Religion is under siege in America, when we are in the greatest need of hope that can come only from belief in a higher power.
Faith, which was once a guiding force in our political system and a source of personal strength for our nation’s leaders, is to many now a point of weakness ““ something deemed inappropriate by the purveyors of rigid separation of church and state. The ideals of our founders have been turned on their heads.
Just in time for Passover and Easter, probably the most significant religious holidays for Jews and Christians, respectively, the cover of Newsweek magazine bears the dolorous title, “The Decline and Fall of Christian America.” The lead article focuses on the new American Religious Identification Survey, which has shown that the number of unreligious Americans has been steadily increasing since 1990.
Though the author of the article ““ Jon Meacham, who is also the editor of the magazine ““ first attempts to hide behind his own religion ““ as many closet seculars do ““ to convince his Christian audience that he is troubled by the statistics in the survey, it is not difficult to see that he is actually gleeful about it. Reacting to the study, he says buoyantly: “Our politics and our culture are, in the main, less influenced by movements and arguments of an explicitly Christian character than they were even five years ago. I think this is a good thing ““ good for our political culture, which, as the American Founders saw, is complex and charged enough without attempting to compel or coerce religious belief or observance.”
Like many liberal Americans, this author repeatedly confuses the idea of separation of church and state with the idea that religion has no place at all in our political system. While insisting that the presence of any religious ideas in government would necessarily “compel or coerce religious belief or observance,” he blinds himself entirely to the pivotal role that faith has in our political system.
Contrary to popular belief, there is no reference to “separation of church and state” in the Constitution ““ it is the invention of people (like the Newsweek author) who want desperately to accommodate the narrow interests of the relatively slight number of non-believers in the country who represent anti-traditionalism ““ or “progressivism.”
According to the Constitution, the only prohibition on government is that it cannot promote the formal “establishment” of a particular religion.
Despite the contention of many liberals that we have always been a secular country ““ which ignores the omnipresence of religious symbols in our government, such as state seals, currency and the Pledge of Allegiance, to name a few ““ there is no escaping that America was founded by deeply religious men who envisioned that their society would be based on their Judeo-Christian beliefs.
They expected future generations to respect and uphold that tradition.
The founders clearly thought that liberty was a blessing from God. After all, the Declaration of Independence tells us that our rights are “endowed by (our) Creator.” Nevertheless, people continue to assert that the U.S. is not a Judeo-Christian nation but rather one that just happens to be home to many Christians and Jews.
President Obama recently said, “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.”
But in a free and open society, how is order maintained if values are not based on a particular faith or book of faith, which protects us from the moral whims of people and culture? National issues cannot be arbitrated if we accept moral relativism. Atheists will proclaim that they get their values from their hearts, but this view is a subjective kind of morality. Every great question, whether it be abortion, school prayer or even taxation, comes down to the views of the people making the decision. How would they be able to decide these questions if there were no commonly agreed upon standard of right and wrong, as in the Bible?
And there is another problem: If people happen to have religious convictions, should they have to choose between politics and their faith ““ that is, would they either have to ignore their beliefs or stay out of politics?
If so, that would seem to militate against the very idea the Newsweek author, and others, are seeking to promote ““ the idea of inclusiveness.
In the end, we have to remember that the disestablishment of religion is just as dangerous as the establishment thereof. The dangers that secularism poses to a free society are historical and manifold ““ just think, it was the decline of religion in Western Europe that inspired fascism and led to the extermination of millions of Jews.
This glaring example should be enough to convince people of the necessity of religion, and yet, it hasn’t convinced everyone. Many people, mainly liberals, continue to think that society would be better off if religion were extirpated from politics (except in the case of people like Martin Luther King Jr., who are never challenged when they use Bible-based arguments for minorities’ sakes).
Nobody is arguing for a state-sponsored religion or for one religion to be “compelled” on anyone. Instead, we are only arguing for the preservation of some religious sway in our government that will inform our politics. That should not infuriate nonbelievers, and it would be perfectly reconcilable with the founders’ intentions.
E-mail Pherson at apherson@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.