The conservative commentator, David French, recently drew attention to the big “God gap” between Republicans and Democrats, reported in a Pew Research Center survey.[1]While 70 percent of Republicans believe in the God of the Bible, the Democrats are much lower at 45 percent. Yet there is an even larger God gap within the Democratic party — 32 percent of white Democrats compared with 61 percent of nonwhite Democrats.
French discusses the fragmenting effects of the people, black and white, who exploit these gaps on both sides of the political divide. He suggests that “the American church is in desperate need of a unity that transcends politics.” French concludes, “As secular culture grows more contemptuous of people of faith, perhaps it times to understand that the ties that bind people of faith should be far greater than the sins that divide.”
Another commentator, Marl Movsesian, suggests that this new religious divide seems likely to make American politics even more bitter, particularly with respect to religious liberty.[2]He suggests that, if religion comes increasingly to be seen as an obstacle to human flourishing, sympathy for the free exercise of religion is likely to decline. For both French and Movsesian, the political divide on religious lines is a threat to the American polity.
French’s solution to this threat is religious unity. But French’s religious unity may also have unintended consequences, such as the restriction of religious liberty. For example, in another piece, David French suggests there is a hidden danger in organizing a nation around the concept of liberty — the danger of indulgence, the danger that a nation becomes individualistic.[3]French’s freedom is “the freedom to pursue what is good and true, to live what is good and true.”
As I discussed in It’s Sunday in America, the freedom to be moral in seventeenth-century Massachusetts was perfectly compatible with severe restrictions on religious liberty, including what was permissible on Sundays. One of the few things held in common by most American Christians is Sunday sacredness. In the concern for the American polity to hold together, it is possible to see an extreme threat to religious liberty, where religious unity unites with a conception of liberty that has no place for dissent.
Religious liberty may be under threat from ongoing fragmentation in America, as Movsesian notes. But it is also true that religious liberty can be endangered when the need for unity becomes more important than the need to preserve basic religious freedoms. In the deteriorating religious, political and cultural divisions of America, the pressure to find a point of unity across the divides is becoming urgent.
That is why the possibility of oppressive Sunday legislation is heightened by the convergence of calls for religious unity and ordered liberty. In addressing the problems of division, Americans must be careful not to endanger that most precious of all social goods — religious liberty. Once lost, religious liberty will never return (Revelation 13:15-17).
[1]French, David. “The Democrats’ God Gap: The American church is in desperate need of a unity that transcends Identity politics on the left and the right.” National Review, May 2, 2018. Accessed May 16, 2018. www.nationalreview.com/2018/democrats-god-religion-gap/
[2]Movsesian, Mark. “The New Divide in American Politics.” First Things, May 23, 2018. Accessed May 28, 2018. https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/05/the-new-divide-in-american-politics
[3]French, David. “The Patriotism of Deeds: We are free, but we should view ourselves as free to pursue what is good and true.” National Review, May 28, 2018. Accessed May 28, 2018. https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/memorial-day-remembering-patriotism-of-deeds/
