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TechnoratiSecular Rule Benefits the Faithful, Too
Last week, Barack Obama made front-page news by announcing he would expand so-called faith-based initiatives, channeling federal money into social services through religiously affiliated institutions. The move was seen as a wily appeal to conservative Christians. Liberals were skeptical. Under President Bush, "faith-based" is a fig-leaf for the naked removal of government from its role as social service provider. Bush has crassly exploited religion for partisan political purposes, even while drafting religion into the Republican war against "big government." Was this Obama's push-back?
A former community organizer, the Illinois senator and Democratic presidential candidate declared that struggles against poverty and disease require "all hands on deck," as if acknowledging the limits of government. He may not be old enough to have enlisted in President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty, but he surely knows that religiously affiliated institutions were one of its fronts. As anyone who remembers, say, Martin Luther King Jr.'s Poor People's Campaign, knows, "faith-based" can be code as much for progressive social change as for conservative reaction. Many of Obama's predecessor community organizers were paid through congregations with grants from Johnson's Great Society.
But the discussion of faith-based initiatives suggests that Obama's religion problem goes deeper, even, than rumors about his being Muslim or the Jeremiah Wright controversy. The social liberalism that defines much of the Democratic Party, and, apparently, Obama, upholds an ideal of tolerance that transcends religious identity. It refuses to brand the irreligious, or even the antireligious, as somehow less human than those who worship God. Indeed, liberalism regards the openly secular character of the political realm to be an essential note of democracy -- not a necessary evil, but a positive good. "Secular" is not a pejorative. Its tolerance tolerates even religious conservatives who are intolerant.
Such tolerance is a political virtue, but it can be a deeply religious virtue as well. Religion is mostly discussed, in the US political context, as if the main argument is between believers and nonbelievers. But the most important disagreement is between religious people who value the secular character of American politics and religious people who regard it as impious. The Republicans have benefited from this dispute because Democrats who are religious have failed to defend the liberal ideal of public religious neutrality as necessary not only for politics, but for authentic religion. It is not only atheists who need to be protected from the intrusions of a faith-defined government. So do the faithful.
The much-celebrated freedom that is the ground of the American consensus is, above all, freedom of mind and heart; freedom to think and believe as one chooses; freedom of conscience. Without that, there is no genuine democracy. But, more to our point, without that, there is no genuine religion. The only possible guarantor of such freedom, as the Founders understood, is a magistrate who acts with absolute religious neutrality. Religious people, that is, need the separation of church and state as much as atheists do. That separation, in fact, is why religion thrives in America.
But in recent years, as US politics was yoked to brands of conservative religion that wanted to blur the line between church and state, those religious believers for whom the secularity of liberal democracy is a value have been mute. In the public sphere, questions of religion have been treated as the province of the right wing, presided over by "values voters." Thus "faith-based initiatives" have been put forward -- and opposed -- as if church basements have not been incubators of progressive social reform for generations. But religious liberals have feared that to make the argument for the expressly religious value of secularity in a democratic society is to offend nonreligious voters by even speaking of religion, and religious voters by affirming secularity. Lose, lose.
Obama seems ready to offend. He does not shy from the label "liberal." He talks openly of religion's meaning in his life. He has credentials as one who has long embraced faith-based social activism, even while affirming government's central role as provider of services. Whether he will convincingly recast the shallow discussion of religion and politics that has defined the last American generation remains to be seen. But in this, as in much else, we can only wish him well.
James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company
9 Comments so far
Show AllRuthk and Metta:
If only more people were thoughtful in their faith as you two seem to be.
Unfortunately, common sense is an uncommon virtue where religion is concerned.
I believe in a God. I believe in the continuation of the spirit and that, at some point, all of us will have to account for ourselves. The church that I attended as a child emphasized the individual's responsibility to seek a moral way of life. The only politics I ever heard were prayers that our leaders would be guided. We were never told how to vote. We were not taught that everyone who disagreed with us was wrong. Rather, we were to look for the beam in our one eye before complaining about the mote in our brother's eye.
Religion has changed dramatically. It has now become incorporated and infused with politics. It seems to have deserted God in favor of attaining political power. It seems to vicious attack anyone who does not agree with all of its ideas.
Here are some things that bother me.
--Do you remember "Justice Sunday"? At that time, a US Senator made the statement "Democrats are against people of faith.". When I tried to argue this, I was told that Democrats were atheists.
--I studied math and physics. I still read science books and watch programs on science. Some fundamentalists want to pass science through of sieve of religious dogma. This does not enhance religion and is destructive of science. Climate change, I believe, is real. Yet, some fundamentalists have argued that God's promise after Noah's flood was that he would not send another flood should be taken into consideration when discussing global warming. Some fundamentalists have said that 9/11 and hurricane Katrina occurred because of feminists, homosexuals, and the like. I cannot accept any of these comments. It reminds me of the middle ages when the plague was blamed on God's wrath or the Jews.
--Morality, according to some religious people, consists of being against abortion and homosexuality. It is as if these were the only topics. There are many other issues; poverty, child abuse, the destruction of our planet, hypocrisy, and so on. I cannot narrow my views to the extent that they demand.
--At the insistence of an acquaintance, I read one of the books in the "left behind" series. When I said that I did not believe in the "rapture", I was accused of being a closet "atheist". It ended a friendship.
When I quite going to church, I still had respect for religion. I simply believed that it had changed to much to be the religion that I was taught. As time passes, I have become afraid of it. Many religious people are truly good; others are increasingly nasty. The only way I can preserve my own faith is to avoid them.
Physicscitizen – you make good points.
I believe the problem rests more with organized religion than with individual religious people (perhaps spiritual people is a better description of what I'm trying to describe). Organized religion encourages certainty, and as you say amplifies differences, leading to dogmatism, division and intolerance.
In my experience, on a one to one basis, individuals generally are more tolerant and respectful of differences than their church leadership. There are always exceptions.
It seems the larger or more dogmatic the church, the more power and control are vested in the leadership. While any formal organization needs leadership, Lord Acton's comment about power and corruption are right on target. Power seeking leaders pursuing their own agendas claim to speak for God and there seems to be plenty of fearful, unthinking people ready to follow them blindly.
Religion and nationalism are often twins - look at how our political leadership has divided the citizens and promoted intolerance for their own ends. People need to think for themselves on both religious and civic issues, and select better leaders.
I have finally abandoned organized religion, largely for the reasons you cited. I seek to develop my own spirituality thru many sources (truth is where you find it) and try to work on an ad hoc basis with other individuals and organizations to promote peace, tolerance, compassion and justice.
Got Metta, I have seen way too much in my limited years how a church manages to amplify the relatively small individual tendencies of the religious to believe in their own superiority over those who either believe in a different faith or have no faith at all. I have had exposure to many churches in many places with different Christian denominations and they all ended up at one time or another torn apart by a leader who understands all too well how to exploit that tendency to satisfy their own needs.
This is not the exception in my experience. And when you have a Hagee, or a Robertson, or even a papal ministry measured in the many millions it gets harder and harder to claim that intolerance is the purview of the few.
I have confined myself to Christianity not because it occupies a special place here, only because it is the one I am most familiar with. But my friends who follow Islam have often told me that a similar process occurs in that religion and given the behavior of AIPAC and the ability of the Jewish state to do what it is doing I do not think we can give Judaism a pass on this problem either.
Your point about nationalism is very well taken.
I think you are sort of saying that it's like trading adictions...perhaps without religion we would be doomed to suffer under nationalism instead.
Could be. Could be.
But I thought progressives supported non-secular groups in the Muslim world...
The problem is not religion per se; it is intolerance - not the religious but the narrow minded.
Historian Will Durant opines: "Intolerance is the natural concomitant of strong faith; tolerance grows only when faith loses certainty; certainty is murderous."
The faith Durant speaks of is not necessarily limited to religion – jingoism masquerading as patriotism can be just as deadly.
If you are "certain" that (fill in the blank) are going to hell, what motivation is there to respect or tolerate them.
Many religious people recognize that they don't have a monopoly on truth and are accordingly tolerant and respectful of the valid insights of others not of their particular persuasion.
Rockerbabe1 July 7th, 2008 1:14 pm
Seems like a perfectly good policy you suggest.
That is the way its supposed to be, worship or not as you please, but don't interfere with anyone else.
Well Caroll. I grew up in the midst of the Bible belt surrounded by people who were certain my soul was doomed because I believed the conclusions scientists drew from intensely observing the world and experimenting on the things in it.
My experience is that religious leaders, and many (but not all) of the most religious do not WANT a world where those who do not believe the way they do benefit.
Please note that I use the term 'religious' carefully. I have met many spiritual people who have faith that do not fit in this category at all...but then they, unlike our politicians, are not afraid to stand up to the religious.
As a Catholic, I like the religious neutrality seen in government; going to Catholic school for 8 years, taught me the value and indeed the "luxury" of not basing my actions on anothers' religious affliation. I would not like to be confronted with Muslim or Prostant or Jewish or Hindu "colored" judgements about me or my needs or any request that I make. I would think most people prefer to be treated with respect and not presumptative baseless judgements/comments related to ones' religious affiliation. Nor should I be denied governmental assistnce or employment based on my religion or lack thereof. Religions of all ilk are not know for compromise or respect of others who differ with them, especially if you are a women. I like what we have in the US and I don't like all this mucking up things with religion, which, I am more inclined to believe is a fake substitute common sense and decency.