All Things
Religion in Politics
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Facing Islamophobia In the face of the current rising tide of racism, in this case directed at Muslims, it is very difficult...
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Reasonable concern about domestic security? Islamophobia? The comment by a presidential candidate that he would not allow a Muslim to run for president, has raised an interesting controversy. Shall we say that this candidate has reasonable concerns...
- Christians Can Be Brutal Too
Christians can be brutal too Last weekend’s impassioned protest against plans to build an Islamic Center two blocks from Ground Zero included a group of people afraid of what they call the “Islamisation of America.” The signs they carried had just...
- Vegetarianism And Abortion
Abortion and Vegetarianism. Nebraska just passed a law making abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy illegal. The reasons given for that limit is that at 20 weeks the fetus feels pain. That's an interesting argument because it is often used as an argument...
- Political Violence In Iraq
Political violence in Iraq Reports from Iraq uniformly stress the divisions in the country between Kurds, Shia and Sunni. Newspaper regularly refer to the “sectarian” divisions in the country. It leaves the American reader with a sense that Iraq is...
All Things
The First Amendment to our Constitution bids the government to “make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” It is pretty clear what that means. For many years British civil servants and politicians as well as professors at Oxford and Cambridge universities needed to be Anglicans. Those jobs were not open to members of other religious persuasions. In Germany until World War I, only Christians could be civil servants, including university professors. Jews could not have those jobs unless they converted to Christianity.
No one in the United States today, even folks who keep saying that ours is “a Christian nation,” proposes that we should demand of all government officials that they be Christians.
But surely the question of religion and politics goes beyond that. The Catholic Church is refusing to allow its members to have their birth control paid for by insurance companies. Members of various Christian denominations refuse to support equal marriage rights for gay people on the grounds that the Bible describes homosexuality as an abomination. Many people oppose abortion on similar religious grounds. Teachings of specific religions, they think, may be used as the justification of legislation. All of us, even those who do not share the religious belief in question, may be forbidden to practice what one or another religion condemns.
Underlying these controversies is a serious disagreement about religion. Implicit in the First Amendment is the belief that religion is a private matter. A Christian may believe very firmly that Jesus Christ was the promised Messiah and died for our sins. A Jew may praise Jesus as a notable prophet but insist that the Messiah's return is still in the future. But, because religion is a private matter, neither of them can impose their belief on the other.
When you enter grade school you learn to add and subtract. Your teacher teaches you that 2+2 = 4. If you don't want to accept that, you get punished with a bad grade. The belief that 2+2 = 4 is not a private matter. You have no choice in it; you must accept it because it is true.
Not so, for instance, your preferences in ice cream flavors. I like chocolate, you like vanilla. It would be totally bizarre if I forced you to eat chocolate because chocolate is, I think, “objectively” the best ice cream flavor. If I tried, you would point out to me that one's taste in ice cream is private, is subjective. Different people are entitled to their own tastes in food.
But most followers of one religion or another, whatever they may say, do not accept that religion is a private matter in precisely that sense that you may not impose your religious beliefs and the conduct these beliefs demand or forbid on anyone else who has different beliefs. The Pope does not believe that Catholic theology is something that you may accept or reject. For Jews the Law is a divine gift that we must follow. The beliefs of different religions are not merely subjective. They are not private.
WhenMormonsbaptizepeopleposthumously,theyaretellingusthatMormonismistheonlytrueformofChristianity.Catholicism,differentvarietiesofProtestantismareallidolatry.Whatismoretheydon'tregardthisasjustsomepersonalbeliefwhichothersmayshareornot.Theyknowthatthatisabsolutetruth.TheCatholicChurch– notnecessarilyitsmembers– knowforafactthatbirthcontrolissinful.Evangelicalchurchesknowthesameaboutgaysex.AndallofthemknowforfactthatJewsandMuslimsaregoingtoburninhell.
The First Amendment demands that we treat all religious beliefs as purely personal and subjective. It makes no more sense, the First Amendment tells us, to force our religious beliefs on others than it would be to force on them our tastes in ice cream. But most religious people – except perhaps some Unitarians or Quakers – do not believe that about their religious beliefs. For many religious persons their religion is the bedrock on which their life rests. Make those beliefs subjective and, in some sense, arbitrary like tastes ice cream, and their lives would have no foundation. For that reason, religious persons hold on for dear life to the belief that their religion is the true and only one.
Sowheninthecourseofthecurrentelectoralcampaigns,Catholicbishopsfussendlesslyaboutbirthcontrol,andothercandidatesfulminateagainstabortionorgaymarriageonreligiousgrounds,theyseriouslychallengetheFirstAmendmentwithitsnon-establishmentclause.ItmakesusrealizethatourdedicationtotheFirstAmendmenthasalwaysbeenconflicted.Somepeopleareseriousaboutregardingreligiousbeliefsasprivate.Mostreligiouspeopleregardreligiousbeliefsotherthantheirownasprivate,subjective,andarbitrary– ifnotcompletelymistaken.ButtheFirstAmendmentdoesnotapplytotheirreligion.ItisliterallyGod'struth.Theirdedicationtocivilrightsisclearlyqualified.
Thisisnotintendedtobeacondemnationofreligion.ButitisimportanttounderstandtheRickSantorumphenomenon:theirreligiousfaith--notthatofothers--isastrueandasimportantasanythinginthelivesofseriouslyreligiouspersons.TheFirstAmendmentholdsforallreligions--excepttheirown.
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Facing Islamophobia In the face of the current rising tide of racism, in this case directed at Muslims, it is very difficult...
-
Reasonable concern about domestic security? Islamophobia? The comment by a presidential candidate that he would not allow a Muslim to run for president, has raised an interesting controversy. Shall we say that this candidate has reasonable concerns...
- Christians Can Be Brutal Too
Christians can be brutal too Last weekend’s impassioned protest against plans to build an Islamic Center two blocks from Ground Zero included a group of people afraid of what they call the “Islamisation of America.” The signs they carried had just...
- Vegetarianism And Abortion
Abortion and Vegetarianism. Nebraska just passed a law making abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy illegal. The reasons given for that limit is that at 20 weeks the fetus feels pain. That's an interesting argument because it is often used as an argument...
- Political Violence In Iraq
Political violence in Iraq Reports from Iraq uniformly stress the divisions in the country between Kurds, Shia and Sunni. Newspaper regularly refer to the “sectarian” divisions in the country. It leaves the American reader with a sense that Iraq is...