“Congress shall make
no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or
the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government
for a redress of grievances.” First
Amendment of the United States Constitution (emphasis mine)[i]
“re·li·gion
[ri-lij-uhn]
noun
1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and
purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a
superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual
observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human
affairs.
2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices
generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.
3. the body of persons adhering to a particular set of
beliefs and practices: a world council of
religions.
4. the life or state of a monk, nun, etc.: to enter religion.
5. the practice of religious beliefs; ritual observance of
faith.
6. something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point
or matter of ethics or conscience: to make a religion of fighting prejudice.
7. religions, Archaic. religious rites: painted priests
performing religions deep into the night.
8. Archaic. strict faithfulness; devotion: a religion to
one's vow.”[ii]
“If young people continue to be more interested in how we
treat others and what we do to make the world a better place, rather than
equating morality with religion, then we will finally realize an America that
values freedom of and freedom from
religion.”[iii]
Let me begin this essay with a direct refutation of the last
quotation above. Simply put, America
never has and never should have a value of a “freedom from religion”; such a
value runs directly contrary to the free exercise clause of the first
amendment. In stating this assertion and
thesis for this exploration, let me be clear also in saying that no American should
ever be forced to follow a particular religion, nor should it be an American
value to do so.
In the last several weeks, the Washington Post has put
forward numerous articles on the relationship of religion and the public
sphere. This is not solely to report the
news, but also has been featured prominently over several months in its weekly
column/section “On Faith”. I, for one,
am happy for the exchange of ideas and forthright positions put out by the
authors of these articles, even though I question the apparent truncation of
the spectrum of ideas that the Post has included in the weekly column in the
past several months.
Two very recent articles are the catalyst for my writing at
this juncture. The first, “Is atheism
winning the culture war?” written on 23 October 2013, is the source of final
quote above and the second is “Supreme Court to hear new case on religion in
public life”[iv],
written on 1 November 2013, is certainly also a catalyst for this flurry of
discussion on religion’s place in our public life. It might be good for you to first read those
two articles prior to continuing with this discussion.
Now that you are back from reading these articles and the
case before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS, and perhaps taking
off on a bit of a Wikipedia/web self-discovery based on the themes expressed in
each), I come back to my above two statements about religion in American public
life (or any freedom loving society). As
is done in a very concise way, the first amendment makes two very critical and
poignant clauses about the place of religion in public life. First it defines an “Establishment Clause”
forbidding the establishment of “religion”, second it puts forward a “Free
Exercise” clause regarding “religion” (actually using the phrase “thereof” but
clearly the object is “religion” and clearly means “of religion”). Now this seems rather elementary, one phrase,
two clauses, and off we go. But these
two clauses have, from the time of their passing, been at utter odds with one
another. How is it that you can never
make a law establishing “religion” without restraining one religions “free
exercise”? Likewise, how is it possible
to stop any kind of law that protects religious expression (if you will, ensuring “free exercise”) without “establishing religion”? Nowhere, however, is offered a “freedom from
religion” as defined value in American public life.
I think much of this comes down to how one defines
“religion”. I offer one set of
definitions in the above set of quotations, from Dictionary.com. Note that for the noun “religion” there are 8
definitions offered, some of which are shades of difference from each other,
others are altogether unrelated. The
question at the core of this discussion turns on what was the intended meaning
of this term and what is the meaning now that applies to how we look at this
today. So, we thus need to explore two
understandings, the one in context in which it was written and the one in the
context of where things have evolved to our modern day.
When looking at the historical context, we must understand
the religious landscape of the day. From
the early 17th century through to the Revolution, people, as one of
the primary reasons, had been making there way to the American colonies for
religious freedom. And this religious
freedom that they sought was not to be free from religion (to escape or remove
religion from their lives), but to believe in the manner that moved their
conscious (to be able to practice or freely and openly express their faith
without persecution). The tale of the pilgrim’s
Mayflower journey and the establishment of the Massachusetts Bay colony alone
bespeaks this factual situation, never minding we have a state called
“Maryland” originally as a refuge for Catholics and large enclaves of
“Pennsylvania Dutch” which come from German extraction to this day. The crux of the issue was that Europe, the
ancestral home of the American Founding generation, had been ravaged by wars of
religion since time immemorial, and especially since 1517 when the Protestant
Reformation caused a tectonic shift in the religious landscape unleashing
hellish pogroms and retributions that made all past strife seem passive in
comparison. Simply put, and to move
forward apace, the Founder’s did not want to have the same strife characterize
their new nation. Thus, they
didn’t want the foundation for public life centered on one creed, one way of
believing, and knew that the already pluralistic society in the colonies
wouldn’t tolerate such religious conformity in any event. But they also recognized there needed to be a basis
from which morality could derive and that a just society could exist; meaning
they had to allow for each person to find that through their own manner.
So in looking at a late 18th century definition
of religion, in the context of a founding document for a new nation in their
context, it is clear that the best definition of “religion” in the first
amendment most closely hews to “a specific fundamental set of beliefs and
practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist
religion” and “the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs
and practices: a world council of
religions.”[v] If you will, this is talking about
“established religion”. Thus, as it is
classically understood, the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses pertain to
enabling groups and individuals to practice their commonly held beliefs openly
in society without government endorsement or hindrance in doing so. It recognizes as its core underlying principle,
that people have beliefs (and such beliefs certainly included a belief that
there is nothing to believe in), and these should be fully allowed to be
broadcast in the public square. It also
says that the public square, being a place that government is in charge of
maintaining and regulating, cannot become a camp site for one sect or another
nor can government play referee on what group can or can’t be able to make an
expression and exercise of its beliefs.
With this said, we must now turn to the fact that it has been a long
time since we all gathered at a public square to hear the hourly update from
the town crier.
If nothing else, it is clear that our phraseology and
language has changed in the over two centuries of time since the ratification
of the First Amendment. So a word like
“religion” has been reshaped by time and our context. As seen in the spectrum of the definitions
above (and beyond from other sources and references), this term, this word has
expanded and often developed idioms of its own.[vi] And, as we look to the First Amendment, its
meaning has also been morphed and changed for how we think of “religion” in our
public life. None was or is more
striking to me, in this discussion, than the change in understanding of
“religion” than the SCOTUS decision in Engel
v. Vitale where Justice Black wrote that “it is no part of the official
business of government to compose official prayers for any group of American
people to recite as part of a religious program carried out by the Government.”[vii] This strongly held decision (6-1) by the
SCOTUS shows that the word “religion” no longer was simply defined as one sect
or group but a body of expression made.
And no longer was the anti-establishment provision being used to protect
from having the Catholic faith (or any other you can name) adopted as the creed
all American’s were obligated to follow, but instead any measure that the state
might take to define or otherwise introduce an expression or practice of
religion was seen as an establishment of “religion”. Now I must admit that I don’t disagree with
the SCOTUS decision that teachers (agents of the state) leading a prayer or
compelling the recitation of a prayer that was drawn up (even as innocuous as
the prayer was in the case that is cited) is not appropriate, and while not
“establishing religion”, in my mind, does create a state sponsorship of
belief. That said, what has now come to
the fore as a meaning for “religion” is closer to “a set of beliefs concerning
the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as
the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional
and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct
of human affairs.”[viii] This much wider definition of religion, is
partially why I reject the notion of a “freedom from religion”.
While I must applaud the author of the article “Is atheism
winning the culture war?” for his apologetics of atheism (and largely support
his discussion of how atheism needs to get its message out freely), I can’t
subscribe to a core belief that we as American’s have a right to push out of
the public square any ideas, any discourse, because we don’t like it. For my part, it is not about “winning” or
“losing” a “culture war”. What the core
of our American freedoms are about, is that the battle of ideas about who we
are, where we go, and how our society is shaped needs to be a raw, open, and
frankly resolved debate that leaves out nothing in our deliberations. I actually think that atheism (and its
related isms of rationalism, humanism, and so forth) is getting quite a bit of
its due in society today (in schools, the open willingness to hear such voices,
and not to mention their place in a column like “On Faith” in a major media
outlet). I am glad for it, as those
voices must be heard. But so too with
those that profess faith and religious based beliefs. At its core, however, it matters not if Mr. Silverman
wishes that young people divorce morality from “religion”, because if one asks “from
where do morals derive?”, one circles back historically and philosophically
that morals have their derivation in a sense of belief, the core of what the definition
of religion is (and we don't get to choose the commonly held definitions of the words we choose). And what concerns me
with the notion of creating a “freedom from religion” is that what is being
created is accepted ignorance of a whole body of thought that has much to say
about morals, ethics, and social norms that have been at the foundation of
societies and social structures since civilization began.
And going back to definitions for a moment, this concern comes
rightly out of the fact that the understanding of the amendment at its
beginning to now has changed. No longer
is it about avoiding the establishment of one creed on the part of the
government, it is avoiding having to hear about or exposure to any belief in “personal,
judging gods.”[ix] We have to accept that our language has
changed and been shaped by our present context, and as such arguing for a
“freedom from religion” no longer means simply avoiding compulsion into
becoming Episcopalian, it means expunging religion from our public life. To me, such a premise goes well beyond the
Establishment Clause and simply searches to undermine the Free Exercise clause
(e.g. “its fine to practice your religion so long as you: never speak of it
publicly, don’t have my children get exposed to it in any part of their
education or public places, and you do it only in your own space, at your own
time, and hide it from all of us through your own expense (even though you pay
taxes into a government just like everyone else)). At its core this takes aim to remove from us
as a people any centering morality, any centering ethic for how our society is
to run and operate. I am clearly taking
this a bit to an extreme, and I am not certain that this author is trying to
achieve this total end. That said, this
is the inevitable conclusion of this line of thinking and goal of having a
“freedom from religion”. As a student of
history I take the following words of Edward Gibbon as operative to this point
as a word of warning in regards to morality, civic virtue and moderation:
"[T]he decline of Rome was the
natural and inevitable effect of immoderate
greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of destruction
multiplied with the extent of conquest; and as soon as time or accident had
removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure
of its own weight.”[x]
To conclude, I am not trying to say that I want atheism to
be blocked from its pulpit in the public space, rather the opposite. My thesis is that America never has and never
should have a value of a “freedom from religion”. Theists and Atheists alike should be and are
entitled to their beliefs and the expression of them without endorsement or
hindrance from the government. Weakness
is shown in either side’s intent and character when they choose to focus on
eradicating the other’s right to speak and express themselves instead of enabling
their counterpart the right to present their case nakedness of the public
square and public criticism, writ large.
This means that we have to tolerate and accept that we cannot have
freedom from religion, especially as we now define and understand religion, any
more than we can have freedom from speech or from the press or from any
positive right we have been given, not merely in the constitution, but in
natural law. Denial of the right of free
expression, or free exercise that does not derive from the need to protect said
exercise or expression for all/others, is against the core of our societal
fabric. Further, it is an American value
that we honor and respect not only each other and our beliefs, but also the
underlying construct of how we are able to work together as a society to
protect these same freedoms for ourselves and our progeny.
[i] US
Constitution, adopted 15 December 1791, retrieved from http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment,
on 2 November 2013
[ii]
Definition as found on Dictionary.com, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/religion?s=t
retrieved on 2 November 2013
[iii]
Silverman, Herb, “Is atheism winning the culture war?” Washington Post, On
Faith, 23 October 2013
[iv]
Barnes, Robert, “Supreme Court to hear new case on religion in public life”,
Washington Post, 1 November 2013
[v]
Definition number 2 as found on Dictionary.com, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/religion?s=t
retrieved on 2 November 2013
[vi]
See the Dictionary.com website, “get religion” being one of many such idioms.
[vii]
“Establishment Clause”, under the section called “School-sanctioned prayer in
public schools”, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishment_Clause,
retrieved on 2 November 2013
[viii]
Definition number 1 as found on Dictionary.com, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/religion?s=t
retrieved on 2 November 2013
[ix]
Silverman, Herb, “Is atheism winning the culture war?” Washington Post, On
Faith, 23 October 2013
[x]
Gibbon, Edward, The Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire, Chapter 38.
