The higher power non-evanglicals believe in is political
Secular voters watched helplessly as well-organized evangelical Christians helped to elect President
Now, secular leaders are hoping to get back in the battle, starting by boosting participation by non-religious voters in the 2020 presidential, congressional and state elections. Events in
The
"Where student groups can get involved is through the vote," said
Levin, scheduled to speak to the students at
"I'm going to encourage individual students to find a candidate who inspires them, get involved in the campaign, and make clear that they're there because of their secular values."
Advocates see reasons to think the current voting cycle, and the Trump era in general, offers an opportunity to make a serious voting bloc out of the often hard-to-define group of Americans who fall under the "secular" banner, which covers Americans who are atheists, agnostics, humanists, free-thinkers and skeptics, as well as others who believe in God but claim no affiliation with a specific religion.
Those reasons include:
--Polls show that the number of Americans calling themselves non-religious is rising, while the number calling themselves Christian fundamentalists is falling, changes attributed to generational shifts.
"We're the fastest-growing religious identity in America,"
--Secular groups report a surge in activism in response to Trump actions, such as the Republican administration's support for what conservatives call "religious liberty" but some critics see as a license to discriminate.
--The political taboo against non-believers shows signs of easing.
In
"The good news is that acceptance is increasing every year," said Levin, who sees a potential parallel with the way homosexuality became less of a taboo for politicians after the first few were brave enough to come out.
But for the non-religious to gain as much political clout as evangelicals, several obstacles remain firmly in place:
--2016 and 2018 election returns showed the Christian voting bloc is more enthusiastic about going to the polls than non-religious people are. While polls say fundamentalists are 15% of the population, they cast 26% of the votes last year; non-religious people are one-quarter of the population, but they cast only 17% of the votes.
--It remains easier to organize religiously like-minded people than their irreligious opposite numbers.
"It isn't as easy to corral Nones because they aren't gathered in well-marked congregations like white evangelicals are," wrote
--The taboo against non-believers is far from gone, and the lack of openly unreligious candidates might make it harder to excite secular voters.
Huffman and
A Gallup poll this year showed 39% of Americans, including 28% of
Youth factor
Secular leaders say one way to transform non-religious voters into a cohesive political force would be to help them realize they are a group in the first place. People might hold positions on religious discrimination, abortion rights and climate change that are consistent with others who don't connect to a religious faith, but they might not see those positions, or their alliances, as connected.
Political scientists say non-religious voters' low turnout rate goes hand in hand with the fact that they tend to be younger, in an age bracket that has been widely viewed as reluctant -- some even argued lazy -- about casting ballots. That perception took a dent in the 2018 midterms, when 18- to 29-year-olds turned out in record numbers for the age group.
The description fits
Gilles calls himself a "secular humanist."
"I was raised in a conservative Jewish family. I definitely associated with cultural Judaism, in that I feel it's important to preserve a lot of the customs of the Jewish faith," Gilles said.
"But where I get my beliefs about morality from is secular humanism, not believing in any sort of higher power but looking for man-made explanations for what it means to live a good life of meaning and purpose."
Gilles also is political. He has served internships with
Believing rules should come from human organizations and not from a god, Gilles said he thinks it's "a moral duty to vote" and help choose government leaders.
Although he voted in the 2016 presidential election, Gilles said, he was slow to see the value in voting for state and local offices, too.
He said many of his youthful peers might not vote at all because they haven't yet figured out what they believe in.
Gilles is another scheduled speaker at next month's
"We started as a very secular nation," Bolling said. "That's something special about this country, the separation of church and state. The First Amendment and the establishment clause ('
Secular leaders say they face misconceptions about what exactly they do advocate.
One misconception, Levin said, is that non-religious voters automatically support
Another is that people who don't believe in God reject notions of morality. "People still have a hard time understanding how you can be non-religious and be moral," Levin said. "We have beliefs. They're just not religious or supernatural."
Then there's the idea that self-described free thinkers are incapable of rallying around common beliefs. In fact, Levin said, secular voters are more likely to agree with each other on some issues more than evangelicals are.
Levin said the
Will it work?
It will be harder for non-religious voters to organize themselves into a political force. But Hogen-Esch said the same might have been said of the other side before 1979, when a Baptist minister named
"It may be that secular organizations are in the same place that evangelical groups were 35 years ago," Hogen-Esch said. "They're at the beginning of something much bigger."
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