Louisiana Republicans are moving to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in all schools in the state that receive public funding. Texas Republicans are pushing “Bible-infused” curriculum in their elementary schools. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently signed a law to put chaplains in its public schools, as an alternative to social workers or guidance counsellors.
It’s all part of a broader campaign by a coalition of policymakers, major funders, nonprofit organizations, Christian Right leaders and foundations to Christianize America.
This is happening at a time when Christians are dwindling as a percentage of the U.S. population. In the 1990s, about 90 percent of U.S. adults identified as Christian; today that number is 63 percent. That’s mainly because of the growing number of people — now at 29 percent — who identify as having no religious affiliation.
But the crusade to inject Christianity into our schools stands in direct violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
The Constitution declares: “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office of public trust under the United States.” Yet, many voters have expressed a de facto religious litmus test for holding high office.
According to the latest Pew Research survey, nearly half of U.S. adults surveyed say it’s important for the president to have strong religious beliefs. More than half, 51 percent, of Republicans and GOP leaners say it’s important to have a president who has the same religious beliefs they do. That number jumps to 70 percent for white evangelical Protestants.
Though the study shows 21 percent of Republicans and GOP leaners want the federal government to declare Christianity the official religion of the U.S., 83 percent disagree. Yet 44 percent of Americans either want to stop enforcement of church-state separation or have no opinion about this bedrock principle of American democracy. And according to Public Religion Research Institute’s recent study, nearly one-third of Americans say they believe that being Christian is an important part of being truly American.
The founders of the Constitution created a state to which people of all beliefs, and none, could be loyal. Out of that vision sprang the most determinately pluralistic nation in the world.
During times of stress, America chokes on its pluralism. This is such a time, partly due to changing demographic patterns.
In the 1960s, most immigrants came from Christian Europe, topped by Italy and Germany. By 2013, the top countries of origin were India and China. Others come from Africa, other parts of Asia, and Latin America, bringing many more Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and Buddhists to the U.S.
In the past, such demographic shifts have triggered dislocations in the social structure that were experienced as threats to the power of white, Protestant America.
Leading up to1650, population explosion in the Massachusetts Bay Colony brought new ideas that threatened the Puritan theocratic oligarchy. The response was the Salem witch trials. Then, from the 1720s to the Revolutionary War, a Great Awakening roused the populace and popularized a simplified theology. By the end of the war, the nation entered a moral slump, triggering a second Great Awakening — this time with religion enthusiasts. Religious fervor of this period peaked in the 1830s.
More recently, when the incorporation papers for the Moral Majority were drawn up in 1979, the country was well into another Great Awakening, in response to the sexual revolution, Black Panthers, secular humanism, abortion rights and other social movements. Today, triggers for right-wing moral outrage are same-sex marriage, LBGTQ rights and, as always, immigration.
These religious revivals sound the clarion call of the “good old days,” yearning for a return to “old-time religion” and old-time morality. And in these times, individual liberty suffers.
In the 1950s McCarthy era, it was the specter of “godless Communism” that brought hundreds of suspected “Reds” before his Senate Sub-Committee on Investigations. Today, it’s the suppression of women’s rights and voting rights
The rise of religion in the U.S. has also led to a rise of white supremacists and Christian Nationalists. Old-time moralism is often intertwined with anti-Catholicism, antisemitism, racism, anti-urbanism and xenophobia. Much of this is driven by fear — fear of difference, cultural invasion and replacement.
In this deeply divided country, there must be a nuanced approach that respects the full spectrum of sincerely held religious beliefs. The conviction that anyone has a monopoly on truth leads to apocalyptic thinking that divides the world into the children of light and the children of darkness. That leads to dehumanization, hate speech and violence.
The antidote to this fervor is to improve religious literacy so that the fearful can become comfortable with difference. Many mistakenly profess that religion in the curricula of public schools violates the separation of church and state. But the First Amendment doesn’t prohibit teaching about religion. It prohibits favoring one religion over another. The solution is to teach more about global religions, not just one.
America takes pride in its exceptionalism. What that must mean is that this country leads as an example of a pluralistic society where difference can thrive.
Georgette F. Bennett, Ph.D. is the founder and president of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding and founder and chair of the Multifaith Alliance. She is the author of “Thou Shalt Not Stand Idly By: How One Woman Confronted the Greatest Humanitarian Crisis of Our Time,” and the co-author with Jerry White of “Religicide: Confronting the Roots of Anti-Religious Violence.”