"Lighthouses are more useful than Churches"
-Benjamin FranklinStephen Mack posted a piece that argues that
"dialogic neutrality," or the elimination of religious dialogue in politics is infeasible in the United States given a.) our liberal history – from abolition to labor movements – is entangled in religion and b.) it’s intrinsically unfair, “to ask religious intellectuals to disarm their political speech of its fundamental moral rationale." Furthermore, Mack posits that religion offers a unifying identity or “sense of belonging” which without, democracy cannot sustain itself. He ultimately concludes that we shouldn’t be worrying about the existence of religion in politics but rather the way in which it is used. Mack certainly is not the only proponent of arguments like this and I would feign suggest he is on the far right of this argument. However, there seems to be this unquestioned mentality at every point in the spectrum that feels religion is super-glued to our government - you can work around it or through it, but it's there to stay.
I take issue with this argument for two reasons. First, the use of religion, at least for just causes, in modern democracies is an antiquated tool. There are strong alternatives for social unity that don’t utilize religion. Second, our roots in religion are not justification enough to suggest that we cannot and should not disassociate our government from religion. The principles and values on which our country was founded are no longer validated by religious authority. They are in themselves sacred because our citizens have chosen to promote and preserve them. Furthermore, some of the worst atrocities have been done in the name of God. Man has proven time and time again that he’s not responsible enough to wield the infallible power that religious zeal yields. This power often leads to a horribly destructive group think mentality which, in lieu of a check on religious fervor and given alternative unifying indentities, means we shouldn’t use it at all.
The religious man may have played a prominent role in politics in recent years but, leave no doubt, he’s a dying breed. No one can argue that religion, at least in the Western world, has lost its power status throughout the past millennia. Kings no longer bow to the pope and bribes are still paid to a big man, but he isn’t “god” and he doesn’t wear a funny hat. Perhaps the elderly still hold religion dear and they certainly vote more than any other group but when they’ve left this earth they will leave behind a more secular generation. Surely when today’s youth takes over with their “godless” pop culture – religion will take yet another hit. People are finding other social cleavages to align themselves with. Low-income blacks unite over policy issues just as much as white Christians do. Hispanics in LA didn’t vote for Villaraigosa because he was catholic but because he was Mexican. Women are uniting behind Hillary Clinton because they feel she will promote equality between sexes in the work place. Blacks are uniting behind Obama because they believe he will represent them better than a white politician. Their religion is a moot issue in the election.
James Skillen best depicts what truly is at stake in politics today:
This country's increasingly diverse society, culturally speaking, can live comfortably enough with religious diversity in private. What Americans do not yet accept or know how to establish, however, is religious diversity in public--in politics and in government because the old-time civil religion demands an America whole and undivided. Consequently, the real political fights and culture wars are not over differences in private faiths but over the principles of political faith that should define the American way of life as a whole. The contest over the right to define those principles is the contest for majority control of Congress, the White House, and the courts--and the winner takes all. Those who disagree with the majority will still have every right to hold their private convictions, but they will not have authority to exert any public control. What would be most helpful, then, is a probing examination of where candidates stand with respect to the American civil religion, and that requires dealing with the truly relevant questions of political religion.
Religion is not at the heart of political tension any more. There are values associated with what Skillen phrases as a “civil religion," unattached from God or a god. These values are more of policies and ideologies than religious creed backed by a deity. The political landscape is no longer one of ontological banter but rather deontological debates. Rights and wrongs are judged and decided on an individual level not taken at face value from a book. Religion is one method for identifying one’s civil religion but it is far from the only alternative. I am an upper class white male but I am not “Christian.”
Just as it's important to analyze religion's role in modern day America, it's also important to study the empirical role it has played in politics. Anyone who attended grade school in the US is taught about the Puritans who came to America to escape religious persecution. America like all countries is proud of its roots and like most countries we find out cradle more so in a church than a public forum. However, to suggest that we're the same country today that we were almost 400 years ago is like saying Marvin Gaye and today's rap artists are the same because they found their roots in jazz/blues. It’s fun to talk about the Puritan leader, John Winthrop, and his vision of “a city upon a hill,” but there’s a black sheep in that story that gets locked away and never talked about. Winthrop was eventually thrown out of office because he fervently refused to form a general assembly which would give a voice to the people. Now explain to me how that aligns itself with the democratic society we’ve built today. Few would argue that Ben Franklin wasn’t an integral figurehead of the constitution and he surely saw the need for separation of church and state long before America was diversified religiously (see quote at top). In just under a hundred years then we see at least some of our leaders - from Winthrop to Franklin - beginning to change their opinion about the role of religion in government.
Herein lies the hallmark of American government: its ability to innovate and adapt to the needs of its people without a violent revolution or a struggle for power. Part of this innovation has been the ability to govern a diverse group of people fairly and justly regardless of their religion BECAUSE we have downplayed the role of religion in society. The constitutional rights afforded to citizens in the 21st century are rarely venerated because they are “God-given rights,” but rather because they are “American rights.” They stand for freedom and tolerance for all because Americans, as a country, decided to preserve them. A Buddhist or a Hindu doesn’t believe his fourth amendment rights are a result of a higher being but rather because the US as a liberal society decided to value them. Similarly, I don’t think you would find a Buddhist or a Hindu would suggest that these are bad rights because their religious idols didn’t stress them. These rights have been around long enough that they validate themselves without the “hand of god.” American politics may find its roots entrenched in religion but this does not necessitate identification along religious lines.
The obvious flaw in my argument is that religion was still responsible for the ultimate creation of the US and it was still the reason for many other civil rights movements. In essence, there is an undeniable good that religion is responsible for. My counter to this is that for every instance of good that has been done in the name of God, a horrible act was done in the same manner. Martin Luther King Jr. was a minister who fought for the equal rights of all and he did so on the basis that God created all men equally. However, wasn’t that same god used to justify the slavery of African’s in the first place or the god that the KKK worked for? Wasn’t that the same god that gave a man the right to control his wife however he chose? More pertinent, isn’t that the same god that’s being used now to deny gays their equal rights? Look at the neo-conservatives who recently had control of office with the support of evangelical Christians. The US experienced one of the largest and most catastrophic
group think movements in world history. We went to war with less than credible intelligence. No one in congress stopped to think about whether faulty data was a possibility and no one stopped to consider if sending less than half the recommended troops to Iraq was a good idea and certainly, no one paid any attention to the anti-war rallies. All the while George W. Bush rallied the religious right “with God on our side” and less oversight than even Nixon.
This is the very wicked paradox that Mack discusses. Religion can rally the righteous troops, but politics ultimately guides them to a corrupt end. I agree with Stephen Mack and religious conservatives insofar as they argue that religion
can unite people under one banner and
can be used for honest objectives. However, I disagree with those who posit that "can" and "must" are the same thing. Given that there are alternative means of uniting people in today’s society, it seems that it is empirically unwise to trust anyone with the unchecked power of religious zeal. Mack and others say we should try to guard against this unchecked form of religious zeal. I would argue that the nature of the beast lends itself to raw, unbridled power and thus should never be used. I would not readily be a US citizen if any given branch of government had unbridled power. Equally, I refuse to allow a religious majority to take charge of America’s reins without ditching the bible first. Ask Indiana Jones what happens when we open the Ark of the Covenant. God’s power is too much responsibility for man. Let’s close our eyes and lock the Ark up in the cellar of the old government.
