Matt Yglesias makes it implicitly, Royal Wedding and the Case for Monarchy:
The point here is that it seems inevitable in any country for some individual to end up serving the functional role of the king. Humans are hierarchical primates by nature and have a kind of fascination with power and dignity. This is somewhat inevitable, but it also cuts against the grain of a democracy. And under constitutional monarchy, you can mitigate the harm posed by displacing the mystique of power onto the powerless monarch….
If humans are superstitious and collectivist by nature (which I grant some would dispute) then the same logic would apply to an established religious order. Something innocuous such as…the Anglican Church?
Europe has become almost entire secular because each country has one official church that becomes everyone’s standard for “religion,” and which they leave if they don’t like it.
In America, it’s too easy to dogma-shop.
So I suggest we make America’s most successful home-grown religion, Mormonism, into our national church, and then we can be secular too.
The Royal Wedding angle is interesting, but I believe the real case for an established church can be made with funerals.
I flew back to England last week for a family funeral. The Church of England is magnificent. It gives you all the pomp and ceremony of an ancient religion without actually requiring you to believe in anything controversial. I’d bet that 90% of my co-celebrants would simultaneously answer “not really” to the question “do you believe in God?” and “Church of England” if asked their religion. It’s handy – but not really required – that the remaining 10% (possibly including the vicar) are true believers.
A ceremonial deist, I have long argued that the Church of England is the perfect religion for a secular age. It fills the God-shaped hole completely and I can totally Imagine something like the CofE growing out of Ceremonial Deism, the Official Religion of the United States since 1954.
The paradox that you can have both is the miracle at the center of ceremonial deism.
“You either got faith or you got unbelief. There ain’t no neutral ground.” – It’s not true. Dylan was wrong.
http://www.raggedclown.com/2009/04/10/dont-break-the-chain
I’m a bit surprised, too, that the Episcopal Church isn’t more popular for people who want church without religion. It has many priests that used to be Catholic, but also wanted to be married or female.
The story is told in Unitarian circles of the woman who attended Episcopal (by implication) confirmation and told her priest that she didn’t really believe the creeds. He told her, “We don’t require that you believe the creeds, only that you memorize them.”
The Episcopal church’s problem is that its members became too educated to believe in superstitious nonsense. The Anglican communion’s problem is that it’s big in places like Uganda that aren’t.
Europe has become almost entire secular because each country has one official church that becomes everyone’s standard for “religion,” and which they leave if they don’t like it.
descriptively there’s obviously something to this. but i think the exceptions in europe are bit enough to warrant re-examination of validity of the “supply side” case for secularization. in particular, you have nations like greece, malta and ireland, which are much more religious than the european norm and have religious monopolies. in contrast, you have cases like the netherlands which have had religious pluralism de facto for centuries, and de jure for a century, and which are extremely secular. though one issue is that even in european states without one state church the prominent religions often get some support.
I’m not so sold on the Anglican Church. Of late, it’s leaders have been noxious leftists, ever eager to inject themselves into political cultural matters that they have no business commenting on.
Instead of standing up for their traditions, they have a nasty tendency to try to “update” their practices. And, of course, its hierarchy has been utterly worthless when it comes to defending the native culture (except, ironically, for a few foreign-born bishops).
…Ceremonial Deism, the Official Religion of the United States since 1954.
Why 1954? The coins? The pledge?
Also, note that there have been plenty of non-monarchical societies that have lasted quite a while. The Roman Republic went for about 500 years. Switzerland has been around for a while, too. France has suffered a number of troubles, but she’s been a secular Republic for about century now.
the main 18th century skepticism of republics was their scalability. rome falls into this, because once it grew it basically turned into a monarchy (albeit initially an elective one as power moved from maurius to sulla to pompey to caesar) even before the empire.
I don’t know much about religion in the Netherlands or Greece but Ireland and Malta are just at different points on the same curve to secularism as England.
Malta has changed a great deal in this generation.
I nominate the Episcopal Church as the established church.
All I can think of is Florence King’s observation that the Anglican church got its start “because Anne Boleyn was a good lay”.
Soft/moderate religion isn’t just a means of providing toothless dogma for the masses. It also serves as a gateway to fundamentalism. It’s a two way street.
I nominate the Episcopal Church as the established church.
Great. I look forward to watching you and five old ladies trying to get some traction on that.
We’re far more likely to wind up the Roman Catholic Church or the Baptists as a national church. Really, Osteen’s mushy feel-good Pentecostalism or Warren’s help-yourself Baptism has far more national appeal than a bunch fossilized WASP’s patting themselves on the back for having girl bishops.
The troubles that brought down were avoidable, though. They arose of the patron/client structure of Roman civil society that empowered strong men like Sulla and Marius. I don’t think even the U.S. has that problem. We may face it, though, if we don’t get a handle on our immigration policy and begin to force a unicultural outlook on newcomers. At that point, a monarch probably wouldn’t help, unless he was a Trajan or a Hadrian–and they were not nearly as charming in TV interviews as Prince William.
Really, Osteen’s mushy feel-good Pentecostalism or Warren’s help-yourself Baptism has far more national appeal than a bunch fossilized WASP’s patting themselves on the back for having girl bishops.
Well, then, we can make a religious version of transhumanism and then make that the official state religion. Transhumanism is certainly superior to any other meme.
How exactly is the Anglican church innocuous?
The Anglican Church is more vanilla than the Catholics and less alluring than various other sects and thus was rather effortlessly turned into an irrelevant factor in Britain.
The Anglican Church in America of course managed to go from being a quasi established church in the early Republic to a complete non-entity for precisely the same reasons. It doesn’t take a hold of people in intrusive enough ways to maintain a regime through the community and it’s not pro-active or aggressive enough to compete successfully for people with faiths that are pro-active and aggressive.
State religions tend to become like everything else the state runs, lethargic, inflexible and profoundly unattractive and thus moribund. Catholicism copes a bit better because they are better at coercion.
Catholicism copes a bit better because they are better at coercion.
No, I have to disagree. Coercion was a factor in the past, but not really now. Now they have a lot of pomp and history that appeals to people of both low and high intelligence. The Catholics have been debauching their liturgy since Vatican II, they’re still nowhere near as bad as some of the awful abortions that have come after the Anglicans ditched Cranmer’s prayerbook.
I think comments here are confused between majority religions, state Churches, and State religions.
Catholicism is the majority in Ireland, the State religion in Argentina ( alone, I think), but most State *Churches* – with Sovereign as head – are protestant. Have to be. By necessity. ( With the exception of the Vatican).
Otherwise, carry on.
I’m with those who want the ceremony without the dogma. Ceremonial deism will be worth a look. The thing is, and this isn’t tongue-in-cheek, some people feel a real need for religion. A subset of those are also capable of faith. For the rest, who cannot believe though they wish they could, the trappings may offer an aesthetic palliative for a condition of wistful discomfort.
I like Anglican trappings, but also Catholic trappings. The music and stained glass and gothic architecture satisfy an aesthetic need. Maybe also a need for dignity, or something like reverence, and that need is hardly ever satisfied in a crass commercial democracy like ours.
Polichinello: About the prayerbook, a former Anglican priest I know said of the new BOCP, “Why would I wish to address the Creator of the Universe with language more appropriate for my barber.”
the main 18th century skepticism of republics was their scalability. rome falls into this, because once it grew it basically turned into a monarchy (albeit initially an elective one as power moved from maurius to sulla to pompey to caesar) even before the empire.
They arose of the patron/client structure of Roman civil society that empowered strong men like Sulla and Marius. I don’t think even the U.S. has that problem.
Yes, scale was a problem. And competition between patrician (or plebeian) strong men. Also importation of slaves from conquest, consolidation of free citizen farms into latifundia, and the consequent urban proletariat. Anti-royal feeling was nonetheless still strong until after Augustus. Perhaps when Tiberius disbanded elections, which by then had become pure sham.
Our Augustus, whenever he arrives, will try to do the same: consolidate real power while maintaining the forms of liberty. He will only succeed if we are either (1) as exhausted by civil chaos as the Romans were in 27 BC or (2) distracted enough by our modern, virtual circuses that we fail to notice the real cost of taking the bread. I somehow think the soft tyranny path is more likely, but the path of chaos has more examples in history (e.g., Napoleon or Hitler).
Augustus has already arrived,and his tsa are feeling your balls.
I’m with those who want the ceremony without the dogma.
To some extent, Unitarian Universalism fits this bill, at least for liberals. We need a version for conservatives.
It’s odd, the associations people make between religious affiliations and political affiliations. I expect that the associations are entirely contingent on local circumstances.
For as long as I can remember, the Church of England has been known as “The Conservative Party at Prayer” and yet Pollinchello asserts that their leaders are all noxious leftists. I doubt that either is true. I might grant that they lean more communitarian than individualist and I can see how that might conflict with the views of a certain kind of conservative in the States, but I don’t expect that are very far to the left of the historical center of British politics.
I bet, if scan the pages of a history book or glance at an atlas, that RC lean left as often as right, depending on the local politics.
As for UU, the mainstream protestentant churches in America are mostly hijacked by fire-breathing conservatives. UU is liberal by default and by virtue of the refugees from rabidly conservatives churches.
Yeah, in America the Episcopal Church used to be the Republican Party at prayer (that party nominated a member for President in 1944, 48, 64, 76, 88 and 92; mostly the years they lost). During this decade, three times they nominated cradle members who out-converted as adults.
Where I live, my local UU church is mostly interfaith couples and gays. Democratic party liberalism, diversity and white guilt are its articles of faith.
> my local UU church is mostly interfaith couples and gays
Where else are they going to go?
The episcopalians, lutherans and methodists in more liberal areas would probably take them in as well. In my experience UU types are the worst sort of agnostics and even atheists. They’re people who reject organized religion not because they think it’s false or exceedingly unlikely to be true at least, but because they think they can create their milquetoast liberal utopia in this life rather than the next. And that makes them officially worse than even most hardline fundies in my books.
With regards to protestant mainstream churches in Europe, they overall resemble their countries’ center-left parties in terms of their cadre. There’s some middle of the road types, even the occasional guy with center-right instincts mixed in with the left-wingers who range from social democrats to outright socialists. The German established protestant church has solid ties to the country’s Social Democrats for example, same is true in the Scandinavian countries I think.
…and yet Pollinchello asserts that their leaders are all noxious leftists.
The Episcoplian Church is undergoing a slow-motion schism as conservative members either break off or “swim the Tiber.” The silly ninny in charge now is Katherine Jefferts Schiori
Her wiki page is a study in modern Christian fatuousness:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Jefferts_Schori
Her vestments also look like some silly parody from a later Fellini movie.
In fairness, I should note that the more conservative leaning evangelical churches can be just as silly as the Episcopalians, sometimes more so. Out of courtesy, I attend my parents’ “Temple” when I’m in town. It has awful rock “praise” music and gaudy video backgrounds, all painfully trying to be “relevant” to the times.
Quote: “I’m with those who want the ceremony without the dogma.”
I suggest ambling through the Medieval and Renaissance section of the National Gallery whilst listening to Vivaldi on an iPod.
Ah – Susan. I enjoyed my first visit in 20 years to the Nation Gallery last week. I didn’t think to take Vivaldi with me.
I did, however go to Westminster Abbey, who providd me with an audio tour – music by Handel!
Well, I think most people confuse or equate aesthetic experiences with religious/spiritual (whatever spiritual means) experiences. My point was that you can have the aesthetic experience of great art and architecture and great music without sitting in a church for however long the service takes, and not on a Sunday morning when you’d rather be catching up on sleep.
Along the “secular-religious” and/or “pious/godless” axes, national character, and not “national character” (this term allegedly sent Wittgenstein into an apoplectic rage, but pace eius, national character does exist, if only in the form of the cultural programming we all absorb with our mother’s milk). According to the 2005 Eurostat survey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Europe_belief_in_god.svg), there are patterns that correlate with what sent the good philosopher into a tizzy. As you can see from the map, leading the way in godlessness are the Estonians and my own ethnic group, the Czechs. I do not know enough about the Estonian experience to comment, except that I have heard that in the USSR, Estonians were known for a particularly nasty sense of humor. As for the Czechs, their love of black humor is legendary. On my mother’s side I am 100% Czech. Although conventionally religious, my mother was far from orthodox. Her maternal grandfather was a veritable Richard Dawkins, thought that religion was “horse manure” and raised my grandmother and her siblings as “nothing.” Even so (or perhaps therefore) they all turned out to be decent and hard-working (which in my mother’s book was all that counted). My grandfather, too, whose mother was very different in temperament and devoutly, yea, superstitiously, Catholic, stood up for what he knew in is heart was right, as witnessed by the following episode: My grandmother, who as you will recall was raised “nothing,” was nonetheless willing to take religious instruction so that she could marry my grandfather in the Church to please her fiancé’s religious mother. But the priest had no interest, and told my grandfather: “Why don’t you marry a nice Catholic girl?” to which my grandfather replied, “I don’t love a nice Catholic girl, I love Barbara, and if you won’t give her instruction, you can take your church and shove it…” Well, in my Chicago-born grandfather’s first language, the… is do prdele, which you can run through Google translate. My grandparents ended up marrying at city hall. That is what I am made of. One of my sisters, however, takes after her religious maternal paternal grandmother Marie, and flew all the way to Dubrobnik (with a bus to Međjugorje) on a pilgrimage celebrating an apparition of her great grandmother’s namesake. As my great grandfather’s great grandson, I say that if the Blessed Virgin Mother of God and Co-Redemptrix wants to appear to you, she can bloody well do it in your backyard and save you the airfare to Portugal, France or Bosnia.