It's been a long time since I last posted on my blog, and I have to admit that I've missed it a great deal. So, what better topic to bring me out of my blogging hibernation than my continued fascination with religion. I know that this is a touchy subject, and I want to be clear that in writing this post I am in no way trying to "win people to my side" or propound on why I am right and others are wrong. To the contrary, my previous posts on religion started some of the best dialouge that this little blog has seen, so let's see if we can't repeat some of that success.
I Realize God is Omnipresent - But Does He have to be in Every Story?
As the Great Backlash continues to march onward, gaining strength with every day despite that fact that there appears to be nothing left to backlash against, it seems that we are finally reaching a point where a majority of issues are viewed through the lens of religious faith. Perhaps this feeling is influenced by the fact that it's hard to find a news story these days that isn't about Terri Schiavo, but I don't think it is. Books like God's Politics are near the top of the non-fiction bestseller list, and Tim Lehaye's Left Behind series has now sold something like 50 million + copies (presumably these count in the fiction column). Moral Values were supposedly key to Bush's re-election (I actually think this "Moral Values" catch all was more indicative of the fact that people didn't/don't believe Kerry had ANY values, than showing some countrywide shift towards evangelical belief, but that goes against the thread of this post, so I'll leave it alone). Whether or not Creationism should be part of the US public school curricula seems to get more attention than how to fix the current shortcomings of an eduction system that has US high school students consistently testing in the 3rd decile worldwide in math and science. Medical progress seems tied to stem cell debate. Environmental policy is purportedly influenced by politicians' interpretations of biblical passages about Man's dominion over the Earch (Bill Moyers recently wrote a fascinating review for the New York Times Review of Books on this subject). Some argue that Foreign policy is influenced by the "need" to have Jews reclaim the entire original Kingdom of David before the return of Christ, and on....and on....and on.
Watching all of this transpire in the media at the headline level, I find myself wondering if it has always been this way. If so, then it would seem that our country has been built with the perfect equilibrium of faith and science, belief and curiousity. If not, then I wonder where we are heading with this newfound desire to incorporate faith into every aspect of pubic life.
Religion in the US Government
It wasn't always this way. Brooke Allen wrote a piece (it's an amazing article and well worth a read for anyone interested in this subject) earlier this year in The Nation about the role of God with our founding fathers. In it, he starts by asserting that, contrary to what George W. Bush and Tom Delay would tell you:
Our nation was founded not on Christian principles but on Enllightenment ones. God only entered the picture as a very minor player, and Jesus Christ was conspiciously absent. The omission was too obvious to have been anytime but deliberate, in spite of Alexander Hamilton's flippant responses when asked about it: According to one account, he said that the new nation was not in need of "foreign aid"; according to another, he simply said "we forgot." But as Hamilton's biographer Ron Chernow points out, Hamilton never forgot anything important.
In the eighty-five essays that make up The Federalist, God
is mentioned only twice (both times by Madison, who uses the word, as
Gore Vidal has remarked, in the "only Heaven knows" sense). In the
Declaration of Independence, He gets two brief nods: a reference to
"the Laws of Nature and Nature's God," and the famous line about men
being "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." More
blatant official references to a deity date from long after the
founding period: "In God We Trust" did not appear on our coinage until
the Civil War, and "under God" was introduced into the Pledge of
Allegiance during the McCarthy hysteria in 1954.
As someone clearly out of the mainstream on this one, I have to accept the possibility that I am woefully wrong on this issue. And, as I recently discussed with my friend Brian, I may be heading towards a really miserable 10 years starting the day I get on the subway and there's nothing there but me and a bunch of clothes people have "left behind". However, I have to say that I hope I'm at least partially right and that people will begin to get back to keeping their beliefs to themselves before this gets too out of hand. Perhaps Ben Franklin said it best when asked about his own belief system a few weeks before he died:
Here is my creed. I believe in one God, Creator of the universe. That
he governs it by his providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That
the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other
children. That the soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with
justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to
be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as
you do in whatever sect I meet with them.
As for Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I
think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the
best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has
received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the
present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though
it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and
think it needless to busy myself with now, when I expect soon an
opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm,
however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good
consequence, as it probably has, of making his doctrines more respected
and better observed, especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme
takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of
the world with any particular marks of his displeasure.
For safety sake, however, it's also worth noting another of Ben Franklin's quotes on the matter:
A man compounded of law and gospel is able to cheat a whole country
with his religion and then destroy them under color of law.