c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Which coarsening of our culture shall we see and blame on secularism? It could be early-teen girls in mascara and tight skirts strutting their stuff. It could be mature women with plunging necklines. It could be couples expressing exuberant affection in public or same-gender partnering.

Myself, I vote for soccer parents shrieking from the sidelines at their kids. I vote for drug companies that lie to the public and then evade accountability through the tobacco industry tactic of endless legal action. I vote for politicians who sell their nation to special interests.

I vote for whoever decided to present Gene Simmons’ sex life as evening entertainment and to set normal people against each other to see who survives. Smirking prime-time ads for Viagra and lubricants count, too.

When I think of cultural coarsening, two more inches of exposed bosom seems far less troubling than teenage gangs, deepening poverty or a government that caters to the super-wealthy and tries to deny health care to children.

What is a same-sex partnership compared to mass starvation, genocidal rage,coal operators who ignore safety regulations, firefighters who die because government inspectors wink at violations, torture in American prisons, or irresponsible banking practices that mire millions in debt and mortgage foreclosure?

If the pious want to target obscenity threatening America, let’s look at subversion of democracy by the stealing of elections, wholesale denial of access to information, wars launched on fraudulent premises, and the deceitful use of fear as a political tool.

Patriots won’t defend American values by denying freedom to women. American values are expressed in the Constitution, not in the Law of Moses or the Quran. Forcing women into an ancient role as subservient to men and the cause of degenerate behavior, as Christian and Islamist extremists seem determined to do, is profoundly anti-American, not to mention a violation of those faith traditions themselves.

I know that millions of us are yearning for a deeper faith, for beliefs that make sense of a confusing and dangerous world, for a sense of God as deeply engaged with us in seeking a just society.

Teaching teenagers a few Bible verses and telling them they are better than their peers isn’t the way to that faith. Neither is abusing what Jesus actually said in order to sell a cheap “prosperity Gospel” to ambitious young adults. Neither is declaring conservative Republican Party politics as today’s God-bearer and unleashing angry white folks against their darker-skinned neighbors.

What we learned from Europe’s religious wars and from the more recent horror of the Taliban isn’t some historical footnote. It’s the reason we keep religion out of political life. Power corrupts everyone who holds it, but corruption and carnage increase exponentially when the religious hold political and cultural power.

Religious zealots can’t handle the reins. They don’t know how to compromise. They don’t know how to admit error. They don’t know how to encourage freedom and the many unexpected places freedom will lead. They don’t know how to promote science, learning, or creativity. They have no demonstrable interest in oneness and fairness.

If history teaches nothing else, it teaches that religion makes a mess of government and society when it has too much power. There is no reason to think that today’s theocrats would behave any more admirably.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus,” and the founder of the Church Wellness Project, http://www.churchwellness.com. His Web site is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com.)

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