ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Thursday, December 2 2010

A growing religious chasm
By Colleen Carroll Campbell

Many people are spiritual but not religious. Going to church doesn't make you a good person; people who don't go are just as generous and charitable as those who do. And when it comes to religious belief, most Americans are not on the extremes; most are somewhere in the middle.

Repeating such politically correct truisms makes us feel better about the religious-secular divide that has characterized American public life since the 1960s. But we may need to reconsider them in light of a new book by political scientists Robert Putnam and David Campbell. The book, "American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us," analyzes data from numerous studies, including the Harvard-commissioned Faith Matters Survey, which tracked the beliefs and behavior of 3,100 Americans. The findings challenge much of what we think we know about religion in America.

For starters, that spiritual-but-not-religious mantra often intoned by Hollywood starlets is rarely heard among ordinary Americans. Only 4 percent of the least religious Americans describe themselves as very spiritual, while 80 percent of the most religious do.

As for church attendance, Putnam and Campbell found a strong correlation between regular worship and good citizenship. Frequent churchgoers are more likely to vote, work for political or social reform, volunteer regularly, give to both secular and religious charities, donate blood and even allow others to cut in front of them in traffic.

This "good neighborliness" edge holds true regardless of where one worships. It is linked to the "religious friendships" that believers form in their faith communities — friendships that seem to fuel civic activism more than other social connections. Going to church might not make you a good person, but when it comes to making you a good neighbor, it sure beats spiritual freelancing.

And what about that large, moderate middle we're always hearing about? It's not as large as we like to think. Americans are, on average, highly religious. A closer look at the statistics behind that average reveals that Americans are "increasingly concentrated on opposite ends of the religious spectrum," however, with "the highly religious at one pole, and the avowedly secular at the other." This God gap has an impact on voting patterns, with highly religious Americans swinging Republican and secular voters leaning Democratic. The gap does not apply to African-American Protestants, who lean heavily Democratic. Nor does it show up on every issue: religious and secular voters are more alike than different in their support for fighting crime, securing the borders and helping the poor. But it makes a big difference on social issues.

Conservative politicians frequently are blamed for ginning up feuds over abortion and same-sex marriage that matter little to the average voter. Yet the survey data in "American Grace" suggest that the split between Americans on these issues is real and closely connected to our religious differences.

The more religious you are, the more likely you are to support the right to life of the unborn and the traditional definition of marriage as a man-woman union. You are also more likely to consider these issues important and to mobilize around them, which is why Republicans fare well when social issues take center stage in an election. That's something GOP strategists should keep in mind the next time they are tempted to downplay the concerns of values voters to win an election.

Despite stereotypes of values voters as ignorant and easily led, Putnam and Campbell found that many highly religious, politically conservative Americans also are highly educated. College graduates actually are more likely than their working-class counterparts to attend church, they note, "and those church-attending college grads are increasingly likely to be Republicans."

For all the division unmasked in the surveys they analyze, Putnam and Campbell sound an optimistic note about the ability of Americans to make nice despite our differences. We live in peace, they argue, because the people with whom we disagree about God and politics often are those we know and love: our friends, classmates, colleagues and relatives.

That's true for just about everyone in our religiously pluralistic, politically divided nation. It's also true that our differences are too deep and consequential to be solved by merely agreeing to disagree. Just as prior generations of Americans debated vigorously and publicly to reach consensus on pressing moral issues in their day, so we must do in ours. "American Grace" reminds us that constructive debates begin with honest acknowledgement of the religious differences behind our disagreements — differences that exist whether we like it or not.

 Colleen Carroll Campbell is a St. Louis-based author, former presidential speechwriter and television and radio host of "Faith & Culture" on EWTN. Her website is www.colleen-campbell.com.