While atheists, agnostics, and avowed secularists are still in the minority (according to virtually all polls), they are nevertheless on the move. There are indications that their forces are growing and they are most certainly making inroads into the public square. By all accounts, more people are listening to them, helping to drive atheist authors like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens to the top of bestseller lists.
With the 2008 presidential campaign looming, religion is once again a hot topic. And this time, how religion should be brought to bear in public life isn’t the only question being asked. Now, many are wondering IF religion should be brought to bear.
Church and State
The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) states unequivocally that the United States Constitution is a “secular document,” and that its only references to religion are “exclusionary.” FFRF is correct. The United States government was established as a tool to govern the United States, and the Founding Fathers pointedly refused to make it a tool of any religious establishment.
Many secularists, including the FFRF, have then taken the point a step further, arguing that churches, synagogues, and mosques (and other religious organizations) should stay away from the public square and that politicians should refrain from bringing religion into their role as public servants.
Democratic presidential candidate and US Senator Barack Obama disagrees. While acknowledging that religion should be handled with grace and respect, Obama nonetheless rejects the idea that it must be shelved. Writing in a 2006 op-ed for USA Today, Obama explained: “Applying [faith-based] values to policymaking must be done with principles that are accessible to all people, religious or not. Even so, those who enter the public square are not required to leave their beliefs at the door.”
George Washington, the man who presided over the Constitutional Convention and then saw the First Amendment (with its prohibition of any “establishment of religion”) enacted during his presidency, was quite clear that religion had an integral place in American public life. It was Washington after all who issued the first Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, declaring that “it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor.” Doesn’t sound like a secularist, does it?
The truth is that our Founding Fathers saw no need to incorporate religious sentiment into the US Constitution. Such sentiment was already a part of the state constitutions and the Declaration of Independence, which had established the United States as a nation to begin with. It was the hope of the Founders that the people would govern themselves in a way that would make it unnecessary for the federal government to preach morality to them.
Indeed, John Adams – who some atheists and secularists erroneusly claim as one of their own – declared: “Our Constitution was made for a moral and a religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
The Real Goal of Atheists and Secularists
Acknowledging the truth about our Founders and accommodating the religious convictions of public figures are unacceptable positions for truly devout secularists. The reason is probably best expressed by secularist Jack Huberman in an op-ed for The Huffington Post: “Let me start by saying, I don’t just want to get religion out of our politics and government. I want to get it out of our churches and mosques and synagogues, out of our minds, and off our planet.”
Anyone who has read Sam Harris’ Letter to a Christian Nation or Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion (and I have read both) understands that a real driving force behind secular humanism is intense hostility toward religion – usually Christianity. (I do not mean to say that this is a driving force behind people who have doubts or who simply lean toward atheism. I refer to those who are impassioned in their atheism and secularism).
Hatred of Christianity (and those who dedicate their lives to it) was in full display after the recent deaths of Jerry Falwell and D. James Kennedy. Consider Christopher Hitchens who told the nation that it was a shame there was no hell to which Falwell could go.
Avowed atheist secularists (or whatever label you prefer – ‘secular humanists,’ ‘secular progressives,’ whatever) are hostile to religion in public life, because they see religion as a product of human beings – one borne of either ignorance or dark ambition. It is a “crutch” to the weak, and a tool for the powerful to control those they can manipulate. That is how they see religion, and they see its presence in American public life as a dangerous cancer that must be removed at all costs.
Their open hostility toward religion, though, is completely incompatible with the founding principles enshrined in the heritage of the United States. What’s more, they are denying the right of other people to bring their own beliefs into the public square. Shouldn’t an individual have the right to practice his or her religion? And shouldn’t he or she have the right to let said religion inform his/her values and beliefs?
If the United States is a democratic Republic, then people of faith have as much right to play in the sandbox as anyone else. And if people of faith dramatically outnumber those without faith, then it should be no surprise that the nation (its government, its media, its culture, etc.) will reflect faith and religion more than atheism. This is both natural and democratic.
Bottom Line…People of Faith Have a Place in Public Life
As Barack Obama says: “It’s wrong to ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering the public square. Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Martin Luther King Jr. – indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history – were not only motivated by faith, they also used religious language to argue for their cause.
Obama’s examples are excellent cases. Abraham Lincoln was a man who very publicly and dramatically led the United States though some serious spiritual soul-searching during the Civil War. Anyone who has read Lincoln’s Second Inauguaral Address (carved into the Lincoln Memorial) will recognize it as more a sermon than a political speech. Yet this was an appropriate time for spiritual reflection – and Lincoln knew it.
William Jennings Bryan, the “Great Commoner,” has been savaged by his detractors for his controversial role in the infamous Scopes “Monkey” Trial of Dayton, Tennessee in 1925. The truth of that trial, however, is far different than that which was depicted on the screen with Inherit the Wind or by the poisonous pen of HL Mencken. Bryan, however, was denied the opportunity to explain himself – having died just a few days after the trial. The Scopes Trial notwithstanding, William Jennings Bryan was a lifelong champion of the poor and the downtrodden – and was motivated to be so by his staunch Christian faith.
And does anyone need to have it explained to them that the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was deeply moved by his religious convictions when taking up the mantle of leadership in the civil rights movement? (Though Dr. King wasn’t orthodox in all his Christian beliefs, he was still deeply religious and considered himself a Christian in the social justice tradition of Jesus’ ministry to the poor and the sick).
The truth of the matter is that our government will operate on some moral dimension. All of our laws stem from some moral code or perspective. And religion and morality are very much intertwined. George Washington emphasized this very clearly in his Farewell Address (which many secularists either ignore or fail to read). Perhaps Senator Obama has put it best: “To say men and women should not inject their ‘personal morality’ into policy debates is a practical absurdity; our law is by definition a codification of morality.”
So, do people of faith have to leave their religion at the door when entering public life? The answer is an emphatic ‘no,’ and may we not make to them such an absurd and dangerous demand.
