Who’s a Dogmatist?

Joseph Loconte

Earlier this week the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released its second report on the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. It suggests that although many Americans consider themselves highly religious, most are not “dogmatic” in their approach to faith—at least, they’re not dogmatic as some pollsters define dogmatism. According to the Pew survey, about 70 percent of Americans with a religious affiliation say that many religions—not just their own—can lead to eternal life. Most believe that the teachings of their own faith can be interpreted in various ways. Pew Forum director Luis Lugo summarized the results this way:

“The fact that most Americans are not exclusive or dogmatic about their religion is a fascinating finding. Most people will be surprised that a majority of adherents in nearly all religious traditions, including a majority of evangelical Protestants, say that there isn’t just one way to salvation or to interpret the teachings of their own faith.”

On the face of it, this is good news for those who don’t like the idea of religions that make uncomfortable truth claims—that is, statements about God and our obligations to him that apply to every person of every nation on the face of the earth. Some sociologists of American religion, such as Alan Wolfe, author of One Nation After All, have spent much of their careers trying to redefine American Christianity in the soothing terms of the Pew survey results.

What does this tell us about the character of American Christianity? No one can really say. The test of anyone’s “orthodoxy” is not what he or she tells a pollster. It is how we live when no one is looking: whether we act with integrity when dishonesty beckons; whether we show patience and empathy when righteous indignation seems justified; whether we share the “hard” teachings of Jesus with a friend whose judgment of us we value; whether we ever pray, with aching hearts, that those we love will come to know Christ’s forgiveness.

There are plenty of “dogmatists,” this writer included, whose Christian beliefs often have little influence on their everyday thoughts and choices. That’s a problem of the heart, of course, which pollsters aren’t equipped to measure.

Fodder, Faiths and Worldviews, Society, Joseph Loconte, Wed 25 Jun 2008