The Comment Factory

The discourse on the relationship between religion and politics in America, like any other perennial social dilemma, has settled into some rather familiar patterns. The Left, and in this case we must include libertarians of all stripes, generally proclaims that the two ought to be kept as separate as possible, and often points to the secular elements of America’s origins; the Right seeks to bring them closer together (or at least a particular religion), and often points to the Christian elements of America’s founding.

In their historical narratives both sides of this debate have captured parts of the truth. Among America’s founders were deists who by definition did not believe in a personal God, Christians who did not accept an established church, and Christians who did. Anyone can mine the writings and recorded speeches of the founders to find statements supporting one position or the other. The Declaration of Independence, a document with no legal significance but great philosophical significance, acknowledges a “Creator”, while the Constitution is a famously “Godless” document.

In my view this debate is largely irrelevant and hypocritical, since a true and total separation of religion and politics is absolutely impossible. What is often framed as a debate over the proper role of religion within the political sphere, and society at large, is nothing more than a political debate between self-styled reactionaries and progressives, or if you like, conservatives and liberals.

There are, for instance, a wide range of positions on issues held by the most ardent secular liberals that are also shared by millions of religious people, and clearly stated in the holy books of some or all of the world’s religions. There are the obvious issues, such as the prohibition of murder, rape, and theft, that no secularist would object to on the grounds that religions also call for such prohibitions. Of course it is possible to argue that such prohibitions would exist without religion, but it would not change the fact that in the case of these grave matters, religion and politics are not only in agreement, but are indistinguishable.

These issues aside, there are also many other issues, particularly those pertaining to social justice and human rights, upon which those of both religious and secular persuasions can and do agree. No secular leftist would oppose, say, the legalization of trade unions, the regulation of industry, or the establishment of a living wage on the grounds that the Catholic Church also advocated these things. It is indeed unimaginable that even the most hardened ultra-left sectarian would actually complain that these measures, because they are embraced by a religious institution, should have no place in society.

It is completely disingenuous to argue that the religiosity of an argument is grounds for its dismissal from the public square with regards to personal morality or sexuality, while implicitly, or even explicitly, accepting the religiosity of arguments against oppression and injustice. If laws against homosexual marriages are supposedly invalid because they are derived from religion, why not laws against defrauding workers of their wages – which is, along with homosexual intercourse, one of the sins which “cries out for vengeance” to heaven? It works the other way around as well: secular arguments against the general array of personal sexual and social liberties, which have been the battleground of the so-called “culture wars”, also exist. The general complaint “we can’t have this law because it is based on your religion” is therefore a complete absurdity. It is based upon the error that secularism must be equal to liberalism, and that it could not embrace another less tolerant philosophy, such as Social Darwinism.

My aim here is not to argue that one must necessarily accept the validity of laws against homosexuality if one accepts the validity of laws protecting workers, but that, at the least, there are many militant secularists who should acknowledge the values they do share with religious people. Acknowledgment, of course, is not conversion. I do not expect the empiricists or the logical positivists to ever change their position on the possibility of supernatural phenomena. But one cannot help noticing that all of their emphasis is placed on the supposedly bad aspects of religion — a dubious historical narrative, increasingly discredited by modern scholarship, about an evil, oppressive Church — while the undeniably positive aspects, such as the Church’s role in feeding and caring for millions of hungry and sick people on a daily basis for 2000 years, or preserving the continuity between ancient and modern learning, are completely ignored.

Could it be because exaggerating the relatively few regrettable episodes makes a personal rejection easier, while acknowledging the overwhelming, though perhaps more “mundane” daily good makes it a little more difficult? In this case I recommend acknowledging the good not necessarily for the purposes of personal conversion, but mainly for the purposes of better collaboration, and perhaps an end to the insulting and sometimes ludicrous polemics produced by the “New Atheists”. Perhaps the greatest insult of all is that the Christian only does good out of some terrible fear of hell; a simple acknowledgment that many Christians do good out of love of God might be a great start.