GOD AND THE COMMONS: DOES
RELIGION MATTER?
An Issue Brief and Guide for Deliberative
Dialogue
Introduction
Religion: A Gathering Storm in American Public
Life
“God was in Rindge on Saturday,” said a reporter for the Keene
Sentinel, referring to the many references speakers made to the
divine from the podium at last year’s Franklin Pierce College
graduation ceremony.
The headline for the story read “In God They Trust.”
“While graduations are often a time to thank God, among other
clichés,” the news reporter explained, “several speakers
went above and beyond a passing reference to the deity, instead focusing
their entire speeches on the effect God has had on their lives.”
Chief among them was Lisa A. Biron, valedictorian for the graduate and
professional studies program.
She spoke about how her faith in Jesus Christ had helped her to overcome
a life of alcohol and partying, and enabled her to change the abusive
nature of her intimate relationships and to successfully complete her
education.
She went on to say that she now plans to go on to law school to arm herself
with the knowledge and skills to fight the American Civil Liberties Union,
which she says is trying to destroy religion in this country.
She concluded her speech by saying, “
I am more certain that ever that with God all things can be done.”
Maybe the reason she is optimistic about affecting social change in
the country is because she is one of a growing number of organized and
politically active conservative evangelical Christians in America, President
George W. Bush among them, who have come to feel that our country has
been on a harmful course in recent decades because its major social institutions—the
family, law, government, the media and education—are being shaped
primarily by secular values rather than religious ones, in general, and
conservative Christian ones, in particular.
In their view, the American Civil Liberties Union, with its mission
to defend an interpretation of the Constitution and Bill of Rights that
stands for a “wall of separation” of religion from politics
and defends all manner of free thought and expression, has become emblematic
of the shift in the last half of the twentieth century to a more secular
(non-religious) American society. This way of viewing the
Constitution seems to have guided many of the rulings of the Supreme
Court in recent decades, which has strengthened this transformation to
a more secular society.
Many, like Columbia University Law School professor Stephen L. Carter,
say these decisions have led to the trivialization of the religious devotion
of many Americans and to a widespread “culture of disbelief”.
They say America was formed, in large part, by Christian values and that
the founding fathers never intended the freedom of religion and the non-establishment
clause of the First Amendment to lead to the kind of strict institutional
separation of church and state, and to what, in their view, has amounted
to a government-enforced freedom from religion in the public
sphere.
More liberal, progressive evangelicals and people of other faiths are
also critical of the drift toward a more secular America. They
argue for restoring the civic value of religion in our society, which,
they say, has historically been profound and today is sorely missed.
Important social movements that have greatly improved our society over
the years—abolition, women’s suffrage, and civil rights—were
aligned with spiritual motivations and faith-based organizations. Other
speakers at Franklin Pierce’s 2005 Commencement, some of which
received honorary degrees, made references to the spiritual motivations
of these movements in our nation’s history and to contemporary
organizations that are making efforts on behalf of international peace
and the rehabilitation of gang members and drug addicts in inner city
America.
Liberal and progressive believers like political/religious/cultural
editors Jim Wallis of Sojourners magazine and Michael Lerner
of the Jewish journal Tikkun are inclined to agree with Alexis
de Tocqueville, who, in 1831, recognized the central, but indirect role
that religion played in American society.
“Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of
society, but it must nevertheless be regarded as the foremost of the
political institutions in that country; for if it does not impart a taste
for freedom, it facilitates the use of free institutions…
I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion,
for who can search the human heart? But I am certain that they hold it
to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions.”
But many others such as writer Susan Jacoby in her recent book Freethinkers defend
the secularist heritage of America.
They emphasize that many of the founders fathers, as students of the
Enlightenment, had as much faith in human reason as they did in God and
they were intent on giving Americans the first government in the world
based on it rather than on the authority of religion. Governmental
checks and balances on power, the non-establishment of religion, freedom
of thought and religion, mechanisms for civic discourse and democratic
participation, they thought, would be sufficient to foster and guide
Americans into the future toward the good life and a free society.
Moreover, prior to the Enlightenment, Europe lived through hundreds
of years of bloody wars fueled by religious group differences. For
this very practical reason also the American founders were concerned
to keep religion out of the public domain as a way to eliminate one of
the major sources of conflict in society. Their solution involved
relegating religious belief and practice to the private sphere of life.
And indeed, the First Amendment and the non-establishment clause in the
Constitution have protected our pluralist nation and preserved a measure
of peace among religious and cultural groups and between the religious
and the non-religious in our society.
The United States is unique in that it was founded expressly as a place
where people could be set free to practice their religion, where there
was no official national church, and where religion and government can
co-exist but operate separately.
In the intervening years since the founding period in American history,
however, we have lived through many cultural and social changes. Faith
in reason and democratic political mechanisms alone has been shaken to
some extent by events in the last century such as the two World Wars.
Scholarship and science have relentlessly defined themselves as agnostic
enterprises explaining the natural world and human behavior without any
transcendent points of reference (i.e., evolutionary theory, Marxism,
rational choice theory, conflict theory, structuralism, functionalism,
secularization and modernization theory, etc.).
Now at the beginning of a new millennium, it seems many people in America
and across the globe are not satisfied with a purely scientific worldview.
In spite of its many legitimate achievements, we are starting to see
its limitations.
In response, many are returning to traditional religion or other orthodoxies
or to new spiritual beliefs and practices in their quest for meaning,
which transcends the restricted space of empirical existence.
Concurrently, it seems that the appropriateness of certain social policies
and political arrangements such as the separation of church and state,
the foundations of which were laid during the Enlightenment and built
and sustained through the increasingly secular 19th and 20th centuries,
are today being renegotiated and redesigned with post-modern concerns
in mind.
The idea that religion would become increasingly irrelevant in modern
society (secularization), a view held by many intellectuals over the
last couple centuries, has now come to seem seriously misguided and shortsighted
in light of the resurgence religion is experiencing in America and around
the world. The religious impulse beats strong in human beings and
appears to be a perennial feature of humanity, perhaps ultimately because,
as sociologist Peter L. Berger explains, of the feeling that existence
bereft of transcendence is an impoverished and finally untenable condition.
In his recent book Why Religion Matters, comparative religion
scholar Huston Smith says, “that the finitude of human existence
cannot satisfy the human heart completely. Built into the human
makeup is a longing for a
‘more’ that the world of everyday experience cannot require. This
outreach strongly suggests the existence of the something that life reaches for in
the way that the wings of birds point to the reality of air. Sunflowers
bend in the direction of light because light exists, and people seek
food because food exists. Individuals may starve, but bodies would
not experience hunger if food did not exist to assuage it. The
reality that excites and fulfills the soul’s longing is God by
whatsoever name.”
We stand at a crossroads in human history and in American life.
How will human beings in the new millennium give personal and public
expression to this perennial feature of their existence—the religious
impulse? What role should religion play in public life, if any?
How valid are the critiques of secular culture raised by both conservative
and liberal religious people? What are our concerns regarding secularism,
fundamentalism and about the political aspirations of conservative Christians,
Muslims and other traditional religious groups?
Today more citizens see religion as one of the few antidotes to a perceived
decline in morality and more politicians want not to have to check their
religious beliefs at the public door.
And there are others from across the political
– and religious – spectrum who call our attention to the
civic purposes of religion. If we are not to ignore those religiously
motivated citizens and public officials – and recent elections
indicate that we cannot – then the fundamental political and social
challenge of these times is one of figuring out how a polity can be open
to religious insights without succumbing to the temptation to impose
specific religious beliefs through the state.
The path that avoids these pitfalls, globally and within our own country,
is one that recognizes the need to genuinely listen and engage the liberal
and conservative critiques of secular culture. Having a way to
talk productively about and think through the challenge that religion
presents both at home and internationally could help improve our society
and reduce religiously based mistrust, hatred, and violence in the 21st
century. The circumstances call for campus conversations as
well as a national, public dialogue.
To help facilitate such a deliberative dialogue this brief outlines
three broad approaches to social change with regard to this national
dilemma.
It is essential that college students, who are our next generation of
leaders, discuss this issue and offer their input.
Each approach in this issue brief offers a different diagnosis of the
problem and, therefore, calls for different remedies.
Weighing each of the approaches and considering the pros and cons of
each one and sharing perspectives with each other will help to better
inform us as individuals and as a public. For, in a democracy,
it is the citizens who must make choices and provide direction for the
future about the proper place of religion in society.
Approach One: Stay the Secular Course
Proponents of this approach believe that, overall, our country’s
secular public culture is good and that the enforcement of a strict separation
of church and state is essential to preserving social peace and fostering
a diverse, pluralist society. Most Americans, as a recent Pew Charitable
Foundation poll results show, whatever their religious views, have a
healthy respect for the Constitutional principle of separation of church
and state.
Religion may play a role in people’s private lives, they admit,
but should not be used as a guideline for public policy.
When people speak as citizens or as elected or appointed officials in
the public sphere, they should “check their religious beliefs at
the door” and make their arguments for particular policy positions
in rational terms (pragmatic and empirical, etc.) and on the basis of
general non-religious moral principals. One does not, proponents
of this approach explain, have the right to demand that others accept
the tenets of one’s own faith in making a political decision.
What Should Be Done
- Continue to support a strict “wall of separation”
between church and state by restricting governmental support of religion,
i.e., outlawing prayer in public schools, the teaching of religious
doctrines such as creationism or intelligent design alongside
of scientific evolutionary theory in the curriculum, and the
display of particular religious texts like the Ten Commandments
and symbols in schools and in other public places such as courtrooms
and in town commons
- Support scientific literacy and rational thought in schools
and in all forms of public reasoning and participation
- Keep tax dollars and government agencies out of the business
of supporting faith-based organizations in the social service aspects
of their work
- Insist on the appointment of judges and other public officials
who do not seek to blur the distinctions between “God’s
justice and ours,” between secular government and religiously-guided
politics
Critics Say
- The founding fathers were not atheists, for the most part, and
they did not intend that government be the enforcer of a secular
culture on its citizens
- Most Americans believe religion is a positive social force and that
government should play a role in supporting religious institutions
and faith-based organizations in society
- Scientific and rational explanations are not enough to address life’s
ultimate questions and to guide the moral and political decisions that
impact our individual and social lives
A Likely Trade-Off
Keeping our public life thoroughly secular may reinforce damaging trends
of materialism, selfishness and ethical and spiritual decline.
For Further Reading/Stay the Secular Course
Susan Jacoby, Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism,
(New York: Henry Holt, 2004).
Approach Two: Recover Our Judeo-Christian Heritage
Proponents of this approach are most concerned that our culture has
become a toxic one and that secular humanist values have encouraged this
cultural decline.
They believe these values are anti-religious and are privileged in all
our public institutions—government, law, education, the media,
etc. Proponents of this choice believe these are not the abiding
values that shaped our nation at its founding and through most of its
history, nor are they the values that are held by most Americans today. Instead,
they believe our society has been hijacked by a secular cultural elite
who imposes their values on the rest of the nation through their disproportionate
power as leaders of major social institutions. They argue that
most Americans are religious, and that many have come to feel that their
religion is under assault by a militant secularism that allows no place
for their beliefs and shows no respect to their culture.
It is time, they argue, to recover the Biblical values of our nation’s
Judeo-Christian heritage and to allow these values to have effect in
our public lives and policy.
What Should Be Done
- Allow public schools to teach about the Judeo-Christian heritage
of America and theories about natural and human origins that challenge
scientific evolutionary theory
- Strengthen the public (governmental) support of faith-based initiatives
and encourage government-religious institutional partnerships for a
wide array of societal tasks from social services to international
diplomacy
- Let religious belief inform our public discourse and policy decisions
Critics Say
- Whatever our past, America is today a pluralist society that cannot
enforce one religious/cultural perspective on its citizens through
government, law and public policy
- Teaching religious based theories about natural and human origins
alongside scientific evolutionary theory is dumbing down the scientific
curriculum of our nation’s schools and leads to less respect
for the capabilities of human reason
- Mixing religion with political ideology and political power is dangerous
and can lead to great oppression and evil carried out in the name of
religion
A Likely Trade-off
Trying to reestablish Judeo-Christian values through operations of government
and other social institutions may foster intolerance and lead to the
creation of a social ethos many in our modern society would find oppressive,
if not politically totalitarian.
For Further Reading/Recover Our Judeo-Christian Heritage
Antonin Scalia, “God’s Justice and Ours,” speech
given at the University of Chicago Divinity School reprinted in First
Things: The Journal of Religion and Public Life, May, 2002.
Stephen L. Carter, The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and
Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion, (New York: Anchor Doubleday,
1993).
Charles L. Glenn, The Ambiguous Embrace: Government and Faith-Based
Schools and Social Agencies, (Princeton, NJ: University Press,
2000).
Approach Three: Embrace Religion’s Civic Value
Like the proponents of approach two, proponents of a third approach
also think that many of our nation’s problems stem in part from
our secular culture that has come to undermine religious and spiritual
sensibilities. But, they differ from those who advocate restoring
our Judeo-Christian heritage as a remedy in that they advocate embracing
religion’s civic value in ways that gesture outward in an inclusive
embrace of all religious traditions as well as those who champion non-religious
moral viewpoints.
The main problem in modern society, as Michael Lerner has argued, is
not secularism, but rather the materialism and selfishness that have
become the common sense of global capitalism.
Like Lerner, advocates of this approach remain adamant about church/state
separation not as a means for keeping religious and spiritual values
out of the public realm.
Instead, getting the state out of the God business is a way to ensure
that spiritual values retain their vital and distinctive character, uncompromised
by an alliance with political power. Only in functioning
separately from the state can religious and cultural pluralism be preserved.
Moreover, it is in the realm of civil society apart from the state that
religious institutions and spiritual values express their strongest civic
value and play their important role in society and public policy as a
redemptive alternative to socially destructive capitalist values. Additionally,
proponents of this approach argue that secularists go wrong when they
claim that their position is the only one compatible with intellectual
sophistication and scientific truth.
Science does not and could not take any stand on religion any more than
it can broker public policy decisions, as public problems are ultimately
moral questions and not scientific ones.
What Should Be Done
- Recognize that religion is a perennial feature of humanity and
an important thing to most Americans and it plays a vital role in
society, but keep it separate from government
- Allow religious perspectives to be part of the public discourse,
but seek to persuade others on the basis of the beliefs universal ethical
content rather than on grounds that they are mandated by a particular
religious tradition
- In political discourse, be civil and don’t resort to demonizing
when there is disagreement
Critics Say
- Religion is backward; human reason alone is the only way to solve
our public problems
- Both historically and in contemporary society, the majority of Americans
are Christian, therefore, it is appropriate and democratic to emphasize
that particular religious tradition in our cultural life and to do
so through the mechanisms of government
- Allowing religious perspectives a place in the public sphere is to
invite the worst kind of conflict into society; religion is best kept
in the private realm of life
A Likely Trade-off
Welcoming religion into public life may result in greater moral conflict
in society and could lead to oppressive laws and policies that violate
our sense of personal and economic freedom
For Further Reading/Embrace Religion’s Civic Value
Jim Wallis, God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and
the Left Doesn’t Get It (San Francisco, CA: Harper Collins,
2005).
Michael Lerner, “Church and State: When the Right Breaks the Barrier,
How Should a Spiritual Left Respond?” Tikkum, Vol. 20,
No. 4, July/August 2005.
General Sources/Religion and Public Life
Richard John Neuhaus, The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy
in America, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmanns, 1984).
Peter L. Berger, editor, The Desecularization of the World:
Resurgent Religion and World Politics, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmanns,
1999).
Huston Smith, Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit
in an Age of Disbelief, (San Francisco, CA: Harper Collins, 2001).
E.J. Dionne Jr., Jean Bethke Elshtain and Kayla M. Drogosz, One
Electorate Under God? A Dialogue on Religion and American Politics,
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2004)
Terry Easterland, editor, Religious Liberty in the Supreme Court:
The Cases That Define the Debate Over Church and State, (Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmanns, 1993). |