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Religion in America
| Article
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19083 |
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Section : |
EDITORIAL
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| Issue
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1 / 1991 |
1,284 Words |
| Author
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Morton A. Kaplan
Editor and Publisher |
Our theme in Modern Thought this month is Religion and Society. This is an apt American theme. Most Americans believe in God and even in an afterlife. A plurality believes in the existence of the devil. Yet, despite the religious character of the American public, it would be difficult to find a more secular culture than that of the United States. Although there have been artists and literary figures of note who have been friendly to religion, our cultural and intellectual establishment is neutral if not hostile.
The lack of prayer in American schools is not direct evidence for the previous conclusion. As Dean Kelley's thoughtful article makes clear, very strong currents in American Protestantism believe that prayer in the schools would weaken religion. And few Americans would desire a religious test for public office.
Yet increasingly amoral and hedonistic currents in American society suggest that the supports and constraints religion once brought to bear on individual behavior are no longer respected. The process is even affecting religion itself, as the recent events surrounding some of our TV evangelists indicate. Part of this decline may be illusion resulting from the greater intrusion of the media on our private lives. But this very intrusion is likely to have amplifying effects by lending an air of legitimacy to sins that are so publicly extensive in scope or by demoralizing those who still believe in reasonable standards of private behavior.
The late comedian Lenny Bruce attempted to expose the hypocrisies he found in our religious institutions. But perhaps he overlooked the profound, though truistic, fact that "hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue." When the sense of shock is exhausted, the boundaries that maintain civility are weakened. The web of values that reinforce a sense of community are tightly connected to the maintenance of liberal democracy and civilized freedom.
Our liberal democracy requires civility. When civility weakens, so does democracy. The violence of Nazi thugs before Hitler came to power helped to undermine the thin thread of civility that characterized the still predemocratic Weimar society. The increasing physical violence, artistic assault, and immorality in professional behavior that is coming to characterize American society is a perhaps less serious, but still real, threat to American democratic values.
Art museum directors were able at a trial in Cincinnati to convince jurors (against
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