God and the Compact

                If the social compact is defined as those values and ethical connections that bind us together as a society, apart from any legal or formalistic ties, then I think the majority of people might assume that religion would be the default starting point for those values.  I think there is good reason to resist that impulse.  I think that religion, and Christianity in particular, has made our democracy less inclusive and less tolerant.  There are those who would argue that those using religion to divide us aren’t true Christians, but try telling them that.  There are things in the basic structure of monotheism that are antithetical to a social compact that will sustain a democracy.

                I think that people should believe and worship whatever and wherever they choose, but the idea that it is our ‘Christian’ values that sustain us is more problematic.  In the first place, Christianity in America is a shrinking part of the demographic.  There have been fairly sharp shifts in the number of people who identify as Christian as compared to those who identify as ‘non.’  That shift is even more pronounced among millennials.  Even of the shrinking number of older, white folk who identify as Christian, only a fraction of those actively practice.  Throw in the 9-10 percent of people who identify with a religion other than Christianity, and we are almost at a plurality of people who are not Christian,  That plurality is only going to grow as older generations die off.  It would indeed be odd if not tyrannical to base the ethical and moral foundation of a democracy on something that a minority believe.

                An even more compelling reason to leave religion out of this is that monotheism in it’s Abrahamatic forms is inherently exclusive and not inclusive.  The values are supposed to be ‘universal,’ but access requires conversion and orthodoxy.  Every sect of every religion based on the covenant with Abraham believes that they are the chosen ones.  They believe their interpretation of the word is the correct interpretation, and they have spent large parts of the last two millenniums killing each other over the right to say that.  This ethical flaw is not an aberration of a few practitioners, it is the foundation of monotheistic values.  The “Christian” values that we lean on are already given as a reason to exclude other religions or discriminate against people on the basis of their sexual identity.  They won’t even sell the people they think are ‘sinners’ a damn wedding cake.

                This is no way to sustain a democracy.  We’ve added “under God” to the pledge and printed “in God we Trust” on every piece of currency we make, but that hasn’t made us a more democratic or more inclusive country.  In fact, things are trending in the opposite direction, as they often will in times of social change and upheaval.  If you put a monotheistic religion under pressure, it resorts to trying to ‘purify’ the culture.  The mayhem and bloodshed are never far behind.  A democratic compact has to have a foundation that cannot be reduced to sectarian claims.  We have to be more cosmopolitan than Christian.

                We find ourselves faced with certain collapse and extinction if we don’t find a way to rebuild a social compact that protects not just the diversity of our culture but the diversity of natural world.  The ethical foundation for a revived social compact is under our feet.  We live in it.  We have to learn to share and preserve it together.  Christians have been conquerors and marauders.  They thought they were ordained by providence to rule the land and all that it gave.  They all think, in one way or another, that they are chosen.  They are not the examples we should use to build a democratic future.