"That is, secularism as recognizing politics as an autonomous sphere, one that's not subject to ecclesiastical governance, to the governance of a church or religion or the church's expression of that religion. A secular political order may be one in which religious practice or religious exercise, as we say, can flourish."

This broader view of secular as "not controlled by a religious body" is shared by an overwhelming majority of Americans of all faiths.  While Americans may disagree about prayer in schools or the display of nativity scenes on public land, the separation of church and state is seen by most as an essential guarantee of religious liberty, freedom and diversity.  (For example, while Pew reported 84% of people affiliated with a religion in the U.S., 70% of Americans believe church leaders should not endorse political candidates.)  Surely, CBS News did not actually intend to term most Americans "morally void."

And just as surely, CBS News could not have meant, like Mitt Romney, to insult the 16% of Americans Pew described as "unaffiliated" by calling them immoral.  (The Pew survey of 35,000 Americans found that only 4.0% were "secular" in the narrow philosophical sense of being unbelievers.  1.6% were atheists and 2.4% agnostic, while another 12.1% reported their religion as "nothing in particular.")  Americans' morality - their basic goodness, honesty, charity and law abidingness - has little to do with their religiosity or lack thereof.  Just ask the congregants of Ted Haggard's New Life Church or the parishioners of the bankrupt Catholic archdioceses around the country.

Which raises a final question about the CBS story.  Whose "many concerns" was Wyatt Andrews referring to when he claimed the Pew study "answers many concerns about a secular, morally void America?"  To ask the question is to answer it.

No doubt, many of the religious right in the United States believe their secular countrymen are "morally void."  But the Pew findings suggest something else they can fret about instead.  Americans are quick to dump one church for another or none at all: fully 44% have left their childhood religions.  (In this election, at least, evangelicals are the big winners.)  But that statistic suggests that while religious faith in America is a mile wide, it is apparently an inch deep.

* Crossposted at Perrspectives *