Rev. Dr. David P. Gushee
Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics, Mercer University
Chair in Christian Social Ethics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Senior Research Fellow, International Baptist Theological Study Centre
Past President, American Academy of Religion, Society of Christian Ethics
Moody: you wrote about the book by Michael Walzer. give me a two sentence summary of his thesis.
Gushee: Explicitly secular revolutionary democratic movements in mid 20th century Algeria, Israel, and India succeeded in creating new nations. Within a generation, the politics of each country had been roiled by religious movements that succeeded in remaking the culture and politics of each country.
Moody: Are there other countries, besides the United States, that this framework is useful in understanding things? European countries have undergone a slower, more intrinsic process of secularization; have they experienced anything like India, Israel, and Algeria?
Gushee: It appears to me that many right-wing parties in Europe and North America are attempting or dreaming of religious, or religiously-tinged, counterrevolutions: France is a good example. In my new book, I will discuss Russia, Poland, Brazil, and the US as examples of countries where authoritarian conservative-values religiosity has tremendous power.
Moody: How has the russian invasion of Ukraine, and the public role of Patriarch Karill shaped your understanding of these dynamics?
Gushee: Big picture: Russia’s opportunity to build a democratic, rights-oriented, pluralistic, rule-of-law political culture was choked in the cradle by Vladimir Putin. Before Communism, Russia’s political culture was Orthodox, Czarist, authoritarian. Then the ultimate secular revolution: Communism. And now a religious counterrevolution, Putinism blessed by the Russian Orthodox hierarchy. One needs to add in some nostalgic imperialism as well.
Moody; Has the Putin/Kirill effort in Ukraine, bungling as it is, damaged this secular revolution-religious reaction framework for understanding global politics? Will it, in effect, embolden the secularists agenda (led by the secular Jew Zelensky)? or is there a comparable religious element to the Ukrainian resistance?
Gushee: I think there is evidence that the bungled and bloody invasion has weakened religious-authoritarian politics at least in the region — Poland is a good example. It has also reinforced democratic, constitutionalist, rule-of-law government in Ukraine. Religion doesn’t have to be — should not be — absent from public spaces in democratic countries. But revanchist, exclusionary, authoritarian religion which is essentially an enemy of democracy, this must be named and weakened. And what we are seeing in Russia may be helping to do that.
Moody: What parallels do you see between the religious counter-revolution in Russia and the religious counter-revolution in the United States?
Gushee: Any parallels are inexact, because of the historically dominant role of the Russian Orthodox Church and the lack of any tradition of healthy disestablishment. When you go from domination to persecution, with nothing in between, there is no reference point for what the US built beginning in 1789 — let’s all it friendly, pluralistic religious disestablishment.
My book is going to argue, however, that there have ALWAYS been some Christian Americans who do not accept our paradigm. I have seen home-school curricula, for example, that teaches Puritan theocracy as God’s preferred form of government. We all know about the theonomists who want Old Testament law to be the law of America. These groups always seemed fringy, and on their own they were. But now they seem to have more company.
In an effort to be fair-minded, I might put it this way: the “secular revolutions” of the 1960s — perhaps beginning with the school prayer SCOTUS decision — began to radicalize many (white, especially) conservative Christians. Over the last 50-60 years these have become convinced that it is now a winner-take-all fight between godless secular liberalism and God-fearing conservative religiosity and morality. As it was key SCOTUS decisions that helped radicalize them, it is SCOTUS for which they have fought, and now won, control. And the new SCOTUS has begun to deliver the desired results.
Moody: Your framing of recent American history is compelling, except this: many people think the pushback against secular (federal) government began with the education decisions of 1954, that race more than sex or religion was the pivotal factor? (I have written this narrative myself!) Your thoughts?
Gushee: I have tried to argue (and will argue in the book) that it was all the social revolutions that we think of under the label “the ’60s” that have evoked this counterrevolution. That began with race, and the racial dimension has never, ever been absent. I do think it is reductionistic to consider that the only thing white conservative Christians have “really” been reacting to is the challenge to white supremacy and hegemony. They have also been reacting to changes in gender roles, sexual morality, etc. I think that what Trumpism did was to expose and even deepen the explicitly white supremacist and increasingly violent dimensiom of white conservative Christian reactionary politics. The thing that is so grotesque is that some of us have been fighting for decades to get white Christians to really confront our racism as a Gospel and ethics issue. For explicit or very thinly veiled white racism to now (again) be blessed by so many white Christians is disastrous. It’s like a complete reversal of everything positive that has happened in that regard since, say, 1954.
Moody: In Brazil, the counter revolution is led, largely I think, out of the pentecostal culture. And Pentecostal leaders have played a very large role in the Trumpian revolution, the claim of election fraud, and the desire for a more explicitly religious public square. How do you see the connections between the two countries?
Gushee; The connections between Bolsonarismo and Trumpism are very, very close, not just intellectually but organizationally. Operatives have flowed back and forth to discuss strategies, and both men have endorsed each other. In both cases, Catholic, evangelical, and Pentecostal Christians have banded togeher to build the religious counterrevolution. I am not a Pentecostal and want to be fair. But I must say that what I see of pop Pentecostalism in the political arena often really dismays me. There is a lack of contact with the political constraints developed in the Christian political ethics tradition, and a tendency toward being easily seduced by access to power, charisma, and God-talk.
By the way, where/how will you be publishing this?
Moody: I have written several articles about it in my weekly Meetinghouse newsletter. I’ll forward to you later.
One final train of thought. What is the longer term success of these religious counter-revolutions? anywhere? And a corollary question: have there been successful episodes anywhere of secular democrats and religious authoritarians government together or even living together?
Gushee; In India, they have the helm of the Modi government, and in Turkey, the Erdogan government. It looks to me like the current (fragile) regime in Israel does consist of this kind of secular/religious coalition.
An antidote to religious-fundamentalist counterrevolution is a secular/moderate religious coalition committed to democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Walzer says that attempting to sweep away religion and do pure secularism, especially in traditionally religious lands, helped create the conditions for religious counterrevolution. So I would say we need serious believers in religion to coalesce with serious secularists if all are equally serious about resisting authoritarianism and building/protecting democracy and the rule of law.
Moody: It is that collaboration that is needed in our country today. I think, as I read what you write (now and later) how I can pastor the kind of church that believes in this vision of shared governance. This secular-religious coalition is probably more important than Republican-Democrat, or Liberal-Conservative. Gives me a lot to think about, and write about.
Let me know when your book is out and we will do a live interview.
thanks a million.
Gushee: Thanks Dwight, for a very, very rich conversation.
