MORE POISON, PLEASE

Believe It, or Not (By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, 8/15/03, NY Times)

Americans believe, 58 percent to 40 percent, that it is necessary to believe in God to be moral. In contrast, other developed countries overwhelmingly believe that it is not necessary. In France, only 13 percent agree with the U.S. view. (For details on the polls cited in this column, go to http://www.nytimes.com/kristofresponds.)

The faith in the Virgin Birth reflects the way American Christianity is becoming less intellectual and more mystical over time. The percentage of Americans who believe in the Virgin Birth actually rose five points in the latest poll.

My grandfather was fairly typical of his generation: A devout and active Presbyterian elder, he nonetheless believed firmly in evolution and regarded the Virgin Birth as a pious legend. Those kinds of mainline Christians are vanishing, replaced by evangelicals. Since 1960, the number of Pentecostalists has increased fourfold, while the number of Episcopalians has dropped almost in half.

The result is a gulf not only between America and the rest of the industrialized world, but a growing split at home as well. One of the most poisonous divides is the one between intellectual and religious America.

What Mr. Kristof seeks to portray as new here--American anti-intellectualism--is in fact one of the defining characteristics of the Republic and maybe the single most important reason that we were able to resist the worst effects of the rise of Statism in the 20th Century and may succeed in reversing as much of it as we unfortunately adopted. To the extent that the "poisonous divide" has grown it is largely a function of the conspicuous failure of intellectualism and reason as organizing principles for a healthy society and of the enduring validity of the religious critique. The American experiment proceeds from a statement of faith--that "All Men are Created equal"--because reason is incapable of arriving at such a departure point, indeed denigrates it, Americanism must be hostile to intellectualism. The question for Mr. Kristof is rather simple: do you prefer France?

MORE:
Mission men (Rabbi Berel Wein, August 8, 2003, Jewish World Review)

The basic tenet of all of Jewish life, history, culture and civilization appears in this week's Torah reading: "Hear O Israel the L-rd is our G-d, the L-rd is uniquely one." [...]

The ravages of nineteenth and twentieth century secularism gutted this core belief of Judaism for many Jews.

Blinded by the false light of the promise of a better world, vast numbers of Jews forsook "the L-rd is our G-d" for new slogans, Marxist, secularist, Bundist, nationalist and assimilationist in their outlook. But, now at the end of the bloodiest century in human history, when all of the ideologies and empires that began this century as all-powerful and progressive now lie in the ashbin of history, all of these slogans and certainties are mockingly hollow.

New "Judaisms" have arisen that somehow attempt to preserve the Jewish people --- Jewish history and purpose, without a belief in the divinity of the Torah and G-d of Israel. Thus, the "new" types of Judaism have abandoned "the L-rd is our G-d, the L-rd is uniquely one." Whether a Jewish society can long survive without the Sh'ma as its basic credo is certainly the basic question of our modern world.

All of Jewish history indicates that such a secular, non-observant, assimilationist form of Jewish life will lead only to the extinction of Jewish civilization that the proponents of "secular Judaism" are attempting to preserve. [...]

Every Jew, every human being, should consider what the purpose of life is. This basic question is the one that modern man, now so technologically and educationally advanced, must answer satisfactorily in order for life and society to progress.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 15, 2003 9:23 AM