Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

[Wade Riddick <wriddick AT usa.net>]

> I have often wondered why religious life in Europe has weakened so
> much. There are many factors, but wars between Protestants and
> Catholics are probably not an insignificant one. What often seems like
> ancient history from the vantage point of the US doesn't seem nearly that
> long ago to a great many Europeans, many of whom would revise a familiar
> biblical text to make it read: "See how they kill one another."

Religion has floundered in Europe for the same reason monopolies usually go extinct.  In almost every European country, the state/crown and the church were intertwined and inseparable.  When the government was overturned in political revolution, the church was attached and usually, to some extent, went with it.  As faith in God was tied to faith in the king, democratic revolution meant dumping them both.  Later, state subsidies for the state churches established in most countries lead to a general weakening of institutional religion for the same reason that government subsidies for certain American crops have made American agriculture less competitive internationally.  You can see this phenomena at work in Latin America today where Protestantism is rapidly growing at the expense of Catholicism.  Being insulated from competitive pressures for so many years has lead to an inability to adjust to market realities.  In America, the disestablishment of national religion - a doctrine which took a while to trickle down to the state level - lead to a competitive, free market in religion, more or less.  Individual churches might have failed, but the overall market remained resilient.1

The Europeans didn't actually toss out the great chain of being, though; they simply propped up "the common man" at the top of the chain.  The European state, by adopting far-reaching social programs, also provided direct competition for secular church services (which, frankly, were always inadequately provisioned for dealing with large-scale modern problems like industrial unemployment and universal health insurance).  In terms of secular goods, Europeans have no need of alms if they're poor; they get that from the state.  They don't even have to vote or profess faith in the state either (although England is taking more steps to squeeze a little patriotism out of recent immigrants and the French are trying too).  One might even say Europeans have less need of having children, since the pension system provides for them in old age - though I think there's more to the looming demographic bust than that.  Studies have shown that in places where weak states are unable to provide important social services, churches tend to be stronger and more vibrant (like, say, Lebanon).  The two are roughly inversely correlated - which might account for the almost visceral hatred for the "welfare" state seen among those on the militantly "Christian" right in the American political spectrum.  They see it as a form of un-Godly rent-seeking.  Blacks get welfare checks from Democratic politicians and turn out to vote for more Democrats (who happen to stop going to Church).  The dominant right wing narrative has it that the state must always grow in power at the expense of faith.  I don't believe either/or is the way it has to be.  Americans may be going to church less according to a new Pew survey, but thanks to the split between church and state we don't actually seem to disbelieve in God any more than before.  In surveys over the last seventy years, the New Deal doesn't appear to have killed faith.  This deviation from the statistical pattern of church/state power is true to a lesser degree in Canada and Australia.

On a related note, I detect a hint of nostalgia in discussions here about modern warfare - i.e., the idea that this was all somehow better in the past.  I've heard the attitude expressed in recent debate that warfare is somehow getting less civilized or more barbaric or more deadly.  While it may be getting less direct (UAV's spring to mind), modernity has also made it more accurate.  The 20th century was the first in which fewer soldiers died of accidents and disease than actual war.  In Iraq, many wounded soldiers survive injuries that would have killed them a few decades ago.  While the scale of war may have grown because societies have grown, the actual toll in civilian casualties is declining as a percentage of population.  Archeological evidence points to primitive warfare often consuming entire villages.  Nazis and Stalinists managed to kill a tremendous number of people over the years - particularly with industrial refinements like gas chambers and rail cars - but in terms of population percentages there's nothing quite like what angry, primitives from neighboring villages did to one another thousands of years back.  We may never shake original sin, but mankind is "evolving."


1.  It's interesting to note here that the Republican Party's 'pro-business' stance often comes at the expense of the overall market. Propping up individual businesses so they can't fail when they are inefficient doesn't do capitalism any good - neither does the anti-regulatory "pro-business" approach to mortgage debt that has left credit markets in meltdown.  Economic growth, median income gains and stock market returns - even credit market stability - all tend to suffer relatively under Republican administrations.  Although George Bush had one or two modernizing impulses - No Child Left Behind and immigration reform - they pretty much failed to meet their goals.  Instead of adopting a more modern economic philosophy and adapting to contemporary demands of the electorate, the Republican party has succumbed to its old impulse to concentrate power and attempt to repeal the New Deal (Social Security "privatization.")  Above all, one sees this in its "faith-based" initiatives where government channels money directly into churches for explicit support of specific government policies - unlike the previous compact where churches had to set up independent non-profits and follow antidiscrimination laws.  In my opinion, if this arrangement remains permanent it will threaten the state-independence of religion in America and thus its long-term existence.  As specific government policies fail, faith in church institutions backing those policies will naturally decline in tandem - and, frankly, churches are already suffering enough erosion from other quarters without this problem.  For other recent examples of rent-seeking, look at the privatization of IRS debt collection and Baghdad security.  These private "subcontractors" of government services can then kick back campaign contributions whereas the IRS and the military legally cannot.  Many of these "contracts" have been awarded without much in the way of competitive bidding.

2.  Ironically, atheistic Communists do this most explicitly - kind of like the Catholic church-hating KKK out-Catholic'ing the Catholics with their adoption of over-the-top vestments and extravagant titles.  It's funny how intense competition coupled with insecurity and a sense of historic grievance quite often creates a mirror rather than a rupture; witness, for instance, how Iran's desire to copy American military might has lead it to focus on building atomic bombs instead of concentrating on the forms of "soft power" that have really leant America global influence.