One Nation? Under God

Back when the Geek was a professor he put what he thought was a properly high emphasis on the role of religion, specifically Protestant Christianity, in American history. His co-workers in the history department were scandalized by this effrontery. In the unforgettable (to the Geek at least) words of one, "Of course you're right, but do you really have to make a point of it?"

The Geek realised long before that memorable encounter at the department mail boxes that he was out of step with the elite of his generation. They had almost without exception replaced the long standing American zeal for religious belief with one which celebrated secularism and the absolute separation of the communities of faith from the dialogue(s) in the public square. While being one with the famed aphorism of Laplace two hundred years ago and being a strong advocate of the "liberty of conscience" enshrined in the "no establishment" and "free exercise" clauses, the Geek was (and is) unwilling to distort history, least of all the history of his own country.

America was founded on religious passion. It must be recalled that the Puritans came to the wilderness of New England not in search of religious tolerance but in order to freely practice religious intolerance. As the legal history of the Massachusetts Colony shows clearly the theocrats of the Bay cheerfully instituted a regime based on religious precepts which was so narrow minded, intolerant, coercive and rigid that the most intense Taliban adherent could not improve upon it in the slightest.

Throughout the colonies religion was the kingdom and Christ was King. Laws looked both to the English common law and the bible for their justification. Community solidarity depended upon conformity of behaviour based on conformity of belief. The dissenters were neither welcomed or tolerated. Even Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, the (semi-mythic) icons of religious tolerance and inclusion were actually thin-skinned, insecure strongholds of fanatics.

The need for a "liberty of conscience"clause in the basic laws of the several colonies was recognised even before the first shots of the War of Independence were fired. The Virginia Statute on Religious Liberties authored by Thomas Jefferson was a firm sign pointing in the required direction.

Unless carefully constrained the religious enthusiasm and zeal of competing sects would rip the political and social fabric of the new republic apart. Unless citizens felt themselves both protected in their individual rights of conscience, the tyranny of a religious majority would crack a sharp whip on the backs of nonconformists. Thus the "no establishment" and "free exercise" clauses were at the top of the post-Constitution "must do" list along with liberty of speech and the press.

Religion was not bared from the public square. That was not the intent of those who wrote and approved the clauses in question. The purpose was one of civilizing and controlling the passions so easily stirred by matters of faith. A republic, the founding generation correctly saw, demanded restraint, control and civility in the public square, and they realized that these were readily destroyed by the passions of religious belief. They also correctly saw that the minorities, the dissenters, the nonconformists, were at risk in their individual holdings and persons once the genie of belief driven zeal was released from the bottle.

Religion stayed alive, well, potent and pervasive throughout the Nineteenth Century. It, or to err on the side of accuracy, one Protestant sect, became the virtual "state religion" in the states of the Confederacy both before and after the War Between the States. Ironically, this "state religion" was a sub-set of the Baptists. The irony springs from the fact that the Baptists of the late Seventeenth Century had been the strongest proponents of a wall of separation between state and church.

Religion featured heavily not simply in the internal crisis of the War Between the States, in the fight between abolitionist and slaveowner, it was just as important in the American identity crisis which developed with increasing speed between the late 1840s and the end of the century.

Identity crisis?

You bettcha! The American people have undergone several bouts of intense anxiety over just who-are-we? and how-do-we-know-we're-us? over the past two hundred years. This is completely understandable. The US is an artificial nation. It grew around a set of ideas. These ideals coupled with the very real possibility of material betterment in a vast and underdeveloped country served as a people magnet without equal.

People from different lands, cultures, languages and--ta-da! religions came in ever increasing numbers to the US. The most critical problem through much of the Nineteenth Century was the arrival of Roman Catholics. To put it bluntly, Catholics, particularly those from Ireland and later southern Europe, were not easily or warmly accepted by the Protestant majority.

Absent the "no establishment" and "free exercise" clauses, the conflicts between native Protestant and new arrival Catholic would have been more violent and extensive then they were. At the national level the "civilizing" effect of the twin clauses showed itself by repeated Congressional rejection of anti-Catholic measures. Ultimately the clauses provided the breathing space and time necessary for the multiple American nations to sign a series of separate peaces over differences of religious belief and agree that we could all be Americans--what ever that might mean.

It is true that the public square seems to have become ever more secular during the first three quarters of the Twentieth Century, but that is more a matter of appearance than reality. It is more that obvious passions faded along with the identity crisis during the opening years of the century. Sure, there were moments of conflict such as the Biblical Literalists opening shots in the anti-Darwin campaign eighty and more years ago.

But, in the main, Americans were content to put the fires of belief on hold and concentrate on matters at hand. Matters like the Great Depression, World War II and ultimately the Cold War. Indeed, the American people reinforced their sense of national self by reducing the apparent differences between religions. It was Americans who invented the unhistorical notion of the "Judeo-Christian tradition," and sought to meld the differing--even conflicting--theologies of Protestantism, Catholicism and Judaism into a sort of bland, one-size-fits-all civic religion which defined America and its ideals vis a vis Communism.

It was the need for a Cold War appropriate way to differentiate the US from the Soviet Union which gave rise to the sudden insertion of the words, "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance where it sits to this day as an indigestible lump to those of us who first learned the Pledge in grade school in the dark days before God was invoked. This brings up another delicious piece of irony.

Ironically, in view of the past few years, the US was the only non-Islamic country which differentiated itself from the Soviets on the basis of the latter being "godless" and the former "godly." The notion of godliness took such firm root in the US during the Cold War period that for a while at least it was open season on any person who was not a full, seemingly eager participant in one or another of the several flavors resident within the "Judeo-Christian tradition."

During the last decades of the past century, faith driven political ideologies re-emerged from the shadows. With the same sort of Wahhibist dedication and zeal that had typified the Puritans, the resurgent Christian "Conservatives" sought to enlist the political process in their particular (and often peculiar) view of biblically based morality. The flames of True Belief flared high, bright and hot, particularly among those who drew their nourishment from the the "state religion" of the Old Confederacy--the Southern Baptist Convention--and others from the same theological (not to say theocratic) model.

Not surprisingly the opposition reacted by elevating the "no establishment" and "free exercise" clauses to a level never before seen. The intelligentsia, particularly those born in the Forties, Fifties and Sixties, demanded a total removal of religion not only from the public square but from American history as well.

The result has been that the elite, the opinion molders, the academics, the journalists and even many of the political class, are dedicated True Believers in the secular agenda.

The other result has been that many, even most, of the rest of the American public remains faithful to the several communities of faith which co-exist in more or less harmony throughout the US.

The purpose and intent of the twin clauses barring establishment and assuring free exercise was to civilize and restrain passions. Without this moderating influence the fires of belief--whether religious or secularist--would imperil the still very delicate balance of the republic.

Get a grip on it. The American republic has charted a narrow and twisting course through the rocks, shoals and reefs of religious zeal. We still are. Even with more than two centuries experience we don't have it right yet.

But, we do have a tradition of separating the political sphere to a substantial extent from that of religious practice and belief. This is all that separates us from the countries of Islam.

The challenge is for us to understand not only how intertwined religion and state are in the Islamic countries and what that implies. We must also understand just how delicately we are balanced on the razor's edge of too much religion and too little. Both the Christian "Conservatives" and the secular intelligentsia must curb their passions.

Both must recognise that the Founders were right--passion destroys and civility creates. Otherwise God (or something) help us all.