First Amendment protects, doesn't bar, religion

First Amendment protects, doesn't bar, religion

By Joseph A. CannonDeseret Morning News
After my column on the resurgence of atheist books attacking religion, a reader wrote that I should "stop trying to shove (my) beliefs down everyone else's throats." He also noted that he has "a feeling that separation of church and state is something (I) loathe." Our reader is making a mistake, common at least since the 1960s, that because the First Amendment prohibits state-sponsored churches and protects religions from government interference that there can or should be no discussion of religion in the public square. The framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were deeply concerned that state-supported churches and laws requiring certain types of belief in God would give religions the power of the state to enforce particular doctrines. Undergirding the framers' thinking is a strong commitment to a religiously pluralistic society in which all ideas, including religious ideas, compete in the marketplace. Thomas Jefferson, speaking about the conflict of religious beliefs, argued that "reason and free enquiry are the natural enemies of error." Jefferson believed that religion itself would benefit from open public discourse. Jefferson noted, for example, that "had the Roman government not permitted free enquiry, Christianity could never have been introduced." Alexander Hamilton believed that one of the principal attractions of the United States to prospective immigrants was that instead of "mere religious toleration" there existed under the new Constitution "a perfect equality of religious privileges." Far from wishing to exclude religion from the public square, the Founders had a deep understanding that not giving government sanction to a particular church would lead to religious diversity which would strengthen the religious impulse of the citizenry. George Washington understood this, and, speaking for many of his colleagues, said that "of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports." Paul Johnson in his exhaustive "A History of the American People," (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1997) concluded that "America had been founded primarily for religious purposes, and the Great Awakening had been the original dynamic of the continental movement for independence." So what does all this two-century old stuff have to do with our times? The debate about the role of religion in society continues and has escalated in recent years. Those against religion and belief in God have some more tools in their tool kits. The long trend of secularization and modernity beginning in the mid-19th century has had its effect. In great part, the existence of religion and its effects have been largely ignored in modern scholarly research and public policy. Many scholars treat religion as an artifact, believing that the postmodern world we find ourselves in has moved beyond religion. But it turns out that religion is much more stubborn than many of the scholarly crowd assumed. So stubborn that some scholars today are rethinking the role and consequence of religion in public life and culture. In 1994, Oxford University Press brought out "Religion, the Mission Dimension of Statecraft." This study was "prompted in part by a concern that the rigorous separation of church and state in the United States has desensitized many citizens to the fact that much of the rest of the world does not operate on similar basis." In order to achieve more peaceful reconciliation to bitter conflicts, greater stress must be placed on "approaches that key to deep-rooted human relationships (religion) rather than to state-centered philosophies." The contributors to this volume believe that religion in general and religious individuals in particular can play a "powerful role in peacemaking" in world conflicts. More recently, and more fundamentally, a group of American scholars are rediscovering that religion is an indispensable tool in understanding why some countries are successful and why others are so "agonizingly slow" to progress toward "democratic governance, social justice and prosperity." Two recent books, "Culture Matters," (Basic Books, 2000, edited by Lawrence E. Harrison and Samuel P. Huntington) and "The Central Liberal Truth" (Oxford, 2006, Lawrence E. Harrison) talk about the relationship between cultural values and human progress. Harrison is an immensely well-respected scholar at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a former director of a number of United States Agency for International Development missions in Latin America. Based on two decades of intimate observation of Latin America, Harrison concluded that the fundamental problems leading to the underdevelopment in Latin America had more to do with culture than other factors and that "culture is powerfully influenced by religion." In a recent interview on C-SPAN, Harrison stated that it is hard to overstate the role of religion in the successful development or underdevelopment of countries. Some commentators disagree with Harrison on his evaluation of particular religions and particular regions and some disagree as to the weight applied to religion in his analysis. However, everyone agrees that he has reshaped our understanding of the relationship between religion and international development. These two examples of recent scholarship underline the importance of religion even in our post-modern culture and the need for civil public discussion of religion. Such a discussion is entirely consistent with intent of the Founders of our country, does not violate the principle of separation of church and state, and is not intended to "shove" anyone's particular religious beliefs down another's throat.

Joseph A. Cannon is the editor of the Deseret Morning News.