Happy Fourth, everyone! On this day, more than any other, you’re likely to hear that America was founded upon Judeo-Christian values. Such a view is incredibly pervasive here in Utah.
The Salt Lake Tribune today profiled LDS painter Jon McNaughton who often blends politics and religion in his art. The painting at the right (“One Nation Under God“) got national attention during the 2008 presidential election, because it depicts Christ pointing to the U.S. Constitution. Behind Christ are the founders and dozens of other iconic American figures.
At the bottom left are the good guys in McNaughton’s cartoonish worldview—like a college student holding right-wing radical Cleon W. Skousen‘s Five Thousand Year Leap. At the bottom right, are the bad guys who are “pushing our country toward socialism” and away from god. I love who McNaughton includes in this group. You have a Supreme Court justice, a woman considering abortion, a news reporter, a Hollywood actor, and a college professor embracing Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. Ugh. I’m loathe to admit that my family owns a couple of his paintings (though thankfully not this one).
That was a digression, sorry. Back to the issue at hand: Is America a Christian nation, as McNaughton and many Americans believe? After profiling McNaughton, the Salt Lake Tribune article takes up this question. It concludes:
The Founders chose not to create an exclusively Christian nation when they had the chance, Holmes says. “It would not have passed anyway. There were too many differing beliefs in the Continental Congress and, even though most members were Protestants, the churches had rivalries among themselves.”
Jon Meacham, author of American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers and the Making of a Nation, agrees, calling the idea of a Christian nation “wishful thinking.”
He cites the Treaty of Tripoli — a pact with Muslim nations initiated by Washington, completed by John Adams and ratified by the Senate in 1797 — in which the Founders declared that “the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”
The Founders didn’t paint a Christian nation, but rather a portrait of pluralism.
I would encourage you to read the whole article. It discusses each founder’s beliefs about and attitudes toward religion. In short, some of the founders were Christians and others—like many Enlightenment intellectuals—were deists and skeptics. But all of them felt that religion served some function in society. They also agreed that, as Madison wrote, “religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together.” And for that reason, Jefferson advocated a “wall of separation between church and state.” Now, we can debate how porous that wall should be. What is not debatable, however, is that the founders created a fundamentally secular government and not a theocracy.
The phrase Christian Nation is used in different ways by different people. If you read the Christian Reconstruction ism entry in Wikipedia you’ll have a better understanding what many people mean by this term
This is one of the most dangerous things about Mormonism – their evidence free belief that god crafted the constitution, that Mormons will someday save the constitution (and country), and that they’re a destined to run the country. Also the belief common with many evangelicals that god will bless or curse this country based on how “righteous” it’s laws and policies are – a belief that leads people to utterly ignore the whole separation of church and state. Prop 8 is an outgrowth of that type of belief (among Mormons at least).
It’s sad that the evidence is so clearly in support of a secular gov’t, and yet this idiocy persists. It’s the power of faith to utterly obliterate reason I suppose.
You may not care but — Karl Barth, whom many consider to be the most important Christian Theologian of the 20th Century, made Constantinianism one of the centers of his theological attack. He reversed the view of Augustine (4th century) who suggested ‘Who better to hold the earthly sword of the Roman Government than the Church?” Karl Barth considered it a great evil of Christians to colonize the Christian god with political ideas. Christianity should only have a prophetic voice of conscience from outside the worldly structures of government power. The Christian god must be held completely separate (holy) from the world. No ‘-isms’ (communism, socialism, capitalism, etc.) should be attached to Christian doctrines.
Too bad he is not that important in Evangelical Christian circles. It is a good thing that conservative Evangelical Churches that have been active in conservative politics recently are now starting to lose members. I believe Southern Baptist Convention has actually lost members in the last 5 years BECAUSE they have equate conservative republicanism, bad science, and capitalism with Christianity. As a Christian I say ‘Hooray for their diminishing influence!’, there are more thoughtful ways to live as a Christian.
It’s a nice idea, but as soon as you ascribe any sort of ethical or moral values to your god, you inherently have to deal with politics and the real world. Since many versions of the Christian god oppose homosexuality, female equality, transgender equality, and the right to choose, just to name a few, that god becomes involved in politics and has certain political views attached to it. Or rather, those who believe in that version of god get involved in politics on their god’s behalf.
Secondly, a god or religion which is completely separate from the world seems to me to be utterly pointless. We all live in this world, and almost all of us live in society where we interact with other people. It’s impossible to have moral or ethical beliefs that don’t impact other people and aren’t inherently tied to society.
Yes, one does have to act with a set of values because ‘politics is people’. Everyone acts politically. However, Karl Barth insists that the Christian or church cannot grab political POWER and act for god. Each christian can act politically but only in humility. The Christian circumstance states that the Christian kingdom is ‘not of this world’ (to quote Jesus). We can speak in conscience, but not ever suppose that the use of political power is ‘in the name of god’. The Christian must always assume political power is earthly, which requires limitations and humility. Barth’s vision for the church is to be a voice for justice, but it must not wield the sword to accomplish justice. The earthly political power (sword) is necessarily secular.
Christians can participate in political power, but they cannot suppose that they act in the name of god in the context of secular political power. They are merely doing ‘the best they can’ on earth.
More importantly, god’s call for justice and mercy is a call for the christian church to be a particularly just and merciful kingdom (in the midst of the secular kingdoms). It is a self imposed politics of service not a prescription to rule over others. It is sort of Nietzsche’s description of servant morality (not exactly). Barth would reject Nietzsche’s master morality for the christian.
I’d just want to make sure we didn’t let Christianity get too Platonic here, Vince. There is a delicate balance between the “not yet” and the “already” in the “already not yet” that is Christian life. Christianity has plenty to say about things like the proper exercise of freedom and human goods, and this will be in some sense political. That said, I agree with the thrust of your point, particularly in view of the fairly vulgar sense we usually give to “politics” these days. Politics in the classical sense is about goods and virtue, not power. Still, everyone should be humble about politics and what it can accomplish, Christians more than anyone.
John Paul II exerted considerable political influence (particularly in eastern europe) without ever grabbing political power. His “power” was his humility. His power was simply the still strong voice of mercy and justice, the politically powerless but yet profoundly powerful principled demand to respect human dignity in all its manifestations.
I am reminded of this article in the NYTimes on why JPII was too big for the nobel:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/11/opinion/11BROO.html
Yup, yup. Karl Barth moves to the Platonic extreme of infinite distance between heaven and earth. I don’t buy it completely, but I recognize its usefulness here. He mostly insists that the Church cannot hold the sword of the spirit and the sword of government like Augustine proposed in “City of God”. The two cities must always be separate except in eschatology.
The church is always ‘in the midst of’ and ‘not-yet’ an earthly government. This is not platonic because action and voice are expressed in this world. It is the identity of the Church and the power to rule that is currently platonic. Christ is on a heavenly throne not an earthly one (no reference to Pope here).
I have a high opinion of politics. It is merely how people work together in their communities. The Church is called to be the just and merciful society in-the-midst-of earthly kingdoms. The Church (as JPII did so well) should also be the voice of conscience ‘in the midst of’. However, the Church has always failed miserably in the context of a merged Church and earthly government.
There is a Christology ‘on earth’ — ‘the church’, but this is only in service not in power — again, except in eschatology. (see comments on Spinoza-Einstein-Tillich for expanded earthly action.
Yes, this is all too much theology. I will try to cut it back to a minimum. I have never claimed that the United States was god’s nation or a Christian nation in the way many Mormons and conservative Evangelical Christians do. I consider that merging of Christianity and the US government a corruption of Christianity.
I apologize for the long post, but I thought some might be interested in an intelligent Christian perspective on the role of Church and state (to add to Vince’s intelligent contribution already made). Benedict has spoken several times on the importance of the “separation” of Church and state. He considers this recognition of the respective autonomy and competence of State and Church a “specific achievement” of Christianity and one of Christianity’s “fundamental historical and cultural contributions”. I suspect Vince will be attracted to the view here. Perhaps some SHAFTers might even find it acceptable — Church and State are two different spheres and we must always vigilantly remember this. But religion is not merely private and so must be allowed space in the public square, though that public square position should always be articulated in terms of rational argument (not sectarian impositions). That seems pretty reasonable, no?
Two selections of interest:
1) “Where the Church itself becomes the state freedom becomes lost. But also when the Church is done away with as a public and publicly relevant authority, then too freedom is extinguished, because there the state once again claims completely for itself the justification of morality; in the profane post-Christian world it does not admittedly do this in the form of a sacral authority but as an ideological authority – that means that the state becomes the party, and since there can no longer be any other authority of the same rank it once again becomes total itself. The ideological state is totalitarian; it must become ideological if it is not balanced by a free but publicly recognized authority of conscience. When this kind of duality does not exist the totalitarian system is unavoidable.
With this the fundamental task of the Church’s political stance, as I understand it, has been defined; its aim must be to maintain this balance of a dual system as the foundation of freedom. Hence the Church must make claims and demands on public law and cannot simply retreat into the private sphere. Hence it must also take care on the other hand that Church and state remain separated and that belonging to the Church clearly retains its voluntary character.”
- Pope Benedict from “Theology and the Church’s Political Stance”
You can read this whole article on the relationship between the Church and the political sphere here: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/ratzinger2.html
2) Perhaps most worth reading is Pope Benedict’s encyclical Deus Caritas Est. Here are a few relevant selections:
“The just ordering of society and the State is a central responsibility of politics. . . . The State may not impose religion, yet it must guarantee religious freedom and harmony between the followers of different religions. For her part, the Church, as the social expression of Christian faith, has a proper independence and is structured on the basis of her faith as a community which the State must recognize. The two spheres are distinct, yet always interrelated.
Here politics and faith meet. Faith by its specific nature is an encounter with the living God-an encounter opening up new horizons extending beyond the sphere of reason. But it is also a purifying force for reason itself. . . . This is where Catholic social doctrine has its place: it has no intention of giving the Church power over the State. Even less is it an attempt to impose on those who do not share the faith ways of thinking and modes of conduct proper to faith. Its aim is simply to help purify reason and to contribute, here and now, to the acknowledgment and attainment of what is just.
The Church’s social teaching argues on the basis of reason and natural law, namely, on the basis of what is in accord with the nature of every human being. It recognizes that it is not the Church’s responsibility to make this teaching prevail in political life. Rather, the Church wishes to help form consciences in political life and to stimulate greater insight into the authentic requirements of justice as well as greater readiness to act accordingly, even when this might involve conflict with situations of personal interest. Building a just social and civil order, wherein each person receives what is his or her due, is an essential task which every generation must take up anew. As a political task, this cannot be the Church’s immediate responsibility. Yet, since it is also a most important human responsibility, the Church is duty-bound to offer, through the purification of reason and through ethical formation, her own specific contribution towards under-standing the requirements of justice and achieving them politically.
The Church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring about the most just society possible. She cannot and must not replace the State. Yet at the same time she cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice. She has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice, which always demands sacrifice, cannot prevail and prosper. A just society must be the achievement of politics, not of the Church. Yet the promotion of justice through efforts to bring about openness of mind and will to the demands of the common good is something which concerns the Church deeply.”
Kleiner,
Pope Benedict is definitely a reason-based pope in the tradition of the best reasoning in the Catholic Tradition (a la Thomas). He presents a good explanation of the necessary separation.
Another anti-Constantinian theologian is John Howard Yoder. In his “the Politics of Jesus”, he states that the Christian life is necessarily political (justice etc), but the church and the Christian must resist the merging of Church and State in power. The Church’s mission is a message to the world which is corrupted when it is a power over the world. Yoder would say lordship of Christ is only found as an ‘alternative community’ whose community life and service proclaims a message to the whole human community.
——— For Mormons and Kleiner, in regards to the Church’s separate sphere —–
I add a caution to the Church even in this separate sphere apart from the State. Perhaps the Church must require humility of its voice even as an ‘alternative community’. It (the Elders, the Pope, the Patriarch, the Prophet) cannot speak with 100% certainty on all topics or rule its members as a totalitarian hegemony in its own sphere. Additionally, Pope B cannot expect to use Thomist rationalism up to the edge of heaven and expect it to be the Christian god’s perfect word. The Conservative Evangelical cannot expect to use the literal interpretation of the Bible to bring their god’s words down to earth in an absolute ‘Thus sayeth the Lord’. The Mormon Prophet cannot demand that all the Prophet’s words are scripture.
Karl Barth would oppose the extended use of natural theology and the use of literal biblicism to bring TRUTH down to earth. Like with Socrates, there remains a worldly contamination once you try to prescribe a particular definition to Justice or whatever. Barth, Yoder, and others (Paul Tillich) would recognize a hazy connection between the Church’s existential condition in the world and the ‘god that precedes all being’ or the ‘god above the god of theism’ (Tillich’s phrase). This hazy connection permits the church to ponder and refine their current expression of the eternal message as they express it in this era.
This is where I greatly appreciate the Jewish Tulmad tradition. The rabbis of the Diaspora, while redacting the Mishnah, regarded The Torah to be ‘on earth’. Thus, it is open to interpretation by and for the community. A frozen literal interpretation is forbidden. Though the current interpretations must have regard for the earlier interpretations. In any case, ‘We do the best we can on earth’.
Most of Christianity sees too much of a pipeline of TRUTH between heaven and earth. I suggest that this ‘too much’ gives good reason for Nieztsche to request the death of the anthropomorphic god who is held in the hands of some Christians.
I am not much for ‘will to truth’ or ‘will to power’. They typically end up in the same place of abusive power. I am still pondering what the Buberian version is — ‘will to relate to the other in wholeness’? Hmmm, not to pithy, is it?
I am somewhere in the middle here, Vince. I don’t think philosophical theology gets you all the way to the Divine Other. But I don’t move as far in the other direction as some postmodern thinkers (who think that all rational discourse about God is “violence”). I think natural reason gets you part of the way, and philosophical arguments about God are good and useful. But it is a “best we can by our own lights” approach. I am humble about it, but not disparaging of it.
Kleiner,
I agree. Natural reason is reasonable. I think Kierkegaard’s path of the solitary soul to the infinite other is fascinating, but perhaps it becomes a prideful recklessness instead of a prideful reasoning. Unnatural irrationalism is not reasonable. Agreed, agreed.
However, I still think that the Greek logos revealed in human reasoning is less fruitful than the practical reasoning based on relationship. The logos above us has a groundlessness to it with no physical way to chose alternatives (though Thomas Aquinas (TA) does a fine job of limiting himself to reasonable paths only). However, Nietzsche does a fine job of pointing out the obvious problem that no one seems to agree on what the Logos above us is saying. Why is reasoning so unclear in its answers? TA and you might say, it is clear! We just don’t think clearly enough. I agree for the most part. Therefore, Pope B’s call for religions to be reasonable is excellent. However, even clear thinkers can disagree under the Logos above us on many things. Especially as Pope B now calls out to Atheists to enter a reasoned discussion, he will have to recognize that the assumptions from Logos-above-us and assumptions from no-Logos-above-us can lead to dramatically different results (e.g., Thomas vs Nietzsche or Descartes vs Locke(Hume) etc.).
The practical reasoning beginning from relation (I-Thou) (not the logos above us) at least has a ground that we can all probe. Interpreting the relation between human to human as ‘spirit’ (or logos) provides a ground that is right next to us each of us. It is not quite physical but it is not eerily above us. Relation based reason can be materialistic or theistic and still arrive at similar conclusions (e.g., Buber vs Derrida). Obviously, that ‘spirit’ between human and human is not eternal unless it also encompasses the striving of spirit toward consciousness (Hegel) and relation (Buber) via Spinoza’s god or Other (?).
The truth above us is no longer the goal of relational thinking. The right relation next to us becomes the goal. I feel that Nieztsche’s uberman and beyond evil proposals cannot get a foothold in relational thinking unless one assumes that there-is-no-relation and only I am, which is sick humanity. In relation thinking will-to-truth becomes identical with the will-to-right-relation. The will-to-power becomes the first evidence of sickness.
Kleiner,
I also know your first response, which is correct. Natural reasoning is not Platonic reasoning that I am criticizing above. And natural reasoning can most certainly encompass relational thinking. It is the goal of ‘truth above us’ that I stub my toe on. Buber and Levinas would prefer to say (I think) that the truth above us is only found in the exploration of the face of the other.
I guess these goals are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The governance proof of god is still the most intriguing pursue of a truth above us through the material world (science of the gap). Transcendence is hinted at. Immanence is hinted at in the face of the other. Both can be explored right up to the horizon through natural reason.
People are kind of ignorant Socialism is very good for the poor people and it helps then I think that it goes hand in hand with Christianity I think that Capitalism is the danger here!