Religion Without Religion | Opinion

It was 1 a.m. and my friend Jason and I were still arguing the existence of God.

This used to be a regular conversation we had. He would cite articles, and I would remind him of the beauty in the faith we both grew up in. We met working at the same Christian summer camp. We were teenagers. Young enough to believe that we could change the world. Dumb enough to think that we could do it ourselves. We would go on jogs after dark and discuss the stories in Scripture. And then, like most young adults, Jason developed questions that were too big for me to answer.

He was still the wonderfully kind, deeply thoughtful, incredibly intelligent kid I sang church hymns beside. But he didn't think he believed in those songs anymore. And so, we would argue till after midnight. It's been a decade since then. Neither of us have changed our minds.

Jason is not an anomaly. America is growing less and less religious. Fifty years ago, if you asked U.S. adults what religion they practiced, 90 percent would have said Christian. Today, that number is down to 69 percent. For the first time, religious "nones" represent a quarter of the population.

For some people, this would be a good thing. "But if secularists hoped that declining religiosity would make for more rational politics, drained of faith's inflaming passions, they are likely disappointed," Shadi Hamid, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote in The Atlantic.

My friend Jason (who is still one of my dearest friends) would probably say that less religion allows for more free-thinking Americans. But what happens when fundamentalist Christians walk away from church? How does a religious country fill the God gap?

Hamid made the argument that America's relationship with faith has simply morphed ideological beliefs. Where Americans used to believe that our morality was based on church attendance, or Bible adherence, Americans are now looking toward politics to fill the void. "This is what religion without religion looks like," Hamid wrote.

It got me wondering, has the weakening of America's faith created a strengthening in political saviors? Are we walking away from angels and demons, to fight a battle of Republicans and Democrats, except with no messiah? Think about the verbiage we use when debating politics. We speak in religious terms of light versus darkness, but we are talking about student loan debt cancellation and universal health care. Democrats are not simply people who champion social programs for citizens, they are "baby killers." And Republicans aren't people who want limited government, they are "deplorables."

Eli Finkel, a professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, came up with a theory called "sectarianism," which he and his colleagues said is the tendency for political groups to create moral identities. "People on the other side are not just wrong; they're evil. People on our side who are not sufficiently pure are apostates," he explained.

I asked seminarian and pastor Mikey Archibeque if he noticed any religious undertones in the latest 2020 election. He said, "The taglines of their campaigns, on both sides, were designed to pull at the moral heart of America's inclination toward religiosity. Trump's 'Make America Great Again,' was a salvation-like promise, and Biden's 'Battle for the Soul of America' was a warning that we could be lost. It's two sides of the same coin."

In my book, I'll See You Tomorrow, released Oct. 4, I discuss in chapter 11 what happens when we have religion without religion; we bond based off who we hate. Some of our world's greatest teachers, like Buddha, Gandhi, and Jesus all seemed committed to the idea that love was an essential component to spiritual enlightenment. The Quran teaches that love is extended throughout creation. Buddha said that we should, "Radiate boundless love towards the entire world." Gandhi said, "Love is the strongest force the world possesses."

Jesus said to love even your enemies. In fact, in Matthew 22:37-39, Jesus said that the entire law or the 10 commandments of Christian doctrine could be summed up in two commands, to love God, and love humanity. The thing about faith that makes it so transformational to human character is how it encourages us to challenge our natural propensity for "us versus them." It defies "the other." It transcends the ego. My faith has taught me to seek a common humanity and to love my neighbor as myself.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:43-48: "But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?"

According to Jesus, religion, without love, is paganism.

Heather Thompson Day is associate professor of communication and an interdenominational speaker. She hosts a podcast with Christianity Today called Viral Jesus. She is the author of I'll See You Tomorrow and It's Not Your Turn.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.