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Do you remember in the last blog here I offered an answer for any politician who is asked what his personal religious views are? My suggestion was to answer: “It’s none of your business.” Would you believe that three days after the blog was entered, the national columnist Charles Krauthammer offered his answer – in his own words – “None of your damned business.” Do you suppose he reads this blog? (Maybe the only one.)

And he added: “This campaign is knee-deep in religion, and it’s only going to get worse.” But you know, that’s not all bad, because it’s such a deeply rooted issue in our political world, we would be well advised to understand why people keep arguing about it.

So I’ll take another swing at it this week – and I invite your opinions. Why? Because it’s one of the most important principles forming the structure of our country – and yet here we see it right in front of us two centuries later. You might even say that it’s worth debating (if, for no other reason) because it’s one of the few issues that can get people excited about politics.

However – one caveat: Whatever I put down here won’t be a final answer for everybody and won’t even cover the whole subject by a long shot. Americans have been debating the subject since the beginning of the Republic – and will continue to do so.

Where Do We Start?

Let’s start with some basics. What are we talking about? We’re talking about two inter-related issues: Religion in Government and Government in Religion. For the second issue, we’ve pretty well decided: Stay Out! You may think that’s obvious. But it wasn’t obvious when the Pilgrims fled England to escape government-controlled religion. It’s still not obvious in Scandinavia. It’s certainly not obvious in the Mideast, where so often the church IS the government. Our Founding Fathers came down hard on separating the two life forces. Only in America.

How about Religion in Government? That’s the current face-off. That’s where the temperatures rise. Two examples come to mind. How often have you heard someone say, “They’ve taken God out of the schools” (or taken prayer out of the schools). No. The kids (and teachers) can pray anytime or all day long, if they want to. The legal test is that teachers or administrators (government employees) cannot arrange, direct, sponsor or promote prayers for students.

O.K., let’s take another case example that Hoosiers like to argue about – official prayers opening sessions of the state legislature. Applying the same test, legislators can pray anytime and anywhere they want (freedom of speech), but when the Speaker of the House arranges sectarian prayers as an official act, given before legislators in session, that’s different. Some people see the difference, some don’t.

How Do Religion & Politics Relate – If At All?

Now, we have to take up one more issue, an on-going one: Why worry about the relation of religion and government? That question is why, sooner or later, people ask: What did our Founding Fathers intend when they created our Constitution? People like to debate how religious the Founding Fathers were, and in what way. We could spend ten pages like this just reviewing the various arguments, but mercifully, we won’t go there. Suffice it to say that the essence of the Constitution’s First Amendment is to prevent not only an “Establishment” of a specific denomination of religion but, more broadly, to avoid the entanglement of mixing any given creed with affairs of state (as the courts have ruled).

Even more fundamental (and the source of the Constitutional principle) is the basic difference in the nature of religion and civil discourse. The Founding Fathers – based on their own experience – decided that in this new country they no longer wanted kings or high priests issuing religious edicts as laws of civil life. They knew personally the oppression such decrees could cause, including justification for violence that we continue to see around the world. They were determined to avoid such unreasoning conformity and acrimony among people. They knew that religious conviction is not subject to debate because it is a private matter. People can debate their own religious views all they want, but in the final analysis, it is revealed truth accepted on faith and not subject to forced change by others, certainly not by government. At least, not in these new United States of America.

What Does This Mean For Today?

So what does this mean in politics? Does it mean that there is no religion in public life? Of course not. Even if it were thought undesirable, it would be impossible to exclude religious thinking from all phases of life, even politics. Some of our deepest moral issues – such as abolition, civil rights, aid to the poor, opposition to the death penalty – have been rooted for many people in religious conviction. Krauthammer makes an incisive distinction: “Imposing religion means the mandating of religious practice. It does not mean the mandating of social policy that some people may have come to support for religious reasons.”

The same idea put in different words could be stated: When those persons motivated by religious belief come into the public square, they must come with arguments of public good for all citizens, not as undebatable mandates of religious doctrine.

And finally…

Well, this has gone on too long, hasn’t it? Congratulations if you have reached this far. We’ll probably never find final answers, since the arguments have continued for more than 2oo years, and before, but it helps to try to clarify some of the issues that are often obscured. Ours was the first major nation to insist on the separation as a foundation for civil life where freedom of conscience was guaranteed so that civil peace could be assured.

Perhaps you can agree (or disagree) with the absolutist position (held by this writer) that as a fundamental principal, simply, the government should stay out of the church and the church should stay out of the government. Then go from there, because the line of division is never absolute, and accommodation is possible for citizens of good will when the issue of separation is understood.

Or possibly, you prefer the precept offered by the wisest of men when he advised: “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.”

–Vic Jose

Vic Jose :: Jan.05.2008 :: Uncategorized ::

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