Recently, Ezra Klein took Andrew Sullivan to task for the latter’s essay “America’s New Religions.” Klein makes the claim that Sullivan is guilty of the very tribalism and moral blindness he condemns in his essay. To see if this is true, I’m going to do a study of both essays.
Sullivan begins by making the claim that we all have a religion, an animating force that makes us tick. The atheist is just as driven by his atheistic religion as the Christian is his. Is this true? I suppose we can make this claim, but only if we have an overly broad definition of religion.
Is the mindless consumer religious? If you define “mindless consumerism” as religion, then I suppose you could make this claim. But such a definition is so broad as to be meaningless. However, I find merit in Sullivan’s deeper point: Most of us are in search for belonging and purpose and this search compels us to find a tribe or a brand that defines our identity.
Another persuasive point Sullivan makes is that how we interpret events to find meaning defines our religious point of view. Sullivan writes:
In his highly entertaining book, The Seven Types of Atheism, released in October in the U.S., philosopher John Gray puts it this way: “Religion is an attempt to find meaning in events, not a theory that tries to explain the universe.” It exists because we humans are the only species, so far as we can know, who have evolved to know explicitly that, one day in the future, we will die. And this existential fact requires some way of reconciling us to it while we are alive.
This is why science cannot replace it. Science does not tell you how to live, or what life is about; it can provide hypotheses and tentative explanations, but no ultimate meaning. Art can provide an escape from the deadliness of our daily doing, but, again, appreciating great art or music is ultimately an act of wonder and contemplation, and has almost nothing to say about morality and life.
Sullivan goes on to explain that while he loved Christopher Hitchens’ critique of biblical literalism, such a critique does not refute the spiritual lessons we gain from reading scriptures metaphorically. There are spiritual and psychological truths to be found in scriptures. These biblical stories speak to us and explain our human condition of torment and our need for guidelines, boundaries, and moral constraints. Otherwise, we will fall prey to moral dissolution. So far nothing controversial.
But Sullivan’s next point is more ambitious. He makes the claim that we live in a post-Christian world where Christian virtues have been replaced by a grotesque religion of unbridled capitalism and materialism. Secularists with their naive faith in the narrative of human progress, as chronicled so well in John Gray’s The Seven Types of Atheism, is but a chimera. For Sullivan, Steven Pinker’s salvation in human reason is a dangerous canard. Christianity, on the other hand, warns us of the soul’s inclination for self-destruction. Reason has its limits as our minds are muddled by our fleshly instincts. Further, even if reason achieves our material goals, we are left haunted souls thirsting for meaning.
Sullivan seems to be arguing that we need an absolute as far as meaning goes to achieve any kind of happiness. But I’m not so sure. Meaning is not absolute. Many of us crave musical and artistic beauty and the spiritual contentment of knowing we have integrity. But I’m not so sure these things are absolute conditions of meaning that can be poured into the vase of a religious doctrine.
Another way we fill the "spiritual vacuum," as Viktor Frankl calls it, is find something related to meaning: connection. Erich Fromm in his book The Art of Loving observes how we are anxious until we find connection and oneness with other human beings, sometimes through "orgiastic states."
For Quaker writer Rufus Jones, absolute meaning is a connection with God. As he writes in his book Fundamental Ends of Life:
But there is nevertheless in our world a nucleus of real intrinsic religion—religion in spirit and in truth—which seeks God, as the artist seeks beauty, as the lover seeks the beloved, as the saint seeks holiness, for no ulterior and extrinsic purpose, solely to find Him and to worship Him and to love Him and to be like Him. Religion, when it comes to its full glory and “merges” from the complex forms that have gone under the name of “religion” is a fundamental end of life. It attaches to an ultimate reality. It seeks, finds and enjoys a great Companion, a loving Friend, a tender Father. It has its ground and basis in the essential nature of the soul of man . . .
I'm convinced of the sincerity of Rufus Jones' experience and of its implications. However, I’m also skeptical of many who claim they have found absolute meaning. Unlike Rufus Jones, they are too often bullies or delusional or fanatics or all of the above.
Curiosity about life and a reverence for life can be powerful life forces, but they are not the equivalent of finding absolute meaning.
It is at this point that perhaps Andrew Sullivan is committing an over simplification. But we will explore this further.
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