One of Thomas Jefferson’s most prescient arguments for the separation of church and state was that left alone to fend for themselves religious establishments would gather strength from the solidarity and dedication of their members instead of growing complacent under the aegis of the state. By arguing for separation of church and state, Jefferson (and his fellow Virginian James Madison) also hoped to distance the state from religious rivalries.
More than two centuries later, Jefferson’s argument appears to have been fully validated. The US has strong and thriving religious establishments of all creeds and religion is more prevalent in American society than in almost any other advanced industrialized country. On the other hand, the expectation that separation would keep the state out of the encroachment of religion has hardly survived the test of time. (About this in my next post.)
Let’s start with religious adherence. According to a 2018 survey, 41% of American Christians attended church services at least once a week, far ahead of their coreligionists in Western Europe. A Pew Research Center survey also revealed that religion was more important in the lives of Americans than in the lives of Western Europeans. When examined within the United States, these religious indicators are stronger in conservative than liberal states. So, the question arises as to whether the more intensive religious commitment of Americans is matched with an equally strong performance in various social indicators that reflect the influence of moral and hence religious precepts.
To answer this question, I checked various international statistics of recent years. UN data show the US with 20.8 abortions per 1000 women, higher than in the more secular countries of Western Europe. Do more religious states have lower abortion ratios (abortions per pregnancies) in the US? The answer is yes. Is this though due to religious attitudes or stricter restrictions in these states? The evidence I found suggests that abortions do not bear significant relationship to religious creed in the US, whereas an international study revealed that abortion rates are lower in countries with more liberal policies toward abortion.
What about divorces and out-of-wedlock births? In both, the US ranks ahead of almost all Western European countries. Within the US, divorces and out-of-wedlock births are in general higher in the South, South-West and the Mid-West than in the more liberal states of the North East and West coast.
Next, I looked at suicide and drug death rates. U.N. statistics show the US is ahead of Western European countries in both causes of death. With 314.5 drug deaths per 1 million, the US is far ahead of second-place Sweden with 81 drug deaths. CDC (Center for Disease and Control) data show that both suicides and drug deaths are higher on average in the South, the Mid-West and the Rocky Mountain states. New York ranks 23rd with fewer drug deaths than 21-place Florida. West Virginia is number one in that sad statistic.
Poverty and incarceration are two social ills which are closely related. The 2019 survey of OECD (Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development) places the US number 35 out of 37 developed countries in overall as well as child poverty rate (that is, 34 countries scored better). The US is also the world leader in incarcerations with a rate of 665 per 100,000 persons. Poverty rates are higher in Southern and South-Western states and incarceration rates are higher in Mid-Western and Southern states, regions ranking higher than the national average in religious adherence.
These results point to a paradox about religion in America. Despite greater religiosity and closer affiliation with religious establishments, Americans do not seem to perform better than countries known for their secular culture and politics. More tellingly, even within America, states known for their religiosity do not seem to perform better than more liberal states.
What do these findings tell us? Do they mean that stronger religious attitudes lead to worse moral behavior? Can we argue that Americans are more morally challenged than the more secular societies of Western Europe?
First let’s put to rest one claim often heard from religious people. Namely, that religious affiliation leads to a more moral life. This has been an old canard against atheists, agnostics and secularists, in general, without though any factual basis. For example, in a speech given at the University of Notre Dame, William Barr, the former Attorney General of the US denounced secularists for “moral chaos and immense sufferings, wreckage and misery” in the US. The above findings instead show that many of the serious ills of American society originate in states with greater adherence to religion. This association has been already established in the past.
But equally unfounded would be the claim that religious people are less morally inclined than others. What if behind the association of moral outcomes and religiosity are other factors that explain this correlation. Such, well-established, factors are less education, poorer economic and job conditions, and inadequate public services. The statistics I looked at are better in Western Europe to no small degree due to wider and stronger safety nets that result in less poverty and social alienation. These conditions then have a mitigating effect on poverty, crime, and suicides. Better drug rehabilitation programs also result in lower incarceration rates and drug deaths.
In the US, some of the worst statistics are reported in more religious states which also happen to have significant pockets of lower educational attainment, weaker economic conditions, lower quality jobs and insufficient public services. Many of these are the states where the “deaths of despair” have surged in the last 25 years (as explained in an earlier post).
What are then the really important conclusions we can draw from this analysis? First, the virtue wars between religious and secular people are entirely futile and counterproductive. Second, the road toward better societies is through public policies that produce better educated citizens with more opportunities for economic advancement and greater support from the state in coping with the vicissitudes of personal life.
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