Is Christianity a Tranquilizer?

You may have heard about a controversial Andrew Sullivan column that ran in New York Magazine a little over a week ago.  It contained a number of different threads, but the gist of it was as follows:

  1. People need some sort of religion to make life meaningful;
  2. Christianity creates a separation between the religious and political spheres;
  3.  In the good old, pre-post-Christian days, politics were less tribal, because religion was a sort of safety valve;
  4.  But today, politics has become kind of an ersatz replacement religion, replacing Christianity, and has divided the country into two tribes;
  5.  The right-wing tribe isn’t Christian–it’s a Trump cult; 
  6.  The left-wing tribe is all about political correctness; and
  7.  The two cannot compromise because, by making their opinions a form of religion, the tribes make their principles non-negotiable.

Ezra Klein, probably somewhat offended by the gratuitous reference to Vox in the column, disagrees with Sullivan.  Is he right?  Yes, and I would make the following comments:

  1.  You can’t plausibly argue that Christianity has historically taken the fire out of American politics.  What about the Abolitionists?  What about the Civil Rights Movement?  What about abortion today?  People are going to take action (sometimes violent) on their strongly-held religious beliefs–it’s just natural.
  2.  Sullivan follows Ross Douthat, who has consistently made the point that truly religious people on the right voted for Cruz, not Trump, during the primaries.  Unfortunately for both of them, recent surveys have shown that Cruz voters support Trump even more intensely than Trump voters.  It is consequently incorrect to say that Trump adoration has nothing to do with Christianity.
  3. The connection between the Democrats and PC extremism is a caricature.  If it were true, the eight years of Obama would have been the mirror image of Trump.  That clearly isn’t true, and the mainstream of the Democratic Party is not some sort of PC cult; it makes deals and gets things done.
  4. I’ve discussed tribalism in American politics numerous times in the past.  What has really changed is: (a) the red side has lost the culture war, in the minds of a majority of the public; (b) the red side feels beleaguered and victimized; and (c) the red side has Fox News to remind them how put upon they are 24/7/365.