Matthew Breuer (Yale) on Faith and Values
March 17, 2012
Is Faith the Only Sure Foundation for Values in Personal and Public Life?
Faith has long been part of the American political foundation – it pushed colonists
to seek out our shores, Union soldiers to forge ahead when the war seemed turned
against them, and it was the source of inspiration to our nation’s greatest civil rights
leaders. But now, in the 21st century, appeals to faith have sidetrack this country
when our leaders attention is most essential. Faith is a great divider in American
politics of the present, and will be an afterthought for American politics in the
future.
Consider this – a poll from the Brookings Institute in late 2011 shows that a
majority of Millenials, regardless of religious affiliation, have a favorable view of
atheists, and a poll later that fall by Pew Research shows that 26% of Americans
ages 18-30 are non-religious, the largest ever recorded in history. The influence of
faith-based politics is waning just as soon as it finally rose to prominence.
But the reason faith is not going to continue to be the foundation for values in public life is not just because we’re getting less religious – it’s usefulness has run out. At the dawn of America, we needed faith as a foundation because the challenges we faced weren’t easy – overthrowing the British Empire, exploring a vast frontier, surviving world wars.
We’ve staved off the challenges of exploring the world. Instead of our faith imploring us to push onward, it’s a crutch to hold us back in time, to cling to an old memory of the way life used to be. We’ve learned and achieved so much in this world that a certain group of us have grown tired of that exploration – the constant quest for finding further truth is too frightful to follow. And so they stop asking to explore, and instead try to keep society stuck right where we are today, forever confined by the limits of our knowledge half a century ago.
Faith isn’t going to propel us to challenge our greatest tasks. On faith alone we’ve made grade strides, but every night people are still sleeping in our cities streets, hungry, tired, and uncared for - faith won’t stop that. Thought, reason, compassion: they will. We’ve sidetracked decades of policy by banking on faith to provide us solutions that don’t exist. We need people with the courage to dream – to embark on policy that is radically different, or to strive towards goals that seem impossible. Faith won’t land a man on Mars – careful consideration, science, research, and audacity will.
But the reason faith is not going to continue to be the foundation for values in public life is not just because we’re getting less religious – it’s usefulness has run out. At the dawn of America, we needed faith as a foundation because the challenges we faced weren’t easy – overthrowing the British Empire, exploring a vast frontier, surviving world wars.
We’ve staved off the challenges of exploring the world. Instead of our faith imploring us to push onward, it’s a crutch to hold us back in time, to cling to an old memory of the way life used to be. We’ve learned and achieved so much in this world that a certain group of us have grown tired of that exploration – the constant quest for finding further truth is too frightful to follow. And so they stop asking to explore, and instead try to keep society stuck right where we are today, forever confined by the limits of our knowledge half a century ago.
Faith isn’t going to propel us to challenge our greatest tasks. On faith alone we’ve made grade strides, but every night people are still sleeping in our cities streets, hungry, tired, and uncared for - faith won’t stop that. Thought, reason, compassion: they will. We’ve sidetracked decades of policy by banking on faith to provide us solutions that don’t exist. We need people with the courage to dream – to embark on policy that is radically different, or to strive towards goals that seem impossible. Faith won’t land a man on Mars – careful consideration, science, research, and audacity will.
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