Pious?

I'm on vacation so that means I actually have more time to read. Today, I picked up a copy of USA Today and happened across an article entitled, A Pious Nation? written by Tom Krattenmaker. While he makes some good points, I found myself becoming angry at some of his basic assumptions.

The first comment that I found objectionable was his statement, ""Pious," however, means something different than "religious." While both convey devotion to God and ultimate truth, "pious" also suggests showiness, sanctimony, even hypocrisy — a gap between words and action." This is the basic premise of his article. I would argue that he is still using the wrong words. The dictionary defines "religious" as "of, pertaining to, or concerned with religion". Personally, I don't think this has anything more to do with God than being pious. The study that he references shows that 91% believe in God. It shows that 87% identify themselves with a specific religion. Again, this has nothing to do with his basic premise of pious vs. religion.

He then goes on to "prove" his opinion that Americans seem to be hypocritical because there is crime, poverty, and war in our society. He talks about how the Conservative Christian movement has shown itself to be hostile to immigration, how supposedly Christian politicians have not effectively developed a universal health care system, and how a Christian President led the country into Iraq. All of this, he feels, proves that we are more pious than religious which he equates with hypocrisy. He fails to allow for three critical points. One, if you have 9% of over 300 million people, that still leaves over 25 million people who are not religious. Two, not all of those who are religious are conservative Christians (or even Christians at all). Three, just being a Christian (as shown on his blog) does not make you unified in your opinion.

There are Christians who believe that we need to develop a universal, government-run health care system similar to Europe or Canada and there are others who believe that we should remove insurance companies from the health care system and promote free market pressures by allowing for Medical Savings Accounts on a wide scale. Both have the potential to promote universal health care, both have the same goal, both are supported by "religous" people. Does having the argument mean that we are pious and not religious?

There are Christians who believe that we should immediately withdraw from Iraq because we should never have been there in the first place. There are Christians who feel that the "Golden Rule" that he refers to (actually an adaptation of Hammurabi's Code), is the absolute justification for entering Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is apparently easy for him to lament about our failings, and while I agree with his statement, "How as a society are we living up to this religious imperative? We could do better." I have to disagree with his basic premise that we are hypocrits because we have these failings as a society. I would argue that we are failing as human beings (as are most of the world's "civilized" countries) because we have these failings.

Thoughts anyone?