Religion As An Activity Engaged In By Consenting Adults In Private

Given the general havoc the sexual revolution has wrought across the society (in particular among the poor and working class) opposition to it is both just and necessary.

But I would add another viewpoint to your analysis. Militant secularism, which is really an aggressive form of anti-religion, is most entrenched among the educated elites of our society, what has sometimes been called the creative class. It is here that the likes of Richard Dawkings and Bill Maher find their largest audiences. I think class snobbery plays a part as well. Religion is seen among that section as being archaic and primitive, its teachings irrelevant in our brave new world, with exceptions made for those versions so watered down as to be essentially meaningless (I’m looking at you, Episcopalians!) Since they consider themselves as being on the cutting edge of modernity, disdaining religion and the religious can be seen as a way of confirming their feelings of superiority, setting themselves apart from those they consider lesser or inferior. It’s a status symbol and an excuse to sneer.

Definitely from a more evangelical perspective, but a valuable take on this question.

http://www.teampyro.blogspot.com/2013/01/to-use-scandal.html

“Let me venture a sociological hypothesis here: The new American secularism is in defense of the sexual revolution. Since the 1960s there has indeed been a sexual revolution in America. It has been very successful in changing the mores and the law. It should not be surprising that many people, especially younger ones, enjoy the new libidinous benefits of this revolution…Its beneficiaries are haunted by the nightmare of being forced into chastity belts by an all too holy alliance of clerics and conservative politicians. No wonder they are hostile!” (Peter Berger)

With all due respect to the erudite Professor Berger, it is hardly a great revelation that the sexual revolution has had an enormous impact on the religiosity of Americans and Europeans. But the Professor is being quite a bit too snide when he chalks this up to the desire of younger people to pursue their libidinous proclivities.

Surprised though he may be to hear it, horny young people are not a phenomenon of recent vintage. The Professor is far too steeped in Victorian thinking if he believes that it was not until the 1960s that unmarried young people were free to act on their libidinous urges. If he has doubts, I suggest that he read any number of the stories in Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales.” He might try “The Miller’s Tale,” “The Reeve’s Tale,” or even better, he might delve into the story relayed by the “Wife of Bath.” Somehow the Church and Christianity seemed to survive the bawdy and permissive environment of Chaucer’s era just fine.

If he prefers, Professor Berger might study, Andrew Marvel’s famous poem “To His Coy Mistress.” It can be found here,

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-his-coy-mistress/

The poem is perfectly emblematic of the sexual mores of England in the 1650s. Somehow the bawdy behavior that Marvel felt perfectly free to satirize in his poem and a thoroughly religious society managed to coexist just fine.

I think Professor Berger has missed the forest for the trees. It’s not the sexual revolution that began in the 1960s that has marginalized public expressions of religion, it’s the feminist revolution. What happened was not the sudden desire of young people to throw off their chastity belts as Professor Berger suggests. Instead, the new revolutionary thought was the unwillingness of women to allow religious authorities to control their sexuality.

There can be little doubt that one of the most prominent features of western religious ideology down through the ages has been the strange obsession of Judaism, Christianity and Islam with female sexuality.

If you don’t believe it, think about the utterly strange regulations in Judaism pertaining to copulation with a menstruating woman. Consider the bizarre regulations in Sharia concerning divorce, female ownership of property, the role of rape or the encouragement of female genital mutilation. Why exactly are Muslim women are encouraged to wear the hijab? In the Christian world we have the obsessive focus on virginity including the strange debate between Roman Catholics and Protestants concerning whether Mary remained a virgin for her entire life. Nor can we forget the disastrous ramifications of priestly celibacy, the unwillingness of Roman Catholics to allow female clergy or the disgusting ramifications of the concept of “original sin” which, of course, is the ultimate fault of the woman in the story. Perhaps strangest of all is the creation story shared by Jews, Christians and Muslims, which contrary to everything we know about procreation, has Eve being formed by the deity out of Adam rather than the other way around.

The real revolution that Professor Berger should reflect on begins with the advent of birth control which gave women the power to control their own reproductive lives without regard to the rules dictated to them through the oppressive power of ecclesiastical authorities. The increasing secularization of the Western world can be directly attributed, at least in part, to the ability of women to control their own sexuality.

Libidinous proclivities are not new, Professor Berger; neither is bawdy behavior. What is relatively new is that women, for the first time have sexual options akin to the options that men have always had. Women can now ignore arcane religious rules designed to control their sexual behavior with impunity. As a result, the role of religion will never be the same.

We can only hope that Muslim women can someday enjoy the same sexual emancipation that Christian and Jewish women now enjoy. Nothing is more likely to spur the desperately needed reformation of Islam and the Islamic world.

Oh, and one other thing. Libidinous proclivities may not be new, but we are entering a new era regarding them, in which any attempt at restricting them is wrong.

It’s very likely that the study of genetics will reveal curvatus in se to be, by and large, an astute formulation and way ahead of its time.

The Democratic Convention touched the void plainly and it will be interesting to watch the void faithful reap and ravel.

“In all these cases the authorities accused of violating the plaintiffs’ rights operate with a definition of religion as a private matter to be kept out of public space.”

The traditional value system alluded to in essay originates out of long human experience which has become encapsulated in traditional ‘religion’ ( in this instance Christianity). As religion has been challenged by rationalism and secularism, the values by which Christianity/Religion lays claim are attenuated and in disrepute for many; religion for many has been reduced from a vital, widely shared world view to secular disappointment with organized religion among the uninitiated – a routine view that may enable social patterns intimated in Religion As An Activity Engaged In By Consenting Adults In Private.

“The delicate balance between the two religion principles in the first amendment to the US constitution—no establishment and free exercise…”
–Peter Berger

The “delicate balance” nonsense is spawned by the confusion by America’s semi-illiterates who confuse “no establishment” with “no mention at all”.

The Lutheran Church is an example of an establishment of religion. An image of Jesus on the wall is not. Nor is a prayer said at the beginning of a school graduation.

I am an aggressive secularist, why don’t I get laid more?

Mr. Berger, I do not believe the American case of the teacher Ms. Silver, is to be fairly compared with the European examples. That is because the government employee, Ms. Silver, proselytizes in classroom to pupils who have no emotional or intellectual defense against such acts. This is not a public place, unlike most of the others. Silver’s collection of religious maxims and artifacts, however small, is out of place unless she is actually teaching religion. Period.

“He who sits in the heavens laughs.”

We think we’re building a new society when in reality it’s the same old abomination.

And when we finally get it juuuuust right, and finally eradicate that silly and ridiculous religion thing, the society will end. Suddenly. It’s not like it hasn’t happened before.

The fool says in his heart “There is no God.”

Well, I think the problem is that　she’s making her religion part of the classroom. As a former Muslim I can say I’d have felt uncomfortable if at a young age my teachers had been putting up prayer boxes and Christian poems and prayers around the classroom. Wearing a cross, no problem. Answering questions about her faith, no problem. Setting up her religion as a classroom “norm” is the problem.

Now a tolerant atheist, I am often made uncomfortable with the militant anti-religious. But I do think public employees need to remember that they don’t only serve those members of the public who belong to the same faith group.

And I don’t think it’s about the sexual revolution…there are plenty of secular reasons not to be wantonly promiscuous.

This was an interesting article, until he got to the point about the chastity belt. Huh?

In America in the 1960′s abortion, homosexuality and pornography were basically criminal offenses.

It’s against that standard that we have changed. This has nothing to do with chastity belts. Gimme a break.

As for (Judeo)Christianity, it was nothing if not a critique of sexual pagan practices. You can read that in any standard history. The New Testament focuses most on divorce, and women in general, who certainly in pagan days and to a lesser extent today (because of broader notions of equality) have been the victims of libertinism. But the theologians ware broad spectrum.

The Occam’s Razor explanation is that we are returning to paganism.

And if so, what does that portend? Per people like David Goldman and somewhat improbably now Joel Kotkin, it doesn’t look good.

The Jews, who focused on patriarchal family values and the Chinese, as well, are still going strong.

But the orginal pagans are gone. In the case of the Golden Age Greeks, who perhaps reveled in this the most, their run was particularly short.

We’ll see what the future holds in the West, and in the non-childbearing regions of East Asia as well.

But whatever happens, chastity belts will have nothing to do with it.

As one who is currently involved in resisting an attempt to obliterate any mention of Christanity at a ‘public occasion’ (a memorial service at a University founded by Christians), I see the legacy of the Bolshevik Revolution vastly more in evidence than that of the ‘sexual’ one.

Never forget … the secularist position is based just as much in faith (aka assumptions) as any spiritual worldview.

Unfortunately, the Establishment Clause has a loophole that the secularists take advantage of to push their faith as the One True Way … if you don’t name a supernatural Deity as part of your belief system, you are free to push your faith in our public institutions, with no disclaimers about it being other than conclusively-proven fact and reason.

And they push it, with a fundamentalist zeal that makes Baptist pastors look like libertines out for beads at Mardi Gras.

What drives this zeal, though is a simple human desire … the desire to not have your mellow harshed about your choices in life by credible criticism.

While this desire does drive the secularists to defend the Sexual Pyrrhic Victory, er, Revolution, this desire extends well beyond sexuality, to the full spectrum of choices in life … particularly when it comes to the credible criticism of consequence, which the secularists have been attempting to raise buffers against since the 1960′s if not before, often by taking others’ wealth by the coercive force of law to do so.

This also explains why conservative leaders are smeared by ANY means necessary, no matter how intellectually dishonest … for were they to gain credibility, the streets would be sticky with harshed mellow, even if the activity of such leaders is nothing more than a statement that “you know, that wouldn’t be prudent”.

IMO, this is why the anti-war movement gained so much support during the Bush years, only to dry up after 20 Jan 2009 … because to the foot soldiers in that movement, it was primarily about beating the Bush, more than it was about ending the war.

Here are a few things some Christians have been up to in the area of education that the professor might want to consider as he contemplates why many are not so enamored with Christianity these days:

1. Efforts to teach creation myths as facts in science classes and/or remove evolution from class.

2. Efforts to keep young adults ignorant about sex by not teaching sex ed. and substitutiing abstinence programs instead.

Is it any wonder why students and parents might have concerns about overt religiosity in faculty and staff in public schools?

WigWag: Great post.

“Militant” secularist, “committed” evangelical? How intellectually lazy can you get?
The “new” American secularism has, in my opinion, nothing to do with the sexual revolution: rather it is directly related to a growth in confidence in the scientific/ technological
revolution we are living through. Superstitious belief systems have taken a most decided battering over the past century or so, and to many people are now completely discredited. In the light of scientific knowledge religions appear as groundless as any other superstition (ghosts,fairies,goblins,black cats etc).But what would seem to really buttress secularism is the failure of religious faith to put forward a single creditable intellectual defense of its dogmas. Have the arguments of R Dawkins been comprehensively challenged and shown to be groundless, by anyone anywhere?

“But I do think public employees need to remember that they don’t only serve those members of the public who belong to the same faith group.”

Of course, Abdul has absolutely no evidence that anyone being persecuted in this account has done that. All that they have done is declined to be as ashamed of their faith as the anti-theists think they should.

Oh, and the Anti-Christian Leftists Union is far less concerned about Muslims praying on school grounds during school hours. Could it be because the history of Christian responses is less “explosive”?

Phillip,
The majority of the evidence supports the theistic pov. Darwin was a second rate experimentalist and a not that great philosopher. And if you want to know how he got so famous despite these flaws….Pet Rocks.

Humans are goofy/stupid or as the Bible puts it ‘sheep’.

” Pope Benedict XVI makes excellent arguments for choosing Catholicism as a belief system”

Excuse please. Should be Christianity instead of Catholicism.

Scientific reasoning has the definitive answer to the question is there more than what we can know in our existence? Doesn’t sound like you’ve had Philosophy 101 to me, let alone being widely read in philosophy/theology/science.

Philip, my problem with the secularists is that they refuse to acknowledge Callahan’s Principle of Leadership: a man has got to know his limitations.

As an engineer, I depend upon sound science to make my living … and what I am hearing from many so-called “scientists” today is mere agreement with conventional wisdom, especially when the Powers That Be wish to have that conventional wisdom reinforced in order to support their agendas … even if it requires leaps of faith/assumption to agree with that conventional wisdom.

Such as these have become what you decry, as much or more (since the object of their faith is a being with a well-documented record of error and mendacity) as those of us who hold spiritual worldviews.

Philip, of course there isn’t a single coherent refutation of scientific reason. And can not be, so even to look for it was futile and absurd. It is a strawman built by anti-theists that religious people deride science and reason. The only thing we, people of faith, assert, that every method has its inherent limitations, and scientific method has its own too. This limitation is indeterminism which permeates universe and makes impossible to reduce all events to their causes. And where causality breaks, scientific explanation is not anymore possible or sufficient, and Providence takes its precedence. This is important to cosmology, biological evolution, human free will, history and lots of other phenomena where no scientific reasoning can give us sufficient explanation of the most striking features of existence.

One of the reasons Professor Berger writes the most interesting blog at the American Interest site is that while the other bloggers who post here write mostly about contemporary politics, Berger has bigger fish to fry. He writes about broader issues in a fascinating way. I find myself thinking about his posts days and sometimes weeks after I read them for the first time.

Two thoughts come to mind about this post. First, I can’t help but wonder what the reaction would have been if rather than practicing an evangelical form of Christianity, Joelle Silver had been a Scientologist. Would those who are aghast at the idea that Ms Silber should be precluded from displaying posters advancing biblical messages and themes feel the same way if those posters contained messages from “Dianetics” or some of the other writings of L. Ron Hubbard? Somehow, I doubt it.

Secondly, while I suspect that he is unaware of it, Professor Berger is being unintentionally ironic when he attributes the putative desire of young people to cast away their chastity belts to the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

The irony is that an observer as sage and sophisticated as Professor Berger actually thinks a revolution took place in the 1960s that upended sexual taboos that were centuries old. If a commentator as wise as Berger is still be so inculcated with Victorian propaganda that he believes the sexual attitudes of the 1960s are new, then the Victorian ethos is still very much with us.

The “sexual revolution of the 1960s merely restored the attitudes about sex that have characterized society for thousands of years. It’s the sexual attitudes of the Victorians, that Berger mistakenly implies represents a baseline, that are, in fact, the anomaly. It’s not the only anomaly; in the English speaking world, the Puritan era was similarly anomalous, but for much of the past several thousand years, the attitudes about sex that reemerged in the 1960s were pretty much par for the course.

Perhaps Professor Berger thinks the sexual revolution changed attitudes about homosexuality in an unprecedented way. If he does, he should reflect on the Roman and Greek attitudes about homosexuality; the modern idea about gay relationships really can’t be all that modern if those attitudes would have been considered mundane more than two millennia ago. If references to the Greeks and Romans are too archaic, Professor Berger should read some of the poetry of Christopher Marlowe or even better, some sections of Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.” In “Song of Myself” when Whitman writes about “love root, silk thread, crotch and vine” what do you suppose he was talking about? Whitman died 70 years before the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

Those who think that “free love” is a concept that had its genesis with the sexual revolution should consult the work of the Epicureans; their attitudes were hardly the Victorian attitudes that many contemporary Americans seem to think had been the prevailing attitudes until they were upended in the 1960s.

There are numerous other examples. After Charles the Second was restored to the English throne after an 18 year period of Puritan rule, quite a bit more was restored than the British monarchy. Culturally speaking, England returned to its bawdy ways; loose attitudes about sex that had characterized English culture since before the days of Chaucer returned with a vengeance. If Professor Berger would like to get a taste of what that was all about, he should consult any number of restoration era comedies. What he will find is that all of them are sexually explicit enough to make a 21st century American teamster blush. One in particular worth taking a look at is “School for Scandal” by Richard Brinsley Sheridan (the play is not exactly from the restoration era, it was written a bit later but is a good exemplar of what the plays from that era were all about.)

Almost every play by Shakespeare is chock full of pornographic references and sexual innuendo that audiences in Elizabethan England (up to and including Queen Elizabeth herself) found hysterically funny. What made them so funny is that they riffed on the sexual attitudes that prevailed at the time. Contemporary English and American audiences, unfamiliar with the Elizabethan idiom usually have these references sail right over their heads. The knowing reader finds them everywhere. Those who would like help in deciphering the ubiquitous pornographic references in Shakespeare’s plays should get a copy of “Shakespeare’s Bawdy” by Eric Partridge. Anyone who reads it will never look at Shakespeare the same way again.

The point is that the sexual revolution of the 1960s was far less influential than Professor Berger or others imagine if Victorian values are still so prevalent that educated people consider those values to be the historical norm rather than the historical exception. Those who have commented on this thread complaining that the 1960s upended age old Christian values are mistaken; it’s not Christian values that were upended, it was idiosyncratic Victorian values that were upended.

Judaism and Christianity have managed to thrive for thousands of years in an environment where the inclination of people to follow their libidinous urges was par for the course. The fear of the chastity belt is not what is driving contemporary Americans and Europeans away from religion; that fear has never been especially relevant to the survival of religion.

What has injured religion in the Western world over the last 50 years is the new found willingness of women to tell their priests, ministers and rabbis to keep their hands off their vaginas.

“The “nones”—that is, those who say “none” when asked for their religious affiliation by pollsters—are a very mixed lot. One theme that comes through is disappointment with organized religion. There is an anti-Christian edge to this, since Christian churches continue to be the major religious institutions in this country. Disappointment then, or disillusion—but why the aggressive hostility?…”
–Peter Berger

There is another factor, that some of you are going to dismiss out of hand. And that is that Christianity, especially Protestant Christianity, has gutted itself in the sense that deeper, more hidden meanings and teachings have been systematically weeded out, so that intelligent people who outgrow the surface-level teachings have nowhere further to go. They feel betrayed because they realize the shortcomings of the surface teachings after having subscribed to them for a time.

Religions are like onions, with many layers of truths and teachings. In its preaching that the Gospel is so simple that anyone can grasp it, much of Christianity has effectively cored its onion, leaving only a very few outer layers for the masses and little of substance for the more advanced seeker. No wonder the folks who wake up and leave are disappointed. The power, beauty, universality, and growth enhancing tools that they seek are in many cases no longer there.

@Richie the Riveter: I think you’ll find that evolution is no longer a theory, but scientific certainty (not of course the same thing as a common sense fact). The actuality of evolution is at the heart of modern biology, which would make no sense (would not work)if evolution were not the case. I think you may be being led astray by the debates about what exactly is involved in descent from common ancesters etc. There is disagreement among such theories, but there is agreement about the central insight.
Also i think the word “theory” is misleading you:for example, the heliocentric theory of Copernicus,that the earth goes around the sun,are you suggesting that this is a “mere theory”?