Voice and Values

One thing I keep reading and hearing about is the separation of religion from politics. One fallacy I keep seeing is that “religion and politics” means the same as the separation of “church and state.” Historically this is purely untrue. The actual statement in the Constitution when applied to its historical context means something very different than the reification it gets today. It means that the structures of the church can in no way institutionally support, or validate the actions of the government. The head of Britain is the head of the Anglican church – this is the kind of thing the clause is actually talking about.

That being said – we’re constantly reinterpreting everything. I understand that, and it is a necessary element. But it is only valuable when you can still remember the original context and meaning (if you’re not doing that, you are a revolutionary – not one who stands in the tradition).

Why does this bother me? Because under that clause we are systematically removing the values and morality of religion from speaking about public life. There is a grand delusion that people have fallen into where only science or fact can talk about public life. Only objective data (which boil down to Kantian ethics) are useful at all for the public domain. In this way the project of modernity is still ticking right along.

The movement to ban the ability of churches, or people of faith, from acting on behalf of that faith in public is growing. In effect, the message of Christianity is being censored out of public life. At this point it is only Christianity. But as soon as an imam or rabbi says something people don’t like, they’ll be out too.

The hypocrisy of it all, for me, is that Christian theology is only one way of talking about meaning and value. Other religions perform the same task. Other philosophies, including the materialist, secular, scientific philosophy which is in dominance today is performing the exact same task. All these systems of value do it on radically different terms and premises. But they are all playing the same game. The hypocrisy is that one value system, which now has power, is ruling out of court the other value systems that have the ability to topple it. They’re not doing it by appealing to an argument, or that their system is “better”. They are merely doing it by mischaracterizing what is actually going on. They say they’re not playing the same game, but different games – and that religion game is outlawed from public life.

I’m not worried for a minute that they’ll “win” and something will happen to religion. Religion has been the primary mover of humanity and culture until the mid 1800′s in Europe, and the mid 1900′s in America. It is still the primary mover in Africa and South America. Asia is a little harder to diagnose. I’m just worried that we’ve stopped actually thinking about what is going on. Because should the tables of power turn, voices for value should not be arbitrarily silenced.