This book was
discussed at Wise Guys on February 5, 2018.
The premise of this
book is that the United States was born a secular society, parented by the enlightenment
and midwifed by such luminaries as Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson. The
documentation of this heritage is the United States Constitution, which is
notably secular, grounded in human rather than divine authority. What bedevils Jacoby,
who appears to be a secularist, is the myth that the United States is a Christian
country, founded and supported by a belief in God. Her goal is to support those
who believe otherwise and to return them to their rightful place in
society. She argues for a return to
reason, the guiding principle of the founders.
Those who adhere to
reason have generally been termed secularists. The term was coined in 1851 to indicate
separation of church and state. However, Jacoby prefers to call
them freethinkers. The author then discusses the essential differences between
freethinkers and believers. Both can be said to be a religion. Believers
believe in God whereas freethinkers believe in a search for truth. She claims
that believers feel that they have found the truth whereas freethinkers are
still searching.
The book begins with
a discussion of the disturbing tension between religious and political ideas. The
essential issue relating to the founding of the country was the enlightenment notion
that in order to eliminate the divine right of kings one needed to eliminate belief
in the divine. Thus, one needed to
champion the idea that all humans have the ability to reason to guide their
lives. Jacoby advances these issues by discussing Jefferson’s Virginia Statute
for Religious Freedom, which was
a statement about both freedom of conscience and the principle of separation of
church and state. The book
consists of a compilation of freethinkers who have contributed to this country
in significant ways and thus reminding people of the proper appreciation of
them and arguing for a national goal of reason over faith. The author begins
with a discussion of the significant
impact of Thomas Paine, on the meaning of the country.
Paine
was English but became an American political activist who was varyingly
described as an atheist or deist. He published 2 influential pamphlets
embodying enlightenment principles and so laid the basis for the American Revolution.
The decline in the influence of Paine was related to the religious orientation
of the country which is discussed in the chapter headed The Age of Reason and Unreason. Although the nation was begun as a
secular state, there was a persisting tension between secularism and religion, eventuating
in the preservation of religion at the
expense of secularism. The Second Great Awakening, a Protestant religious
revival beginning in the early 19th century initially precipitated
this shift. Two centuries later this tension still exists, as when George Bush
signaled that religion might have achieved the ultimate victory, he delivered
an address at the National Cathedral following the traumatic events of 9/11. He
thus signaled that religion might have achieved the ultimate victory, That it resembled
a sermon more than a political speech was lost on no one. The favorable
response of the nation was reflected in the opinion polls revealing a 90%
approval rating for the President, indicative of the hunger for spiritual
comfort and solace following the terrorist trauma.
Despite
this religious current, the country has led the world in technological
advances. The author attributes this phenomenon to the secular components of the
society. The contribution of
freethinkers to social progress is highlighted in the fascinating chapter describing
the links between secularism and both abolition and feminism. It would appear
that many of the feminists and abolitionists were freethinkers. That feminists
would be freethinkers is not surprising when one considers that the Bible
downgrades women and links women with original sin. Similarly abolitionists
would favor freethinking since the south justified slavery by biblical references.
The centerpiece of
the book is a description of the Scopes trial, which consists of the clash
between freethinkers and believers. The trial was about a young teacher who
ostensibly violated Tennessee law prohibiting the teaching of evolution.
Clarence Darrow, an iconic freethinker defended Scopes, whereas William
Jennings Bryan, a fundamentalist, was on the side of the prosecution. Although
the teacher was found guilty, this judgment was overturned on a technicality. Ultimately,
the trial highlighted the national tension between religion and science and was
responsible for the persistence to this day of laws against teaching evolution in
schools.
The topic of
evolution is dealt with again in a more extensive fashion in a subsequent
chapter entitled Evolution and Its
Discontents, a takeoff on Freud’s book
Civilization and its Discontents, wherein Freud deals with his failure to
understand the basis of religious feeling. Though entitled “evolution,” the chapter
deals with far ranging topics such as Spencer’s Social Darwinism and the basis
for a schism between believers and freethinkers.
Social Darwinism is a theory that
individuals, are subject to the same Darwinian laws of natural selection as
plants and animals., and hence
one deserves one’s status in life. It is a justification for conservatism
and imperialism, the opposite of liberalism.
The final chapter of
the book represents a pivot for the author, from a simple description of events
and people to a blueprint for action, a preparation for the ongoing battles
between freethinkers and believers. She begins with a target, Antonin Scalia,
and focuses her ire on his talk at the University of Chicago School of Divinity.
an event illustrating a perfect example
of the rupture of the wall between church and state. The author focuses on
Scalia’s support for capital punishment, which is rooted in the Bible rather than
in morality born of reason. She then
calls attention to Scalia’s supposed evidence that the United States was
founded on religion including the repeated invocation of the nation’s support
of the divine, such as repeated references to God on coins, and the Pledge of Allegiance.
Jacoby points out that these invocations date not from the founding of the
country but to more recent times as a response to other issues. She alleges
that the Chicago speech attracted little national attention as a consequence of
the religious right’s success in putting liberals and secularists on the
defensive and the cowardice of politicians who fear being maligned as antireligious
when they stand up for the separation of church and state.
She charges that
religious correctness can be attributed to right-wing money and political clout.
More importantly, she refutes the allegation that religion is always benign. She
provides potent examples, noting the
denial of transfusions to children, by Christian Scientists and more importantly to Islam’s resort
to religion to justify terrorism.
What the author misses is that for many, belief
in God is not a binary condition, that one either believes or not. Often people
alter their beliefs with the challenges of living. The death of a child may
turn some believers to atheism, while others who are agnostic may find strength
in belief in God. A good example is Abraham Lincoln who is discussed in the
book in a chapter entitled “The Belief and Unbelief of Abraham Lincoln.” The chapter chronicles Lincoln’s turn to God
for comfort after the death of his sonWillie and the deaths of a myriad of
others in the Civil War. His views are
expressed in his second inaugural address, "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous
altogether.” Jacoby concludes that Lincoln was “poised between belief and
unbelief”, and found only a question. Others believe he may have found an answer. The issue relates to the paradox of religious beliefs,
which can vary on circumstances, and in particular the influence of uncertainty
on one’s beliefs. For Jacoby the answer is all or nothing.
Posted By Arthur Banner
