Review: The Culture of Disbelief

by   David P. Gushee                                                                                                                                Vol. VII, No. 2, February 1994

Of the tens of thousands of books published each year, few receive the personal endorsement of the president of the United States. Yet President Clinton spent much of the fall raving about one such book: The Culture of Disbelief by Yale Law School professor Stephen Carter.

Carter argues that this nation's political and cultural leaders fail to take religious devotion seriously, except perhaps as a threat to the republic. These leaders act as if there is something wrong with serious religious commitment. They profess outrage if religious people bring their deepest commitments into public life, as though non-religious people leave their commitments home when they enter public life. Carter sees the elite's disdain for religion as both out of step with U.S. history and culture and a major threat to democracy in the United States.

Carter begins his book by describing "some of the ways in which our culture has come to belittle religious devotion, to humiliate believers, and ... to discourage religion as a serious activity" (p. 16). He then considers the constitutional status of religion today, arguing that the separation of church and state must be defended, but that this must occur without treating religious belief as an irrational annoyance. Carter considers several life and death issues of our times – abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment – asking how religious convictions should figure in these debates. He rightly rejects the idea that the views of religious Americans should be ignored just because their positions are religiously rooted.

Carter addresses organized prayer in the public schools as well as other education related issues such as the evolutionism/scientific creationism debates, teaching of values, sex education, and funding for private religious schools. He maintains that the modern, morally relativist, and secular spirit of public education today is driving off many religious families who feel that in good conscience they simply cannot send their children to the public schools.

Carter's book is a warning shot across the bow of secular culture. The warning is this: If you pour contempt on the religious convictions of the majority of Americans, the results will be disastrous. Religiously committed Americans will either withdraw support from the institutions you control or will organize to take control themselves.

[BP. Gushee is assistant professor of Christian ethics at Southern Baptist Theological Baptist Seminary, Louisville, KY.]