For generations, Americans took for granted that if you want a happy and virtuous nation, it will have to be a religious nation.  George Washington thought so:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.  In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.  The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them.  A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity.  Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice?  And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.  Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

He also thought religion necessary to self-government:

It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.  The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government.  Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?

The idea that irreligion would shake the foundation of the fabric is very close to saying that it would bring on degeneracy, division, and culture war.

Some of my students find this claim plausible, and wonder whether we are in trouble.  Some of them push back:  “I’m not religious, and I think I’m pretty virtuous.”  Sometimes they are even offended:  “Where does anyone get the right to judge me?”

But that is beside the point, because judging people is not the issue.  There is only one important question:  Is what people like Washington believed true?  Does a nation’s virtue depend on its religion?

Interestingly, investigators consistently find that religious people differ significantly from non-religious people in self-reported moral behavior.   For example, religious people turn out to be much more likely to give to charitable causes.  Do they still differ if we subtract charitable giving to religious organizations from total charitable giving?  As it turns out, yes, they still do, very much.

Non-religious people also turn out to be more likely to excuse lying and adultery.  Of course it’s possible, say, that the religious people are lying about how much they lie.  Even so, wouldn’t people be more likely to do what they consider acceptable than what they don’t?

But if we want to understand the culture wars, we still haven’t reached the heart of the matter.  Sure, non-religious people report higher levels of such conduct as unfaithfulness to their marital vows.  But how exactly do they view the practice?  Maybe they aren’t falling below the standard, but using a different standard.

After all, even a religious person might fall into commit adultery, and if he does, he is likely to say “It’s very wrong, but I slipped and did it anyway."  Such a culprit isn’t challenging the principle that unfaithfulness is wrong.  He agrees that he has sinned.

Today, though, we also find people expressing very different attitudes.  Let’s list a few, ordering them on a scale from least hostile to most hostile to the norm of marital fidelity.

1.  "It's wrong, but it’s not very wrong."

2.  "Maybe sometimes it isn’t wrong."

3.  “Who can tell whether it’s wrong?  There are fifty shades of gray.”

4.  "Maybe it’s wrong for you, but right for me.”

5.  “What do you mean, ‘wrong,’ you bigot?  The whole idea of marital faithfulness is wrong and oppressive.  Up with fluidity!  Bring on polyamory!  Smash the patriarchy!”

Especially with that last attitude, we are well into culture war territory.  We are no longer talking about whether non-religious people have an easier or a harder time living up to a conceded standard.  Now we are talking about having a radically different standard.

Take another issue:  Abortion.  It’s one thing to say, “I had an abortion, and I wish that it had never happened,” or to say “I wonder if abortion might sometimes be excusable, but I’m not easy in my mind about it.”  A lot of people do say things like that.  But we’re not in Kansas any more, and haven’t been for some time.  The following views are nothing new:

•  Warren Hern holds that pregnancy is a disease, and the cure is to evacuate the uterus of its contents.

•  Eileen McDonagh agrees that taking innocent human life is wrong, but says that deadly force may be used against the living human in the womb because he isn’t innocent -- he “coerces” the woman “to be pregnant against her will.”

•  Ginette Paris writes that we need to “restore abortion to its sacred dimension,” calling it “a sacrifice to Artemis” and “a sacrament for the gift of life to remain pure.”

Here we really have crossed the DMZ.  When one writer thinks abortion is something like having a cavity drilled out, another that it’s something like executing a criminal, and another that it’s something like Holy Communion, we have passed into the realm of culture war proper.

Please notice that I’m not presently saying that such views are wrong, although it’s no secret that I think they are.  I’m only drawing attention to the fact that arguments like these aren’t about living up to traditional moral standards.  They are about profoundly rejecting them.

One of the things that makes the culture war so intense is that disagreements of the sorts which so roil us are also connected with social class.  The sociologist Peter Berger once quipped that if India is the most religious country in the world, and Sweden is the least religious country in the world, then American is a nation of Indians ruled by Swedes.  What he meant is that large numbers of ordinary Americans say that religion is important to them in their daily lives, but very small numbers of our ruling classes take that view.  In fact, although our elites may pay lip service to religion in order to string along the ordinary folk, actually they tend to be either indifferent toward religion or hostile to it.  Often they view it as irrational, divisive, and coercive, although of course they don’t view their own ideas as having such qualities.

But our ruling strata are alienated not only from religion, but also from the moral views traditionally associated with religion.  Take moral beliefs about cheating – in particular, political cheating.

Two widely publicized recent studies by the polling organization RMG Research defined elites as people with at least one postgraduate degree, earning more than $150,000 annually, living in ZIP codes where the population density exceeds 10,000 per square mile.  We’re talking about well-off urban professionals.  It isn’t surprising that the opinions of these people differed strongly from those of ordinary people over a wide range of topics.  The questions included whether respondents would rather cheat than lose a close election.  Only 7% of all voters said yes; 35% of elite voters said yes; and among those elite voters who talked about politics every day, a whopping 69% said yes.

Obviously, being willing to cheat to win a close election violates Jewish and Christian moral standards, according to which cheating is always wrong.  But again, although elite opinions fall short of these standards, I doubt that these elites view themselves as falling short.  It’s much more likely that they think the traditional standards are wrong.  They don’t believe in them.  Do I mean that they have they no moral standards?  Not necessarily.  My guess is that most of them are consequentialists.

A consequentialist is someone who says there are no such things as exceptionless moral rules, such as “Never cheat” or “Never lie to get your way.”  In fact, to a consequentialist, the traditional moral rules are at best just loose rules of thumb with lots and lots of big exceptions.  Why so many?  Because in the consequentialist view, the only thing that makes an action good is its results.  Biblical morality and the natural moral law agree that we must never do evil so that good will result.  But consequentialists think this is nonsense.  “What are you talking about?  If the consequences are good, then the act isn’t evil.”  There are some marriage counselors, for example, who say that a little adultery might be good for your marriage.

A former teacher of mine applied the consequentialist view to politics.  He thought that for political purposes, what he called “ruthlessness” is a virtue, and argued that doing wrong is merely a “moral cost” which has to be paid to get what you want, and that acting that way is praiseworthy.  Interestingly, although he taught for years at the university level, he quit to become a political advisor in one of our presidential administrations.

Now let’s take a step back.  If all this is true, then then what we have come to call the “culture wars” aren’t just a series of disagreements about isolated moral issues like abortion, prayer at the fifty-yard line, and biological men in women’s sports.  Why not?  Because the disputes aren’t isolated, but connected.

•  Beliefs about these things are connected with other moral beliefs.

•  They are connected with religious beliefs.

•  They are connected with social class and elite status.

•  They are connected with beliefs about other aspects of the world, such as American history.

•  Finally, they are connected with beliefs about reality itself.

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I’ve been studying, teaching, and writing about the natural law for years.  I used to be tempted to think that natural law thinking might provide a way to sidestep the culture wars, because a natural law argument doesn’t go “You should reach this conclusion because my religion says so.”  Instead it says “You should reach this conclusion for reasons which should be plausible to any man or woman of good will.”

Well, I still teach and write about natural law, and I still think natural law arguments are helpful and important.  But I no longer so optimistic about how far they help sidestep the culture wars.  They are involved in the culture wars.  The problem is that today, many non-religious people tend to disbelieve not only in divine revelation, as you would expect, but also the observable facts about human nature.  In fact, in the theologically liberal denominations, a lot of people disbelieve in these too.  They view themselves as having the liberty to redefine what it is to be a Jew or a Christian – largely because they view themselves as having the liberty to redefine everything.

Suppose a writer offers Aristotle’s definition of man as a rational animal – an embodied being which acts for reasons.  Today he is likely to be met with the response, “Who is to say what a human is?”

Suppose he alludes to what used to be the nearly universal consensus that a child needs a Mom and a Dad.  He is likely to be answered, “That’s just your biased view.”

Recently, in preparation to write a book I’ve just finished, I studied certain opinions in popular culture.  Among other things, I came across a math teacher who held that saying “Two plus two is four is a universal truth” upholds white supremacy.  You might think he’s an outlier, but it turns out that his view is actually rather common in educational bureaucracies and in schools which teach teachers how to teach.

Another fellow I discovered on one of the social media channels laughed, “Bro everything is arbitrary if we made it up and agreed upon it.”   What he meant was that words don’t refer to really existing things, because reality is just something we make up together.  He isn’t an outlier either.  That view is becoming common, even if not usually put so crudely.

G.K. Chesterton wrote that “There is a thought that stops thought.”  This, perhaps, is it.  For if there is no reality, then we can’t even disagree about it any more.  There is nothing for us to disagree about.  All we can do is spit, hiss, and arch our backs like cats.

“I think abortion is wrong.”  “That’s what you say.”

“I think abortion is right.”  “That’s what you say.”

So there is the lay of the land, at least as I see it.  And maybe you’ll want to answer me, “That’s what you say”!

But I hope not.