supreme Governor of the Church Of England and the Archbishop of York sits in the House Of Lords. Most European countries either had de jure state churches, like England, or de facto ones, like Catholic Italy. One consequence of that is the lack of portability of faith: in America, when the Episcopalians and Congregationalists go all post-Christian and relativist, people find another church; in Britain, when Christians give up on the Church of England, they tend to give up on religion altogether.
So the dynamism of American faith exemplifies the virtues of the broader society: the US has a free market in religion, Europe had cosseted overregulated monopolies and cartels. The other salient point is that obviously Europe does have a religion: radical secularism. The era of the state church has been replaced by an age in which the state itself is the church. European progressives still don't get this: they think the idea of a religion telling you how to live your life is primitive, but the government regulating every aspect of it is somehow advanced and enlightened.
Dan Darling has made this point to me in phone conversations. It's a good one, and "muslim refusenik" Irshad Manji has pointed out some of the interesting modern-day consequences. Off topic but apropos, Steyn also said this:
"What we're likely to end up with is backdoor piecemeal imposition of the bulk of the European Constitution. The EU's so-called "democratic deficit" - the remoteness of the unaccountable unelected governing class - is, as they say, not a bug but a feature. It was set up that way because, after the massive popularity of Nazism and Fascism, the post-war European elites decided that it was necessary to build institutions that restrain the will of the people rather than express it. In the long run, that's merely a more leisurely and scenic route back to where they came in."
Yeah, we've wondered about that over here, too. And as Germany bulldozes the monument to East Germany's victims in order to erase the past, the questions grow.
the US has a free market in religion, Europe had cosseted overregulated monopolies and cartels.
This free market was not created by the constitution or the Establishment Cause - it goes back to earliest colonial days. It was a product of community control of the churches (rather than the other way around) which was just as strong in Puritan New England as it is today.
As much as the ACLU likes to pretend that the constitution was the gift of progressive space aliens, the constitution did not create religious pluralism, but was created by it. America has always been a religious but anti-clericist place.
This is why America can never be a theocracy. Theocracy requires 1) an established religion, 2) a single dominant religious doctrine, and 3) a clerical class to administer and rule the state. It has never had any of those things, not even in 17th century Massachusetts. Some people would like to have #1, but #2 and #3 are right out of the question.
At the time of the revolution, England had all of those things. It missed being a theocracy only because its clerical class was not the ruling class (in spite of the monarch being the "nominal head" of the Church).
The closest we came to a theocratic-like state was Puritan New England, which today is full of people who promise to save us all from the kind of people they used to be. Not a coincidence, I think.
The separation of Church and State gives religion its respectability. Justice O'Connor:
Our interviewee Mark Steyn also had this to say in the Telegraph:
There aren't many examples of successful post-religious societies
If you see communisme as a religion than this is simply not true. And i think it is quite obvious that communisme was a religion with the party as church
For once I'd tend to agree with a that communism, if not a religion in and of itself (though what Trotskyism but a Leninist heresy?) definitely substitutes a lot of areas that are normally filled in by religion. I would also say that it is not the only political ideology that fits that description.
Theocracy is always a bad idea because (as we see in Iran) it dumbs religion down to the point where it becomes another function of government. If I don't trust the government when it comes to education then why in God's name would I want it dealing with such as the salvation of my immortal soul?
And how can one talk about post-religious societies and ignore China. Otherwise good article.
Joe,
Germany isn't bulldozing a 'monument' to the victims, it's a privately organized art exhibit located on privately owned land. The lease ran out, and the bank that owns the land reclaimed it by going to the courts when the organizers of the exhibit refused to clear it off by themselves. The duration of the exhibit was limited from the start.
Thanks, Ralf. That wasn't the impression conveyed bythe Medienkritik article. Appreciate the clarification.
You are welcome, Jow.
David Kaspar sometimes gets all excited about things that really aren't worth to get excited about. ;)
Is China a post-religious country? I know they are one officially but that doesn't mean that they are in reality.
a., China is post-religious in the sense that it has substituted official radical secularism - or, depending on your POV, a different state religion with Lenin, Mao, and Marx as the respective members of the Holy Trinity.
Some of us look at the trends, however, and think China may actually be a PRE-religious country. "Constantinization," anyone? We'll see.
Steyn says: "Most European countries either had de jure state churches, like England, or de facto ones, like Catholic Italy".
That really depends on when you're talking about, and is in any case a lot more complicated than Steyn implies. As the EU itself has lately found, generalising about "Europe" is likely to lead to mistakes.
In some states - Catholic and Nordic Lutheran particularly - the social power of the church may have been such as to make it overwhelmingly dominant, and difficult for dissenting believers to find alternatives, outside the largest cities.
But that is hardly a result of state establishment as such; more a sort of Microsoft effect in religion.
In other countries where there were alternatives available, if not in all localities.
Both the Netherlands and Germany had Lutheran and/or Calvinist and Catholic churches.
I can't say how vigorous other sects were on the Continent, but in Britain (excluding the complications of Ireland) there were and are two different established churches: the Episcopalian Church of England and the Presbyterian Kirk of Scotland. But establishment or no, there were also, beside Roman Catholics, Methodists (Wesleyan and Primitive), Congregationalists, Baptists, Independents, Quakers, Unitarians, Presbyterians, Christadelphians etc with chapels in almost every town. In some areas the Dissenters were easily on a par with Anglicans.
The question of why the movement to alternative sects appears to have declined in Britain (and Europe) relative to the US seems likely to have deeper social origins than simple "establishment", and having to do with, for instance, perceptions of social status, preferences for stability against change and dislocation, the lesser penetration of urban working classes by religions in the first place, etc.
And while radical secularism may have some influence in the UK, especially in setting the "intellectual" agenda of conventional thought - and even more so in France and othe countries afflicted by Catholic/conservative vs liberal/republican conflicts - it was arguably was and is far less influential among the working class than either the sober self-organization of chapel or chapter, or hedonism.
It's a very interesting, and possibly important topic, especially if it has relevance to "taming" religions that have problems with modernity. But I think Steyn's analysis is too facile to be of much use.