Whose Your Neighbor?
Several days ago the Pew Forum published the results of its latest survey on religious life in the United States: America’s Changing Religious Landscape. Following the trend revealed in its earlier survey, Pew found that the number of Americans identifying with mainstream organized religion continues to decline, while the number of Americans Pew calls “nones” [I coined and prefer the more positive term “spiritually independent”] continues to rise.
The question pundits are asking is Why? The answers fall into two broad camps. Those aligned with organized religion argue that this is a phenomenon among the young, and when these young Americans marry and have children they will rejoin the ranks of the organized religious. While this hope defies both data (the unaffiliated are growing in all age brackets) and logic (why would parents raise their children in religions they themselves have rejected?), it does allow the hopeful to ignore the survey and continue doing what they have always done.
The second category of responses comes from the secular and scientific communities who point to the fact that the more educated and scientifically minded one becomes the less one is apt to join a religion. While this position is supported by data, it assumes a causal relationship that may not exist. Are the spiritually independent independent because they are scientific, are they more open to science because they are independent?
My own take on this is different. What I see happening is a shift in consciousness among growing numbers of people that make the tribal religions less appealing.
One way to understand this is through the Bible’s teaching, Love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18). A few centuries later Rabbi Saul (St. Paul), following the teaching of Rabbi Hillel, claimed that the entire Torah is fulfilled in one command, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Galatians 5:14) Several decades later the author of the Gospel According to Matthew has Jesus say something similar adding to the command the love your neighbor the command to love God as well, saying that these two teachings summarize both Torah and Prophets. (Matthew 22:40)
In all likelihood the priestly writer of Leviticus understood “neighbor” to refer to his fellow Israelites. Paul, however, had something else in mind. Earlier in his Letter to the Galatians, Paul tells us that There is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave or free, male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28) Paul is saying that the emerging community of the baptized transcends the social divisions that defined society. While the Church ended up reinforcing these divisions rather than transcending them, what Paul envisioned is what is happening in our own time.
Jesus, too, challenged the definition of “neighbor.” When asked to define “neighbor” Jesus responded with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37). In Jesus’ time the Jews hated the Samaritans, and to claim that they could be good neighbors suggested that blood and tribe were no longer valid definitions of who is your neighbor.
What the Pew survey shows, I suggest, is that we are seeing another redefining of “neighbor” this time to include not only all humanity but also all life. With the widening of “neighbor” comes an ending of old tribal divides and a steady exodus from narrow tribalism to a more inclusive if not completely global sense of tribe. Or is this wishful thinking?
The Pew data suggests that the most narrow, fearful, and tribal religions are either holding steady or actually growing. If this is so, and I accept that it is, doesn’t it speak against everything I just said? I don’t think so.
Not everyone is ready to redefine “neighbor,” and those who are not will maintain the old ways. For example, if you are afraid of the LGBTQ community, if you fear a “Gay Agenda,” if you think marriage equality threatens your marriage or your right to marry someone of the opposite sex, you will naturally embrace a religion that fuels your fear and promises to protect you against that which you fear. But if you do not fear the other, you will leave those religions that do.
What we are seeing is the rise of two tribes: the contractive and the expansive. The former promises us endless war—cultural, social, political, and military—the latter promises us justice (social, political, environmental, etc.), compassion, and peace. As with the radical expansiveness of Hillel, Jesus, and Paul and the terribly contractive tribalism of much of Judaism and Christianity (not to mention the contractive tribalism that is tearing apart much of Islam), there is no guarantee which understanding of “neighbor” will win out.
While I choose to be optimistic, I am not Pollyannaish.
[For more about the spiritually independent please read my book, Perennial Wisdom for the Spiritually Independent]