In God We Trust

30 March 2008

Religion Sustains Freedom

Posted by Roy Bischoff under: Constitution in Peril; Judaeo-Christian Values Under Attack .

The Heritage Foundation has some very good articles on line. Here is a part of one of those articles by Matthew Spalding that I thought especially good:

Religion and Morality

The Founders’ support for blending religion and politics was based on the following syllogism: Morality is necessary for republican government; religion is necessary for morality; therefore, religion is necessary for republican government. ‘Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,’ Washington wrote in his Farewell Address, ‘Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness–these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens.’

Those two sentences are illuminating. Religion and morality are the props of duty, the indispensable supports of the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, and the great pillars of human happiness. They aid good government by teaching men their moral obligations and creating the conditions for decent politics. And while there might be particular individuals whose morality does not depend on religion, Washington argues, this is not the case for the nation as a whole: ‘And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion.’

In the end, while it is often thought that religion and politics must be discussed as if they are radically separate spheres, the Founders’ conception of religious liberty was almost exactly the opposite. It actually requires the moralization of politics, which includes–and requires–the continuing influence of religion in public life.

The health of liberty depends on the principles, standards, and morals common to all religions. By acknowledging the realm in which reason and faith agree and can cooperate about morality and politics, religious liberty unites civic morality and the moral teachings of religion, thereby establishing common standards to guide private and public life. By recognizing the need for public morality and the prominent role that religion plays in nurturing morality, the Founders invite churches to cooperate at the political level in sustaining the moral consensus underlying their theological differences. It is by separating sectarian conflict from the political process and then strengthening this moral consensus that religious liberty makes self-government possible.

America does not depend on a shared theology, but it does depend on a shared morality. In his First Inaugural Address, the first president said that ‘there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness’ and that no nation can prosper that ‘disregards the external rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained.’ Jefferson put it more succinctly: The people, who are the source of all lawful authority, ‘are inherently independent of all but the moral law.’

What the separation of church and state does, then, is free religion–in the form of morality and the moral teachings of religion–to exercise an unprecedented influence over private and public opinion by shaping mores, cultivating virtues, and, in general, providing an independent source of moral reasoning and authority. At the same time, religious liberty reminds man to pursue his transcendent duties and frees religion to pursue its divine mission among men. Alexis de Tocqueville observed that even though religion ‘never intervenes directly in the government of American society,’ it determines the ‘habits of the heart’ and is ‘the first of their political institutions.’

Conclusion

Today, it is increasingly evident that there is a close connection between America’s deepest social ills and the weakening of religious participation and the abandonment of traditional moral norms taught by religion. Rebuilding a post-welfare state society demands the return of religion and faith-based institutions to their central role in the nation’s civic and public life. To attain this, Americans must abandon the interpretation, maintained by the Supreme Court, that religion is in conflict with freedom and that any ‘endorsement’ of religion creates an unconstitutional religious establishment. That interpretation prevents government from recognizing or advancing religious faith generally.

At the same time, sectarian politics is not the way to restore and strengthen America’s religious heritage. A better course is to return to the more reasonable, historically accurate, and faith-friendly view of religious liberty that upholds religion and morality as indispensable supports of good habits, the firmest props of the duties of citizens, and the great pillars of human happiness.

Matthew Spalding, Ph.D., is Director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Thought/wm1722.cfm

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