It's political season again, and the Christian evangelical politicians are back to making their claims that somehow atheists and liberals are trying to force "Christians" out of American public life.
What it their evidence for this? Well, they define "Christian" as "someone who believes what I do." Then they are motivated by their "Faith" (whatever variety it is) to enter politics where public decision-making occurs. When they do, they find that a great many people who don't believe as they do, and those others also don't think that their personal Faith automatically trumps any other Faith or secular reasoning that participates in the public decision-making process. The so-called "Christian" evangelical politicians think they must be given control of the public decisions because of their personal faith. They know they are right and everyone else is wrong because their God is The God and no one else has any truth to support their views.
I consider myself a Christian and person of Faith; and I do not recognize the strange doctrines of the so-called self-described "Christian" fundamentalists and evangelists as being either Christian or even true "Faith." Since I am neither an evangelist for my personal Faith, nor am I searching for a teacher in the murky waters of fundamentalism (Christian or otherwise), my personal religious beliefs is not open to discussion with politicians or evangelists. Nor do I want to convert any fundamentalists from what I consider their heresy of Christianity. The issue is simply not open to discussion at anyone else's instigation. My beliefs and my faith are my business, as yours are your business. Period. End. Full stop.
That said, I can respect that the personal faith that others have motivates them into the public arena to participate in the political process of public decision-making. The key point everyone must recognize is that a person's Faith is a personal decision, not to be interfered with against that person's will. But a person's faith does not give him or her priority in public decision-making, either. That is a form of authoritarian government called "Theocracy" which has no place in a Republic.
People of faith have every right to enter the public decision-making process that we call politics. In a Republic they must be allowed to vote, to speak freely, and to run for office as the preacher Mike Huckabee has done and is doing, and as Jessie Jackson did in the past. Their personal faith should be respected because it apparently motivates them to work for the good of society and the nation.
Or so they say. The problem with personal faith in politics is that we have only the individuals unsupported word for what it is, what it means, that he or she even has it, or that it truly motivates him or her over other motivations. No one knows what another person's faith really means. The only real public evidence is their word for it. There is no external evidence that a televangelist acts out of faith or out of desire to live the high life on donations from the suckers, for example. We have only their word for their faith and its motivating power, and many of us see the behavior of such persons living in great wealth and doubt - but do not know - that we are seeing faith at work.
A lot of people may agree on what they say is their personal faith and say they share it with others, but that still boils down to each person, who does not know any more of what is in an other's heart, vouching for what is in some other person's heart. So they wave a copy of the Bible (or some other holy book - the Koran or the Book of Mormon, for example) and claim that it is the revealed word of God so that it must be the truth. Is it truly the revealed word of some entity labeled - in the limited symbology of human language which clearly cannot embrace the infinite - is it truly from "God"? How do we know? Someone else tells us so. Based on that witness, we can either accept it on faith or not, but it is still nothing more than someone else telling us that it is true. Whether we accept that witness is a personal decision.
It is not disrespect of another's faith to say that when they express it in the political decision-making process and try to make it the law of government, others apply their own beliefs and faith and reject their beliefs as government policy. The expression of private faith by one person does not automatically become public policy in the face of disagreement, but that disagreement does not challenge their personal faith. Being unwilling to enshrine one person's private faith as public policy does not diminish that private faith. It merely means that the secular arguments needed to convince people who have a different and conflicting private faith or beliefs will not accept what is, after all, merely faith and not rational as guide for public government policy. The description "merely" applies only in the realm of public decision-making and has nothing to do with the power of the faith to the individual who professes it.
Public political decisions in a democratic Republic cannot be made because one person declares that their faith demands it. Such decisions, based on the totally personal faith of one individual, or even a small group, is what John Locke called arbitrary decisions. He then explained that a democratic nation must operate under the Rule of Law. Government based on arbitrary decisions is authoritarianism, not democracy.
Protecting democracy from the arbitrary personal decisions made by individuals motivated by their personal faith does not disrespect their personal faith. It only acknowledges that public decisions have to be made by political means using persuasion rather than the arbitrary command that faith demands that government act a certain way.
The political process is a set of procedures we use to make public decisions for government. European history has clearly demonstrated the danger of basing government decisions on the arbitrary commands of a few who claim that their faith requires the government act certain ways ways and refuse to listen to those who disagree. When those who profess one personal faith control government and declare that those who reject their government decisions are heretics are setting up the basis for a revolution or war. The declaration that government serves those who hold one faith and rejects those who hold another faith undercuts the very legitimacy of that government. None of us accept being taxed by government to support someone else's personal beliefs.
So the solution that has worked is that government must not intrude on personal religious faith unless it presents a clear public secular threat. The public decision-making process must not be allowed to reject any person because of their personal religious beliefs, but those beliefs are permitted, even expected, to motivate individuals to enter the public decision process we call politics. But the decisions made by government officials much be based on reasons other than someone's personal faith, and must be approved by a large cross-section of individuals throughout the nation.
The religious politicians appear not to understand the very basis of democratic public decision-making in a Republic. The religious politicians are trying to use alleged threats to the personal faith of their followers as motivation to spread their personal faith to control government even when the majority of the population objects. They want to eliminate the very basis of democracy and put the government back into the arbitrary decision-making based on the personal faith of government leaders, and they declare that anyone who opposes their destruction of the Constitution and democracy is a liberal, secularist or atheist and is attempting to somehow marginalize their personal faith.
This is not a religious battle. It is a political battle in which religious organizations are being coopted as part of the political machinery. The religious politicians must be stopped. And they will be. This is the essence of the truth of separation of Church and State. Church is personal, and state is public.
The public truth is that America is not a religious theocracy which allows private religious faith the preempt public democratic decision-making. America is a democratic Republic and the basic law of the land is the U.S. Constitution.
That's my view. See also Michael Berube's article Skepticism about Faith, which clarified my thoughts on religion in politics. If we disagree, then I stand behind what I wrote above.
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