One day last week, as I made my way through my regular morning routine of news headlines and games— local paper, New York Times, Boston.com and finally, the Washington Post— I found myself looking at a tantalizing title, “Are Politics Replacing Religion in American Life?” [Washington Post, 5/9/24] The title connected to an introduction to an episode of a podcast called “Impromptu.” The podcast offers “frank, thoughtful conversations on the news” from Washington Post opinions columnists, offering a “before the columns are written” view into the minds of those who write for the Opinions section on “the stories that matter.”

In the intro to this particular podcast episode, containing a discussion among three columnists, the following was offered as a lure to hit the “play” button:

A lot of us had this idea that as religion declines, people will become more rational, reasonable, tolerant. That we will have less divisiveness. But I think one can make the argument that it hasn’t turned out that way.

We can look at the last 25 years, this precipitous decline in church attendance. And according to Gallup, it was hovering around 70 to 75 percent from the late 1930s to 2000. And then in the last 25 years, we’ve seen a sudden drop to just under 50 percent. So we’re talking about a massive cultural change. In that 25-year period, it doesn’t seem like the United States has become more consensus-oriented or unified. If anything, ideological and political fragmentation and polarization have risen. I think one way of seeing this is that political intensity is replacing religious intensity as the grounding force of what Americans believe in. We’ve become political believers rather than religious believers. [If you look at Trump rallies, sometimes they seem like religious events.]

The argument of a lot of secular or nonreligious people is that religion is divisive; it’s inherently polarizing. And the less we have of it in public life, the more secularized we become, the more we can move our politics to the realm of fact and objective analysis. We no longer have religious passions polluting things. I think that is a widespread perception. There was this sense of a kind of secular promised land where we have a more rational politics. But we don’t have that.

This little teaser left me with such a sense of outrage and bewilderment that it took days for me to hit, finally, the “play” button— although I discovered that the content of the podcast was not especially illuminating, beyond the introduction.

Where even to begin? Secular promised land? A politics that exists only in the realm of fact and objective analysis? As religion declines American society will become more rational and reasonable? Somehow religion is the only influence that causes people to be stray from reason and rationality?

Who are these people? Do they live in the United States? Have they ever looked at social media or the Letters to the Editor section of any newspaper?

One of the elements of the podcast that I found especially troubling was the suggestion that there have been people who have not only relished the decline in religious attachment and participation, but have done what they can to assist in the downturn. It appears that there are “secularists” who have conscientiously fanned any flames they can find to denigrate the “religious passions” that “pollute” our society, culture and public life. While I don’t think the podcast exposes the machinations of some sort of organized cabal of people dedicated to ushering in a glorious era of secularism, the columnists— at least two of the three— seem remarkably hostile to religion, religious institutions and religious attachment. Except for a sense of community, religious affiliation is little more than an affinity for superstitious nonsense.

The podcast discussion shows little to no regard for the benefits of religion in society. The columnists may have watched too many Trump rallies and interviews with Trump enthusiasts. And in that regard, I can see their point. But, there’s a lot more to this story. There are plenty of faithful, religious people who not only reject the “theology” of Trump and his people, but are engaged in significant work that brings hope, well-being, and love to individuals, families and communities around this country and beyond. We are not religiously “impassioned” people who pollute “things,” while seeking to be “polarizing” and “divisive.” In fact, many communities of faith are just the opposite, endeavoring to search for common ground and the common good, while also reaching out to the marginalized and oppressed. We deserve more from those learned columnists who claim to be so focused on the “stories that matter.”