Church and State

Edwin Gaustad posted a short essay entitled Roger Williams & Church-State Separation over at the Oxford University Press Blog (which any discriminating blogger will immediately add to their blogroll — where else will you find posts like The Year in Geography?). Roger Williams often gets overlooked in the bubbling pageant of American religious history, especially by Mormon readers who often have a hard time seeing anything of consequence in the historical record before 1830. Gaustad's essay (he also authored a recent biography of Williams) reminds us what a courageous figure was Williams, truly a man before his time. I'm also going to use this to resurrect my dormant online essay of the week feature.

The only thing I disagree with in the essay is his holding out church-state separation as some sort of public policy shibboleth. It is invoked most frequently by those who see some denomination doing something they don't like; it is conveniently ignored by anyone who sees some denomination doing something they approve of. Furthermore, the term is often thrown around by secularists as if it is the law of the land, when in fact "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion" is a much different thing. Furthermore, the United States did not even attempt to practice church-state separation until the second half of the 20th century. Before that, informal (i.e., unacknowledged) Protestant establishment was the social reality of Americna society. I'm not sure what lesson should be drawn from that, except that those who hold out America as the great experiment in church-state separation (and I'm not suggesting Gaustad is doing this in his essay) are often ignorant of that history. People who ought to know better often don't.

He ends with "Separation of church and state is a cause, not a cliché." It think it has become both a cause and a cliché, a dangerous combination.

PS: If the topic really interests you, you might look up Gaustad's books on the subject: Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land: A History of Church and State in America (OUP, 2003), or even Church and State in America (OUP, 2d ed., 2003).

Comments

[Hellmut Lotz]

Lets turn the question about good or bad religious involvement on its head: Is it good or bad theology to get involved in politics?

It probably depends whether religions pursue principles or tribal interests. The Golden Rule can determine the difference in most cases.

For example, when Christians demand school prayer, they must ask themselves if they would be comfortable with the school prayer: "There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet."

If they can honestly answer that question affirmatively then their support for school prayer is consistent with the Golden Rule. Otherwise, as Christians we should probably reconsider that particular demand.

It's pretty difficult to imagine a scenario where support for civil rights or abolition violates the Golden Rule. Likewise, both sides of the abortion issue can be justfied in principled terms.

Too many times, however, the label "Christian" is merely maskerading demands of tribal domination. In that sense, some religious involvement in politics really does threaten non-establishment. The problem is not that Christians get involved in politics. When we use politics to create conditions that privilege our own religion then we violate the establishment clause.

That difference demarcates proper and improper political activities of religious organizations in principled terms. That does not necessarily mean that this demarcation should be enforced. But it means that one can distinguish between political activities of religious organizations without being a hack.