Many of us approached the year 2000 with millennial fears of computer hell and the meltdown of modern life. These turned out to be groundless fears. Now in the days beyond and into 2001 many of us have downgraded our fears of apocalypse to simple alarm. Electoral gridlock . . . get over it. Electrical brownout . . . hold hearings. Stock market slide . . . a natural cycle. Empty shopping malls . . . time to spend. Overt government funding of church social programs . . . a necessary paradigm shift for effective government and no constitutional threat.
Said quickly, the glib explanations bring quick comfort. Taken a little more analytically, they translate into reason for alarm.
In his first inaugural address, after the political war of the 1800 election, President Thomas Jefferson made a point of enumerating the protecting principles of the still-new republic. “ Friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none. . . . Freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of persons under the protection of habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and the blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civil instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety” (Mar. 4, 1801; italics supplied).
I’m compelled to use this speech from a sage of the republic because of the two italicized sections. All elements of this unique polity that is the United States derive from the principles enumerated in the Declaration of Independence: and when Jefferson cites freedom of religion in close proximity to the caution against entangling alliances, he reveals the operative notions that informed the whole national endeavor. Implications of foreign policy change aside, Jefferson and his contemporaries obviously saw risk in the “entanglement” of church and state. Risk to both church and state.
Wandering from the proven path in “moments of . . . alarm” was Jefferson’s fear and our reality. Alarm over the inroads of radical secularism, moral collapse, and failing education is feeding the frenzy of “good people” calling for a rethinking of government’s role in empowering the role of religion.
That response to alarm is itself setting off alarm bells in those jealous for the integrity of the vision Jefferson and his fellows left to us. A USA Today headline for January 31, 2001, says “Bush Proposal Sparks ‘Fears.’” “Playing With Fire?” asks a January 20, 2001, World discussion on this latest Faith-Based Initiative refinement to charitable choice. “Risky Business, Yet Worth a Try” banners an opinion piece in the Spokesman Review (Feb. 2, 2001) by someone willing to take the risk. A more “con” piece in the same paper under the title “Devil’s Certainly in the Details of This,” says that the “proposal clearly crosses the long-held line on separation of church and state.” “Faith-based organizations should be worried,” concludes the author, a member of the paper’s editorial board.
Would that more of the “faith-based” organizations saw the hazard. After 28 clergy from around the nation met with then President-elect Bush to discuss faith-based programs, one attendee, Roger Paynter, commented in The Report From the Capital that he “was uncomfortable with how little concern was demonstrated by other religious leaders over church-state issues” (Jan. 24, 2001).
To be sure, his fellow Baptist leader J. Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee, is on fire with concern to counter this well-intentioned compromise and threat to church autonomy. Walker sees “stormy weather for those who champion the separation of church and state . . . charitable choice battles will rage almost right away. . . . We are ready for the fight” (The Report from the Capital, Jan. 10, 2001).
The charitable choice issue is increasingly couched in the simplistic verbiage of secular decay versus re-empowering the morality of the nation. Presented that way it tends to cow many people of faith who, while sharing the prayer that God will heal this nation, see constitutional compromise and ultimate religious liberty implications in this rush to partner church and state.
The early Christian church lived at the margins of legitimacy for hundreds of years. Believers took great social risks in embracing a faith that at times excited harassment from civil authorities. But the church remained amazingly active and true to its doctrinal integrity. It grew in spite of a lack of government support. And in a time of secular weakness it was amazingly nonconfrontational with dissidents and other belief systems.
Then in the fourth century the emperor Constantine took Christianity to the pinnacle of power. He professed himself Christian and used the power of Rome to advance the faith. The best that can be said of this turning point is that it was the beginning of a long marriage between church and state. The worst involves doctrinal heresy endorsed by state power, an increasingly violent intolerance of anything less than the state-endorsed version of faith, and the use of religion to withhold freedom from the less privileged. It’s rough-drawn analogy, but based on historical fact and without doubt on the minds of Jefferson and his historically minded peers.
The faith-based initiative proceeds on the illusion that the state can avoid playing religious favorites. It will of necessity avoid faith programs out of the mainstream or held in suspicion by those charged with administering programs. It will tend to further endorse those programs now existent and further marginalize those competing with them, not just for the opportunity to do good deeds but to communicate their own version of faith truth. It will as naturally lead to state endorsement of a faith preference in the United States as in fundamentalist states like Iran and Afghanistan, which we castigate for intolerance. And at the end of the day, as experience has shown all too clearly, true religious faith and commitment will suffer.
Faith is the stuff of personal communication with a God. It responds poorly to civil oversight, and quickly degenerates into a powerless nominalism that expects the state to do what faith once strove for.
For love of God we should pray for a revival of faith in public life, and for a personal recommitment to a respect for the faith of others. We must pray that good intentions do not bind us over to the mistakes of earlier ages. We must understand the difference between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven.
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