The Rise and Fall of the Religious Left

Politics, Television, and Popular Culture in the 1970s and Beyond

L. Benjamin Rolsky

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780231550420
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia sociale

For decades now, Americans have believed that their country is deeply divided by "culture wars" waged between religious conservatives and secular liberals. In most instances, Protestant conservatives have been cast as the instigators of such warfare, while religious liberals have been largely ignored. In this book, L. Benjamin Rolsky examines the ways in which American liberalism has helped shape cultural conflict since the 1970s through the story of how television writer and producer Norman Lear galvanized the religious left into action.

The creator of comedies such as All in the Family and Maude, Lear was spurred to found the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way in response to the rise of the religious right. Rolsky offers engaged readings of Lear's iconic sitcoms and published writings, considering them as an expression of what he calls the spiritual politics of the religious left. He shows how prime-time television became a focus of political dispute and demonstrates how Lear's emergence as an interfaith activist catalyzed ecumenical Protestants, Catholics, and Jews who were determined to push back against conservatism's ascent. Rolsky concludes that Lear's political involvement exemplified religious liberals' commitment to engaging politics on explicitly moral grounds in defense of what they saw as the public interest. An interdisciplinary analysis of the definitive cultural clashes of our fractious times, The Rise and Fall of the Religious Left foregrounds the foundational roles played by popular culture, television, and media in America's religious history.

1

Norman Lear, the Christian Right, and the Spiritual Politics of the Religious Left

On January 21, 1987, the Christian Century published a short piece by former senior editor and church historian Martin E. Marty titled “A Profile of Norman Lear: Another Pilgrim’s Progress.” Looking back on a storied career in television production and writing, Marty relied on the image of the pilgrim, and his proverbial journey, to describe Lear’s eclectic spiritual practices and writings and their positive relationship to American civic life. This was valuable information in light of the ongoing criticisms of Lear and his “atheist” programming authored by conservative televangelists such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. Beginning in the early 1970s, both Lear and his programs were targeted specifically, including Maude and All in the Family, as evidence of Lear’s depraved sense of taste and decency as a notorious member of the Hollywood community.

Marty’s article described Lear as a “seriously religious person” who relied on texts from the “mysticism-spirituality-metaphysics” genre for glimpses of the “transcendent” and “the eternal.” Most important, Marty described him as a “prominent, unconventionally religious personality” who had assembled an impressive collection of texts including Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, A Road Less Traveled, and coffee-table books on Jewish and Buddhist civilizations. For Marty, these spiritual practices demonstrated Lear’s “ ‘fitness’ to be in on the debates about civic values and public virtues” that were most relevant to his readers in a decade beset by political and religious strife. In fact, no one was better suited to address the nation’s most divisive subjects, such as racism, sexism, and religious discrimination, than television producer and writer Norman Lear.1

“In talk of values,” Marty observed, “[Lear] regularly moves far beyond the television-producing or support of organizations like People for the American Way; he voices a larger vision for the nation.”2 Marty’s words pointed to the fact that the “cultural victory” achieved by religious liberalism in the twentieth century, an argument set forth by sociologist Jay Demerath III and echoed by scholars of American religion, was more than simply a Christian victory.3 It was also a direct product of Protestant, Jewish, and interfaith organizing in the name of ecumenical cooperation.4 For Lear and his fellow supporters, these activities reinforced their already firm commitment to both preserving and defending America’s civic fundamentals as they understood them: separation of church and state, religious tolerance, and diversity of opinion.5

For this reason, Lear is a significant figure in the story of American religion because both his entertainment and political careers defended the most dearly held values of American religious liberalism, including the separation of church and state, religious diversity, and the free exchange of ideas, as part of what I identify as the spiritual politics of the Religious Left. I first offer a short biography of Lear in order to provide readers with historical context and a sense of change over time dating back to the 1930s. While the use of narrative is a useful tool in this regard, the design and overall execution of the chapter is less concerned with notions of historical progression and more attentive to thematic continuity when it comes to Lear’s writings and analyses of conservative Protestantism in the public square. In this sense, my analysis is less a history of Lear’s religious liberalism and more an analytical rendering of it and its most significant characteristics as a reflection of the Religious Left. For example, I draw on the work of liberal theorists of democracy to argue that as a liberal, Lear possessed a spiritual “double vision” or “doubled perspective” that he relied on to evaluate which story lines could function as effective plot points for his situation comedies as vehicles for his religio-political vision.6 This type of vision reflected not only liberal religious thought but also liberal thought more broadly understood within the United States.7

Next, I connect Lear and the Religious Left to the rise of “the electronic church” in order to elucidate the most common biases and stereotypes of the thinking, educated, or “chattering” classes. While religious liberals possessed a deep sympathy for other religions, they were also at times quite stringent about their collective abhorrence for orthodox or conservative religion due to their own discursive “framing.” In fact, conservative mobilization and activism during this period resulted in its own form of liberal backlash in the form of Lear’s analyses of the Christian Right and later People for the American Way.8 To conclude the chapter, I illustrate the thematic emphases of Lear’s spiritual politics across his published and unpublished writings in order to highlight the commonalities between a longer tradition of American religious liberalism and Lear’s cultural productions as seen in prime time.

My usage of the term “spiritual politics” implies both a politics having to do with the “spirit” and a politics that grows out of spiritual practice and values as understood according to “the spirit” of a given rule or guideline, such as fairness or justice. The term also points to the thoroughly contested nature of “the spirit” in American public life at the time. This type of politics, along with its moral grounding and social activism, corresponded to other liberal values that Lear practiced and defended, including empathy for the other, sympathy for religious diversity, and progressive electoral politics. Ironically, Lear’s ascendance to political and social prominence following his television career would not have been the same were it not for the oppositional force Lear himself arguably helped to identify—the Christian Right. In this sense, the two formed a symbiotic relationship that continues to fuel progressive and spiritual outreach to this day as part of a Religious Left in American public life.9

A SHORT BIOGRAPHY OF NORMAN LEAR

Norman Milton Lear was born July 27, 1922, in New Haven, Connecticut. He spent much of his early life, however, in nearby Hartford as part of an extended Jewish family that included grandparents and uncles. His parents, Herman and Jeanette, both worked in sales, yet it was his father who would have the most lasting impact on Lear as a person and on his career as a situation comedy writer. The Lear home was typically filled to the brim with voices—those of his family and those on the radio. Yiddish and Hebrew turns of phrase as well as the odd obscenity sprinkled Lear’s earliest experiences of language, set at a high volume. In particular, his father (often referred to as “King” Lear) loved to listen to speeches, fights, and political diatribes from across the political spectrum, from President Franklin Roosevelt to Catholic priest Charles Coughlin. As Lear is fond of saying, his family lived “at the ends of their nerves and the tops of their lungs.”10

This particular cultural environment shaped Lear’s earliest experiences of America and its citizens regarding their potential for both profound good and evil—for it was this period of his life when Lear first felt like an outsider within the American melting pot. Father Charles Coughlin’s unrelenting attacks against American Jews during FDR’s presidency gave Lear his first experience of religious discrimination broadcast through the latest means of communications. At the same time, Lear also received an education in how best to govern a diverse people when times were tough. The New Deal and its Social Gospel philosophy demonstrated to Lear the need for federally funded social programming in order to address national and local economic inequalities. He would carry both sets of realizations with him into his career as a television writer and political activist on behalf of the American Way and the nation’s First Amendment rights of religious expression.

When Lear was only nine years old, his father went to prison for selling counterfeit bonds. This experience left an indelible mark on the young Lear, one that he has difficulty talking about to this day. It also cultivated space for a deeper relationship to form with his uncle Jack and grandfather Solomon (Shya). In particular, Lear’s relationship with his grandfather exposed him to a civic tradition that he would later implement himself in both deed and message through his political activism. Shya had a habit of writing letters to the president of the United States in order to express his deep support of or disagreement with particular policies or viewpoints originating in the Oval Office. This practice shaped Lear’s sense of how best to express his own viewpoints on the major political issues of the day in a public setting. Lear particularly enjoyed spending time with his grandparents: “The best time of the year was when my grandparents, Bubbe and Zayde, came to stay with us for the high holidays. Their arrival was preceded days before by two or three barrels of dishes, carefully wrapped in the Yiddish newspapers Zayde had read to the last word.”11 Lear would come to embody both his father’s desire to make a quick buck and his grandfather’s commitment to civic engagement and expression in his own life through his creative writing on television and his political organizing through the nonprofit organization People for the American Way.

Due to financial constraints, Lear did not think he would be able to attend college as a young aspiring writer. He overcame this obstacle by winning a scholarship in an essay contest titled “The Constitution and Me.” Lear’s subject was a sensitive one in light of his own experiences with the anti-Semitism of Father Coughlin. As a result, Lear “chose to speak to the specialness of being a member of a minority for whom the constitutional guarantees of equal rights and liberties just might have a more precious meaning.”12 Following his victory, Lear was able to attend Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, a university founded as a school of oratory. Lear’s college career was cut short, however, when he dropped out and enrolled in the military in 1942.13 Lear flew more than fifty combat missions as a radio operator and a gunner in the Mediterranean and received the Air Medal for his service behind the rudder. Upon his return, Lear began looking for work in New York as a writer. In the early 1950s, he started writing with comedy writer Ed Simmons in an attempt to move beyond the limitations of writing behind the scenes for others. In time, the writing duo caught the attention of comedy team Martin and Lewis, and they eventually worked on the Colgate Comedy Hour throughout the 1950s. In 1958, Lear decided to team up with fellow writer and creator Bud Yorkin in order to establish their own television production company, Tandem Productions.

As Lear established himself as a writer and producer in American television, he began to notice a disturbing trend in 1960s network programming. Unlike many of his counterparts who were simply unhappy with the selection of westerns and hillbillies in prime time, Lear noticed an inherent politics in the programming itself that suggested a great deal about the tumultuous times. Instead of identifying this simply as an example of vapid or “wasteland” programming, Lear argued that the networks themselves were sending a very specific if not explicit message to the American people about the nature of conflict, or lack thereof, in the country’s citizenry. For Lear, 1960s programming, as mediated through the predominant network logic of “least objectionable programming possible,” displayed an America that was not experiencing any sort of unrest or disturbance along racial, religious, economic, cultural, or psychological lines.

Not content to simply stand by as network television continued to invest in shows that were utterly removed from what was happening around them, Lear took it upon himself to add his own voice to the conversation in the form of situation comedy (letter) writing. Only this time, Lear’s writing would not remain confined to letters to the president or to his local congresswoman. Instead, Lear addressed the American people directly out of a deep sense of respect for their collective capacity to think bigger and desire a harder-hitting type of television comedy. Ironically, Lear’s most significant impact on American television would not be homegrown but rather based on a British import titled Till Death Do Us Part—an appropriately titled sitcom that explored the working class in all its admirable and less admirable qualities. It was from this setting, in addition to Lear’s own biography, that the character Archie Bunker emerged as one of the most impactful characters in the history of American television as part of Lear’s seminal sitcom All in the Family.

Lear’s discomfort with the sitcoms of the 1960s was only part of the reason that his show made it onto network television. His arrival onto the prime-time stage came at a time when both writers and executives were looking to do something different regarding content and programming. At a time referred to by historians as “the age of relevance,” shows such as MASH and The Mary Tyler Moore Show joined All in the Family as sitcoms that relied on the latest newspaper clippings for their content and plotlines. Compared to what had come before, this new material sought to grab its audiences in a manner unheard of in network sitcom history. Executives exchanged the policy of “least objectionable programming” for “relevance programming” in order to make room for the new, edgier material by the likes of Norman Lear, James L. Brooks (Mary Tyler Moore), and Larry Gelbart (MASH) while also appealing to a youthful demographic who found value in being “in the know.”

As a result, Lear’s material relied on contemporaneous events in order to speak to larger pressing issues at the time through his characters and story lines. Even though Lear might not have understood such work as “social” or as communicating “a message,” his explorations of racism, women’s liberation, American politics, and class nevertheless revealed the intentions of a concerned citizen acting on behalf of the public interest and the common good—as he understood them. Luckily for Lear, his causes would never lack vocal support from those in Hollywood or in the Protestant mainline.14

THE ELECTRONIC CHURCH: A PRELIMINARY SKETCH

Marty continued to stand steadfastly by Lear and his spiritual idiosyncrasies well into the 1980s because he knew that Lear had much to offer to those concerned about the nation and the state of its public life.15 Along with other liberal, theologically minded academics such as Harvard pr...