Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?

A while ago on this blog I discussed Philip Longman's excellent book on demographics, The Empty Cradle, which shows that world population is below replacement level in 59 countries (according to UN data) and will level off and begin to decline by the mid-twentieth century. By then it may be too late to reverse economically disastrous populations decline. It may even be too late now. A less central conclusion of that book was that the world is likely to become more conservative and more religious because secular liberals just can't be bothered to reproduce much.

Now, a new book, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? by secular, liberal Eric Kaufmann, has come out (although Amazon.ca does not have it yet for some reason), which confirms the conclusions of the Longman book and exhibits some serious angst about the earth belonging to the religious conservatives of all religions in the future.

Casper Melville at the UK's The New Humanist has an interview with Kaufmann and it is an interesting read. I can't help but think that the ground is being prepared for an aggressive liberal offensive aimed at defusing this ticking demographic time bomb. The exact shape that will take is not yet clear, but it could involve the secular state assuming a more aggressive posture with regard to the inculcation of values in children even against the wishes of parents. Anyway, here are some excerpts.

"Whenever demography is the subject a panicky headline usually follows. Generally these take the form of anxieties about overpopulation. “Are there just too many people in the world?” asks Johann Hari in the Independent. “The World’s population is still exploding,” confirms the Optimum Population Trust (patron David Attenborough). Though equally they could be about the opposite. “Is Europe Dying?” queries Catholic apologist George Weigel (before answering his own question: “The brute fact is that Europe is depopulating itself”). “Falling birth rate is killing Europe says Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks” is the Guardian’s offering. To these hysterical headlines let’s add another, especially for you secular folk: with birth rates of seven babies per women fundamentalists will take over the world. And here is the kicker: it’s all secularism’s fault.

This grim prognostication comes courtesy of political scientist Eric Kaufmann, a reader in politics at London’s Birkbeck College, and the author of the new book Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?, out in March from Profile Books. . . .

What Kaufmann is arguing is that the secularisation thesis, the assumption that modernity leads inexorably to a lessening of religious belief and a day when we are all rational humanists, is wrong – at one point Kaufmann approvingly quotes Rodney Stark and Roger Finke’s view that this is “a failed prophecy”. Further he is saying that there is something about our current form of liberal secularism that contains (here’s another headline) the seeds of its own destruction. Since the birth rate of individualistic secular people the world over is way below replacement level (2.1 in the West), and the birth rate of religious fundamentalists is way above (between 5 and 7.5 depending on sect), then through the sheer force of demography religious fundamentalism is going to become a much bigger force in the world and gain considerable political muscle. Literalist religious conservatism is being reborn and we secular liberals are the midwives.

But what kind of fundamentalism is he talking about? The book covers a wide array of sects from Haredis in Jerusalem to Hutterites in Montana and Salifis in Manchester. Some of the American and Jewish sects are hundreds of years old, but others – like Quiverfull and Salifism – are relatively new. What do they have in common?

“I call them ‘endogenous growth sects’. The defining features are that they have strong boundaries to the outside, they try to live segregated from the rest of society, they practice ‘in’ marriage, they have high fertility rates and high retention of members – it’s grow-your-own-fundamentalism. The irony is that in terms of growth this is the most successful model for religion in Western secular societies. This is not true for the developing world, or for the Muslim world, but it is for the West.” The reason why Kaufmann covers both older forms of fundamentalism like the Amish and Hutterites, sects that are not likely to put the fear of God into secularists because they seem so passive, so withdrawn and uninterested in imposing their worldview on the rest of us, alongside more aggressive and self-consciously power-hungry forms of evangelical Christianity and Islamism is because, in his argument, the older sects provide the model of success that is now being followed by the newer ones. To understand them, Kaufmann argues, we need to look at the older forms they are self-consciously aping.

. . .

This is the heart of the American case. While secularism will grow, a bit, and moderate religions lose out a lot, it is fundamentalism that flourishes. There is a polarisation taking place where the outer reaches – irreligion and fundamentalism – grow and moderate religion is squeezed out. The consequences will be, in Kaufmann’s view, to increase the friction between the two groups. . . . .

However the success-through-fertility of these groups has served as a powerful model for newer variants of fundamentalism with a far more sinister agenda. One such is the Quiverfull movement (The name derives from Psalm 127: “Children are a heritage from the Lord/ Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them”). Kaufmann describes Quiverfull as “backward engineered religion”, an attempt to replicate the successful growth of these historic sects, combined with an ambitious agenda for political power. Under the leadership of the infamous religious conservative Doug Phillips, son of Howard, who was instrumental in the early stirrings of the Religious Right, Quiverfull, a coalition of neo-fundamentalist protestant denominations and communities, dedicated to biblical literalism, deeply patriarchal and morally conservative and separatist in mindset, has a 200-year plan, a “self-conscious strategy for victory through fertility”, as Kaufmann calls it. “They look around and see the low birth rate amongst the secular population, and the success of the sects, and they say, ‘Hey, we can take over here and quickly.’
. . .

I ask him what he thinks we should be doing about it. Should we, for example, all be shagging for secularism?

“Well, I don’t think we want to get in a population footrace. It may be necessary for secular people to have slightly more children but it would be nicer if we could get fundamentalists to have fewer children.” A strangely authoritarian notion to fall from the lips of a self-confessed liberal. “Yes,” he admits, “imposing restrictions would be condemned as discriminatory. But there are carrots as well as sticks. . . .

Another scenario he imagines in his conclusion is that secularism might start to do a better job of winning over the children of religious fundamentalism. But at the moment he sees no statistical sign of this, and he seems gloomy about the prospect. Why? “Part of my argument is that religion does provide that enchantment, that meaning and emotion, and in our current moment we lack that. . . .

What Kaufmann and Malik are certainly in accord on is the need to displace the multicultural “celebration of difference” model of toleration with one that contains a far more robust sense of common values and a far more stringent rejection of reactionary fundamentalism. “We need a stronger sense of liberal values,” Kaufmann told me. “We should answer back to all fundamentalisms.”

I think it may be dawning on liberals that if they do not do something to coerce conservatives, or at least conservative children, to embrace liberal values, then liberal values may not triumph. But to embrace this level of social engineering is to abandon all vestiges of liberalism and become statist fascists. Will this split the liberal movement itself and create more conservatives?

Barack Obama Superstar: Do you think you're who they say you are?

"This is a picture of a painting that will be unveiled in Union Square New York on Wednesday. It’s called (ironically one hopes) The Truth, and is the work of Michael D’Antuono, who says in a statement:"The 30" x 54" acrylic painting on canvas depicts President Obama appearing much like Jesus Christ on the Cross: atop his head, a crown of thorns; behind him, the dark veil being lifted (or lowered) on the Presidential Seal." (Times Online - Faith Central - Bess Twiston-Davies)

This sort of messianic fervor has been attaching itself to Obama since the primaries and seems not to be abating now that he is president. What I want to point out is the irony of the fact that the so-called secular, scientific, intellectual class of properly left-wing views are deathly afraid (so they claim, anyway) of James Dobson and Pat Robertson, who they view as deluded, fanatical, poorly-educated wingnuts out to impose a religious theocracy on America.

Huh? They think what . . . They offer instead . . . this?

The One at Georgetown U.

Rod Dreher's take on the Obama at Georgetown University story is as good as anyone's. Amy Welborn has links to the evidence (before and after photos).

For those with better things to do than to follow breaking news on Obama's attempt to undermine the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in the US (see the post on Notre Shame), what happened was this: Obama wanted to use a room at Georgetown to make a speech. Some eagle eye noted that the letters IHS (the first letters of Latin words for "Jesus, Saviour of Men), which is the official seal of the Jesuit order (Georgetown is a Jesuit university), were missing during Obama's speech. Turned out that the Obama team asked that they be covered up as it was their policy that Obama would always give speeches with no other symbols in view - just American flags. So the damning evidence of Christianity was duely covered.

Secular messianism is more dangerous in the US than in most nations and some of its recent manifestations are downright creepy. Americans are incurably religious and will be long after Christianity has disappeared from its shores. Secular Americans who reject Christianity just can't help projecting a religious aura onto liberal progressivism and its messiah. Well, fine. Do it. Just leave the Church out of it.

But he wanted to speak at a Catholic university. And yet he wanted to have symbols of Catholic identity covered up. It is kind of like saying "I'd like to come over to your home for dinner next Thursday; do you suppose you could take down that ugly picture of Jesus from the hall?" Not very good manners, one would have thought.

It is hard to know who looks the worst here: Obama the secular messianic pretender, his handlers for their harsh and heavy-handed secularism or Georgetown's administration for its gutless fawning over Caesar. I'm pretty sure that when Jesus said "Render unto Caeaser what is Caesar's," he didn't mean for the Church to throw its own identity into the bargain.

On the other hand, reports are completely unfounded that when Obama walked into the room he put his hands on his hips, assumed his best John Wayne stance and growled: "There's only room for one Messiah in this a-here town!"

The Welfare State and Secularization

This article by W. Bradford Wilcox of the University of Virginia offers an explanation for why secularism is rising in America. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123690880933515111.html

The last bastion of high church attendance and influence of Christianity on public life, America has, for the last century or so, resisted the trends toward secularization in the rest of Western culture, especially Europe. However, he quotes a new study that shows that the number of Americans who claim no religion now stands at 15%, up from 8% in 1990 and 2% in 1962. Religious service attendance in the 25-41 age group is now about 25%, down from 33% in the early 1970's, according to Robert Wuthrow.

Wilcox names two explanations for the decline and why it is likely to accelerate. First, he mentions the decline in marriage. Increasing numbers of young adults are postponing or avoiding marriage and childbearing and nothing gets people out to church like having a family.

The other factor that he thinks will accelarate the trend in future is the drastic expansion of the welfare state under Obama. The 2010 budget will bring government spending to about 40% of the GNP, within hailing distance of the European average of 46%. According to Wilcox, "The European experience suggests that the growth of the welfare state goes hand in hand with declines in personal religiosity." Wilcox then explains:

"A recent study of 33 countries by Anthony Gill and Erik Lundsgaarde found an inverse relationship between religious observance and welfare spending. Countries with larger welfare states, such as Sweden, Norway and Denmark, had markedly lower levels of religious attendance, affiliation and trust in God than countries with a history of limited government, such as the U.S., the Philippines and Brazil. Public spending amounts to more than one half of the GDP in Sweden, where only 4% of the population regularly attends church. By contrast, public spending amounts to 18% of the Philippines' GDP, and 68% of Filipinos regularly attend church."

I think this is an accurate statement of the empirical facts. Although Wilcox does not mention the North versus South disparity in rates of secularization, the general model holds. The question is why is this the case? Wilcox proposes the following explanation:

"A successful Obama revolution providing cradle-to-career education and cradle-to-grave health care would reduce the odds that Americans would turn to their local religious congregations and fellow believers for economic, social, emotional and spiritual aid. Fewer Americans would also be likely to feel obliged to help their fellow citizens through local churches and charities."

Now there is something in this assessment, but I think it is too pragmatic and rational. It portrays people as attending church as a rational, economic calculation and that seems much too reductionistic as an explanation for a complex human behaviour like religious observance. Yet, this explanation, it seems to me, does go at least part way to explaining the decline of civil society in general in the welfare state, insofar as altruism is one of the prime motivating factors for participation in civil society. There is something to the "Let the government do it" attitude, especially if people perceive that they are being taxed heavily.

But we could also look at it from a slightly different angle and say that the welfare state cultivates in individuals a sense of entitlement and security that makes for self-sufficiency. This self-sufficiency is highly prized in liberal individualist society and is often called "empowerment." It is seen as a good, even though it leads to selfishness and a loss of community.

What I'm wondering is if this sense of security fostered by the welfare state could be viewed as a personal attitude similar to what the Bible means by riches or wealth. I know that there are many people in Canada or the US who are much richer than those on government assistance of one form or another, yet in comparison to over two billion global neighbours these people are extremely rich. The question is whether or not this kind of economic security qualifies as being rich in biblical terms. If so, consider the following verses:

"The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life's worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature." (Lk. 8:14)

"No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money." (Lk. 16:13)

"For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. " (I Tim. 6:10)

"Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." (Heb. 13:5)

Now, I realize that we are used to applying these verese to the wealthiest segment of any given society and implicit in that move is the covert denial that most of us are, ourselves, wealthy. This seems to be to be a rather pernicious little self-deception. I can imagine a memo from Screwtape instructing his protege to attempt to convince as many people in modern Western culture that they are, in fact, poor. At first, he might advise, get them to think they are "relatively" poor and then later quietly drop the "relatively."

It seems to me that we were not placed on this earth to vegetate, fornicate and prevaricate, but rather to struggle to earn an honest living, marry and raise children and be truthful about our financial status. It is a temptation to believe that we are poor, when we actually are rich. And it is a temptation to put our trust in the State for the provision of our needs instead of praying "Our Father . . give us this day our daily bread."

In this way, secularization is surely aided and abetted by the welfare state. But it is not merely a matter of not going to church for selfish motivations that were less than admirable reasons to go in the first place. It is far more serious than that. It is a matter of letting the Welfare State replace God and imagining ourselves as poor and hard done by when in reality we are greatly blessed. The irony is that the more we are blessed economically, the easier it is to be damned spiritually. Is it any wonder that the Bible as a whole is profoundly ambivalent about money and riches?