Secularism is not Anti-religion

Commentary Secularism is not anti-religion

Susanna Rodell The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette November 21, 2005

“The liberal movement has been conned into thinking the best America is a secular America.” So one of my readers told me this week. “Our founding fathers wanted Freedom Of Religion, not Freedom From Religion.” He elucidated. “We on the right are fighting for a God-filled America, not a God-less America.”

It’s a familiar theme. Secularization, along with its relative, secular humanism, has become one of the catch-words of the right, sharing star billing in its lexicon with other top faves, such as activist judges and government-out-of-control.

The argument goes that the Founding Fathers assumed they were creating a Christian nation and that over years of misapplication of the First Amendment, we have created a godless polity in which the original vision has been lost, along with the brakes on bad behavior. It’s an understandable position.

I’m no fan of current pop culture. The pervasiveness of tawdry, mindless (and soulless) sexuality depresses me. (I’m even more horrified at the general abandonment of morality in the business world, but those guys contribute a lot to political campaigns and the anti-secular crew doesn’t seem to waste much emotion on them.)

In any case, no matter which brand of badness (OK, call it sin) you focus on, it’s easy to believe that a dose of values is exactly what the country needs – and if you get your own values reinforced through religion, it’s very tempting to think that what works for you would be good for everybody else.

There are two big problems with this fix, however. First of all, what’s the alternative? It’s one thing to rail against a godless state, but exactly how are we imagining injecting God into it? And whose God? Does it have to be Christianity? If so, what do we tell the millions of Americans who are Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim or another religion? And whose Christianity do we endorse? How do we choose?

If it doesn’t have to be Christianity, what religions may apply? All of them? Who decides?

The second problem, however, is the most fundamental, and that’s free will. Many of the people who rail against secularism call themselves Born Again. How did that happen? If you listen to the telling of it, they made a decision to turn their lives over to Christ. Are they now asking for a world in which that choice is made for them?

I’m not being facetious here. It seems to me that one of the basic tenets of Christianity – and most other religions, as well – is the concept of human choice: That we can ally ourselves with the divine or choose not to, at our peril.

A secular state is not anti-religious – it is simply neutral. It is the medium in which religion may flourish as it chooses. It is, in fact, as necessary to true religion as oxygen is to the human body. The secular state’s opposite is not the Kingdom of God – it’s theocracy. That’s what they have in Iran.

The Founding Fathers did, indeed envision a secular state, precisely because they viewed religious expression as so important, so vital and so precious. They came from places where the state dictated religion, and they didn’t like it at all.

As with many of the right’s bogeymen, the aversion to secularism is illogical. These are the people who rail about big government and its intrusion into our lives. Do they really want government to have the power to direct their spiritual lives?

Yes, many of the country’s founders probably did envision a Christian nation – just as they also spoke of the equality of all men, without considering women, and failed to include people of African descent in this equation. They had their limitations. (Thomas Jefferson was a deist and many of today’s right-wing Christians might be scandalized by his convictions.)

If you love your religion, the secular state is not your enemy – it is your ally. It allows us to continue to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. My kingdom is not of this world, Jesus said. The two realms are separate – as they should be.