Conscientious Objectors in the Culture War?: A Typology of Attitudes toward Church-State Relations

Sociolo~ of Reli~on 1997, 58:3 277-287

Conscientious Objoctors in the Culture War?: A Typology of Attitudes Toward Church-State Relations

Ted G. Jelen* Uravers~ of N ~ x ~ at Las Vegas

Clyde Wilcox Georgetown Universiry

In this study we investigate the various types of church-state positions taken by members of the mass public. We propose a typology of attitudes on church-state issues, and test that typology with a cluster analysis of a survey of residents of the Washington, D.C. atea. We confirm that there ate four main positions on free exerc/se and establishment issues. Attitudes toward questions of reli~ous establishment and free exercise ate substantially independent, and attitudes toward reli~ous free exercise are.not directly related to relig~osity or reli~ous orthodoxy. These findings suggest that the "culture wars" thesis may be empirically inadequate asa description of contemporary American ooUt~ .

In recent years, many analysts have suggested that American politics has come to be dominated by a religious/cultural cleavage, which may supplant political differences based on economic issues. The concept of a "culture war" has been advanced, which may pit the religious against the not-so religious (Kellstedt e t al. 1994a, 1994b), or the religiously "orthodox" against "progressives" (Hunter 1991). In this dualistic polity, "family values" may be regarded as the dominant dimension of political discourse (Hammond et al.

1994; Reed 1994) and differences between religious denominations are thought to be superseded by a moral consensus among the religiously devout (Kellstedt et

a/1994a, 1994b; Guth and Green 1993). Religious conservatives advance two rationales for the apparent politization

of religious and moral values. Some analysts (Reed 1994; Carter 1993) have argued that the political mobilization of doctrinally orthodoxy Christians is simply a defensive reaction to the actions of a national government hostile to traditional moral values. Permissive social trends of the 1960s and 1970s have been enacted into law, and enforced by an increasingly secular cultural and

* Direct correspondence to TeA G. Jelen, Department of Political Sc/ence, Universiry of Nevada at Las Vegas, 4505 Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, NV 89154-5029. We would like to thank Joseph Tamney and two anonymous reviewers, u/ao ma& helpful comments on a earlier dra[t of this paper.

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278 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

political elite. In this view, politically active Christians are simply defending their right to practice their religion as they see fit. In particular, some Christian conservatives argue that the government and larger society are openly hostile to religion, and that Christians who seek to practice their faith encounter discrimi- nation and legal proscriptions.

However, others have defended the political role of religion by suggesting that religious values should be voiced in the political arena because democracy requires an ethical or moral consensus (see Jelen 1995; Neuhaus 1984; Reichley 1985). Rather than viewing moral traditionalists as oppressed underdogs, this latter strain of thought implies that a majority of orthodox believers should, in a democracy, be able to enact their policy preferences into law. Many analysts in this tradition see the United States as a "Christian nation," ora nation based on a "Judeo-Christian tradition" (Falwell 1980), which is not required to remain neutral in matters of faith or morals. Williams and Demerath (1991) showed that a substantial proportion of the population of Springfield, Massachusetts, regarded a forro of"civic religŸ (which contained specifically religious values and beliefs) asa source of social cohesion and governmental legitimation.

Adding complexity to arguments about the appropriate role of religion in American political life is the fact that religiously-motivated political activity raises a host of Constitutional issues. The Constitution proscribes "an establishment of religion," and guarantees "the free exercise thereof." These simple phrases have generated an enormous amount of polŸ and scholarly contro- versy (for an overview, see Jelen and Wilcox 1995), and have suggested to some that certain forms of religious involvement in political affairs violates important procedural norms of the American constitutional order. Arguments about school prayer, religious drug use among Native Americans, and the teaching of "scientific creationism" (to name but a few) are not simply disputes about public policy, but raise fundamental questions about the nature of the American regime.

If the "culture war" metaphor accurately describes the conflict on church- state issues, then these issues should pit those Reed (1994) refers to as "people of faith" against secular citizens who oppose a public role for religion in the U S. Our purpose in this study is to examine attitudes toward issues of church-state relations among American mass publics. We are interested in the relationship between attitudes toward questions raised by constitutional issues of church-state relations, and ultimately seek to understand whether the "culture war" metaphor is an accurate way to describe conflict over the political role of religion.

We have described this material briefly in our recent book, Public attitudes toward church and state (1995). Our purpose here is to provide a more extended empirical analysis of the concluding thoughts of that volume.

A TYPOLOGY OF CHURCH.STATE POSITIONS

The sections of the First Amendment which relate to religion are the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses. Each has been the subject of an enor


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CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS IN THE CULTURE WAR? 279

mous scholarly and legal literature relating to the "authentic" constitutional role of religion in the United States (for an overview see Jelen and Wilcox 1995).

The general competing positions on the Establishment Clause can generally be termed "accommodationist" and "separationist" (see Cord 1982; Bradley 1987; and Kirk 1986). Accommodationists generally believe that the Establishment Clause should be read quite narrowly, and that this provision merely prohibits preferential treatments of particular religions. Government is, however, permitted to offer general assistance to religion, in a spirit of "benevolent neutrality" (Wald 1992; Monsma 1993). Indeed, a broader interpre- tation of the Establishment Clause (perhaps requiring government neutrality between religion and irreligion) might well violate the Free Exercise Clause. That is, prohibiting any governmental assistance to religion might be undemo- cratic, if a majority of the people desire such support. If government provides specific assistance to non-religious organizations, denying such benefits to religious bodies may well be discriminatory. By contrast, separationists tend to argue that the Establishment Clause essentially privatizes religion, by placing a "high wall" of separation between church and state (see especially Pfeffer 1967, 1979; Levy 1986). Separationists tend to emphasize the divisiveness of religious issues, and to argue that genuine neutrality between all religions is, for practical pur- poses, impossible.

Similarly, there are two general interpretations of the Free Exercise Clause. A "communalist" understanding of religious free exercise involves the belief that government may not single out religion for particular regulations. However, popular majorities may control the "excesses" of adherents of unpopular religions, and religious bodies are not exempt from laws which are otherwise valid and neutral (see Way and Burt 1983; Reichley 1985). By contrast, a "libertarian" reading of the Free Exercise Clause requires that religious belief and practice be accorded special protection agairist legal regulation (see Robbins 1993; Brisbin 1992). This latter understanding of the Free Exercise Clause might entaila commitment to the priority of religious belief over secular law. At the very least, laws which violate religious freedom would be subject to very exacting legal tests (see Wald 1992; Robbins 1993).

Of course, the actual practice of First Amendment law in the United States is not nearly as neat or consistent as these positions might suggest. Moreover, there is no necessary relationship between positions on issues of religious establishment and free exercise. With a certain degree of oversimplification, then, we can create from these positions on the religion clauses of the First Amendment a typology of possible combinations of positions on church-state issues. The typology is shown in Figure 1.

Those who take an accommodationist position on the Establishment Clause might take either a communalist ora libertarŸ position on the Free Exercise Clause. We refer to accommodationist communalists as "Christian Preferentialists," since such people would not object to certain forms of government assistance to Christian churches, and would also be willing to restrict at least some of the free exercise prerogatives of non-Christians. By contrast, accommodationists who take a libertarian position on free exercise issues we term "religious non-preferentialists," since they would favor neutral government


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assistance and affirmation of religion, but would allow all kinds of religious groups to participate in the public square.

H G U R E 1

A Typo|ogy of Church-State Positions

ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE Accomodationist Separationist

F R E Communalist Chrisitan Religious E Preferentialist Minimaiist

Libertarian Religious Religious Free Non-preferentialist Marketeer

Source: Jelen and Wilcox (1995).

Those separationists who take a communalist position on free exercise we call "religious minimalists," since they do not seem to value a strong religious presence in public life. Such people might well argue that religiously-based prerogatives deserve no special protection, and that government ought not provide any support for religious expression. Finally, "religious free marketeers" are separationists who take a libertarian position on religious free exercise. Such respondents appear to favor permitting a variety of religious groups to compete for adherents (see Finke and Stark 1992), while government remains entirely non-supportive. Indeed, for this group, the value of government neutrality extends to neutrality between religion and irreligion.

Of course, there is very little original about our conceptualization of possible positions on church-state relations. The typology described above closely resembles similar efforts by Robbins (1987) and Casanova (1994). 10ur purpose in this study is to examine the empirical adequacy of the fourfold typology of attitudes toward church-state relations. Are all possible combinations of establishment and free exercise positions represented in the mass public, or do the responses of mass publics fit more neatly into a dualistic division between secu-

1. Both Robbins (1987) and Casanova (1994) use the term "secularists" to describe respondents we have characterized as "religious minimalists." As we will show below, communalist separationists do not, in the aggregate, resemble secular citizens.


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CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS IN THE CULTURE WAR? 2 8 1

lars and the religiously orthodox? What are the religious and demographic characteristics of respondents of each combination of attitudes toward church- state reLations ?

DATA

Data for this study were taken from a telephone survey of residents of the Washington D.C. area. Interviewing took place in November of 1993, with a sample drawn from random-digit dialing, and yielcled over 600 usable question- naires. The response rate was a very respectable 74 percent. 2 The survey instrument included a wide variety of items measuring attitudes on religious establishment and on the free exercise of religion. We also included a number of items that measure important religious orientations, such as religious self-identifications and charismatic religious experiences (see Wilcox 1992; Wilcox, Jelen, and Leege 1993, for discussions of these types of items).

THE INTERSECTION OF ESTABLISHMENT AND FREE EXERCISE ATTITUDES

To what extent are attitudes toward religious accommodation and free exercise related? Analysts who find the "culture wars" hypothesis attractive suggest that American society is increasingly divided into two camps: the religious (of "orthodox") and the not so religious (or "progressives"). This would suggest that positions on the establishment and free exercise clauses are closely related, and that most Americans would fall into either the "religious non-preferentialist" (libertarŸ accommodationist) or "religious minimalist" (communalist, separationist) category. By contrast, if attitudes toward free exercise and religious accommodation are substantially independent, we would expect to find all four cells of our typology of church-state positions inhabited.

To investigate these possibilities, we conducted a number of cluster analyses on the 28 church-state items in the survey. Although we tested a variety of solutions, by lar the best fit was a four cluster solution which identified groups corresponding to each of our ideal types. The four clusters were approximately equal in size, although there were slightly more religious non-preferentialists. It is important to note that the survey was taken in the Washington, D.C. area, and that the proportions of respondents falling into each cell of the typology probably do not represent those of the US population asa whole. Table 1 shows the average positions of the members of each cluster on each of the 28 church- state items. For the establishment items on the top of the table, low scores indicate separationist positions. For the free expression items on the bottom of

2. Some individual items from the surveys were adapted from the Williamsburg surveys, while others were developed specifically by the authors. The instrument was pretested extensively, using undergraduates at Georgetown University, as well as focus groups conducted in the Chicago suburbs by the first author. See Jelen and Wilcox (1995) for an elaboration of the survey methodology, as weU as for the instrument itself.


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the table, low scores indica te l ibertarŸ positions. In Table 2, we show the demographic profile of those who fell into each cluster.

TABLE 1

Issue Clusters on Church-State Issues

Free Christian Religious Religious Marketeers Preferentialists Minimalists Non-Preferentialists

High wall 1.90 2.21 2.12 2.85 Help to religion 1.51 2.98 2.29 2.56 Gov't protect Judeo-

Christian heritage 2.22 3.92 2.95 3.13

Christian chaplain 3.26 4.01 3.58 3.84 Buddhist chaplain 3.11 2.80 3.36 3.56 Manger scene 2.54 4.34 3.54 3.68 Menorah 2.26 3.51 3.21 3.72 Prayer at HS sporting

events 2.02 3.98 3.01 3.38 Moments of silence in

school 2.60 4.19 3.52 3.94 Judeo-Christian

values in school 2.10 3.40 2.49 2.72 Teach creationism 2.51 3.48 2.87 3.03 School rooms for

religious groups 2.86 3.85 2.77 3.10

Allow practice of strange religion 1.63

Important to obey law, even if law limits religion 3.41

1.85 1.80 1.60

4.11 3.80 3.29

Religious headgear in schools 2.88 3.36 2.20 2.07

FBI infiltrate Moslem groups 1.60 2.92 2.16 1.85

Law against cults 2.39 3.89 4.01 2.80 Conscientious objectors 2.88 3.37 3.09 2.16 Mandatory flag pledge 2.84 3.72 3.47 2.52 Christian Scientists keep

children from doctor 3.83 3.96 3.87 3.79 Jews off work on

High Holy Days 2.28 2.25 2.44 2.08 Native Americans use

peyote 2.42 3.29 2.96 2.48 Hare Krishna solicit in

airports 2.64 3.24 3.83 2.66 Ban Satan worship 2.56 3.61 3.81 3.34


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TABLE 1 (Continued)

Issue Clusters on Church-State Issues

283


Ban fundamentalist preachers at coUeges 2.33 2.45 3.45 2.19

Immigrants should convert 1.46 3.23 1.97 1.97 Religious leaders picket

poro shops 2.41 2.35 3.17 2.57 Animal sacrifice 3.62 3.62 3.64 3.14

Religious free marketeers were easily identifiable. They were distinctive in their opposition to government aid to reiigion. Free marketeers were least likely to favor public displays of the Menorah and the Nativity, and least likely to favor funding for military chaplains of any religious affiliation. They opposed teaching creation, moments of silence, and prayer at high school sporting events. On issues that did not involve establishment issues, however, they were supportive of the free exercise rights of Christians: They were the second most supportive group of allowing fundamentalist preachers on college campuses, and of religious leaders who wish to picket pornographic bookstores. They were supportive of free exercise rights of non-Christians as well, exhibiting distinctive support for the religious use of peyote by Native Americans, the rights of religious cults to recruit teenagers, and for the legality of Satan worship. This group of Washington area residents was quite secular, well-educated, and disproportionately Jewish.

Christian preferentialists were supportive of most government support for religion, including distinctively high levels of support for prayer at high school sporting events, teaching Judeo-Christian values and creationism in schools, a moment of silence in schools, and public displays of nativity scenes. They were less supportive of accommodation of non-Christian groups (such as funding for Buddhist chaplains), and to religious free exercise for such groups. For example, Christian preferentialists were the most strongly opposed of all groups to allowing children to opt out of the pledge of allegiance for religious reasons, or allowing native Americans to use peyote in the religious services. This cluster was disproportionately composed of active members of doctrinally orthodox Protestant churches, of people who hold conservative religious identities, and who were born-again and believed the Bible to be literally true. Christian non- preferentialists were generally older than members of the other three clusters, and less weU-educated. Half of all white evangelical Christians in the survey fell into the Christian preferentialist cluster.


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TABLE 2

A Demographic Profile of Church-State lssue Groups


Educar/on High school or less 16% 50% 21% 28% College + 62% 33% 45% 44%

Black 13% 33% 27% 32% Mean Age 41 46 45 37

Denomination Evangelical Protestant 3% 35% 19% 23% Mainline Protestant 11% 16% 23% 10% Other Protestant 3% 21% 3% 6% Catholic 34% 21% 35% 39% Vaguely Christian 4% 2% 6% 5% Jew 12% 0% 2% 1% Non J udeo-Christian 10% 2 % 3 % 6 % None 23% 3% 9% 9%

Number of Orthodox Identifications 0 96% 62% 82% 76% 1 2% 31% 13% 13% 2+ 2% 7% 5% 11%

Bom Again 2% 26% 29% 24% Charismatic Experience 2% 27% 19% 15%

Bible is: Literally True 10% 44% 22% 15% Myths and Fables 29% 0% 8% 6%

Attend Church: Weekly 6% 39% 33% 15% Few times year/never 82% 14% 47% 57%

Entries represent column percentages. Columns for some variables may not add up to 100%, due to exchded intermediate categories of row variables.

T h e group we identified as religious minimalists were also identified in the analysis. These citizens took separat ionist positions on most issues involving religious establ ishment , and were especially dist inct ive in their opposi t ion to aUowing s tudent religious groups to use school property for the i r meetŸ Respondents falling into this cluster also opposed most controvers ia l forms of free exercise, including allowing fundamental is t ministers to preach on college campuses, Jews to miss work on the High Holy days, and Hare Krishnas to solicit at airports. A l though this general pat tern initially appeared to us to be a gener-


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CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS IN THE CULTURE WAR? 2 8 5

alized pattern of opposition to all public forms of religion, in fact the individuals in this category were quite high in frequency of church attendance, in the frequency of orthodox religious identities, in belief in Biblical inerrancy, and in education. They are somewhat more likely than other groups to be found in Baptist and Pentecostal churches. The relatively high percentage of Baptist in this cluster leads us to suspect that many minimalists ate motivated by an attitude of religious separatista, defined asa theological belief that good Christians should be separated from the sinfulness of the secular world (see Jelen 1987; Peshkin 1986).

Non-preferentialists were distinctive in the support for free exercise rights for Christian and non-Christian groups - - supporting the rights of children who wish to wear religious headgear, Hare Krishnas who solicit at airports, and Christian scientists who wish to withhold medical treatment from their children. 3 This group was also generally supportive of religious accommodation, and were distinctively supportive of public displays of the Menorah, funding for Buddhist chaplains, and allowing student religious organizations to meet on school property. Perhaps surprisingly, this group did not contain many white evangelical Protestants, but was composed primarily of well-educated while Catholics, and very liberal black pentecostals.

CONCLUSIONS

The results of this study suggest that accounts of the American political culture that are based on a dualistic cleavage between the religious and the less religious may be oversimplified. The aggregate patterns of church-state issues are somewhat more complex than some observers have suggested, and clearly do not reflect a "religious-secular" societal cleavage. All four possible combinations of church-state attitudes are represented empirically, thus exhibiting a different pattern than that which would be predicted from a dualistic conceptualization of the mass public.

More importantly, the composition of the four clusters suggest that cultural conflict in America is more complex than previously believed. Contrary to the claims of Christian Right elites, white evangelicals tend to oppose free exercise rights for those outside the Judeo-Christian tradition, perhaps seeking to recover their status asa de facto civil religion in the United States (Casanova 1994). The highly secular religious free marketeers are indeed opposed to a moment of silence in schools, to public prayers, and to displays of Judeo-Christian symbols. But they are generally supportive of free exercise rights of Christians where no establishment issues ate involved, and are the most willing to protect religious liberties of non-traditional groups.

We are also convinced that such patterns represent the expression of genuinely complex and nuanced attitudes, and are not indicative of a lack of

3. h is important to note that these characterizations are relative. Thus, whi[e most non-preferentialists oppose aUowing Christian scientists to withhold medical treatment, they are more likely to support such a right then respondents in the other three clusters.


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cognŸ sophistication on the part of our respondents. We have shown else- where (Jelen and Wilcox 1995) that the dimensional structure of mass attitudes on church-state relations closely resembles that exhibited by multiple samples of religious, political, and business elites. Mass opinion on these issues tends to reflect elite opinion, a n d a lack of parsimony among mass belief systems may represent the inherent complexity of the issues involved, rather than the limits of the sophistication of the mass publics. Demerath and WiUiams (1992) have also shown that mass attitudes on church-state issues exhibit coherent and nuanced balancing of the competing values of church-state separation and ah important civic voice for religious values.

Interestingly, the one cluster that is most supportive of religious displays ancl rights is not the constituency of the Christian Coalition, but rather the groups that it now seeks to target m white Catholics and liberal black Protestants who take positions that we label as "religious non-preferentialists." Finally, it is also somewhat surprising that religious minimalists are not secular citizens who wish to limit religious influence, but rather many are highly religious evangelicals who appear to embody an attitude of religious separationism. These findings contra- dict the hypothesis that the American political culture is polarizing around an axis of religiosity, and suggest that the rise of different religious issues in American politics may occasion some rather surprising responses.

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Conscientious Objectors in the Culture War?: A Typology of Attitudes toward Church-State Relations