Should Religion Play a Role in Politics?

The Stone is featuring occasional posts by Gary Gutting, a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, that apply critical thinking to information and events that have appeared in the news.

As our electoral process has begun to accelerate, questions about religious affiliation and calls for candidates to sign pledges supporting religious stances are in the news.  Here are some reflections on the general question of the role of religion in our political life.

One view, attractive to many Americans, holds that religion has no place at all.  Roughly, the idea is that religion concerns the private sphere: what pertains to me as an individual or as a member of a voluntary community of like-minded individuals (e.g., a church).  Political life, by contrast, concerns the public sphere: what pertains to me as a member of a wider community (a city, state or nation) of individuals with diverse views on issues such as religion.  This distinction seems necessary once we realize the hatred and violence historically associated with religious disagreements.  Unless we simply agree to disagree about matters of such intense division, there is little hope of sustaining a civil society.

This exclusion of religion from public discussion has historically attracted Americans from two quite opposed perspectives.  Some have found the rival claims of different religions all equally absurd and so all equally to be ignored.  Other have taken at least their own religious views as true and important, but, fearing the political triumph of conflicting views, have agreed to a truce under which all religious claims are withdrawn from the public sphere but are allowed to flourish in private.

As long as we are talking about specific theological doctrines, Americans for the most part agree that religion has no place in our public life.  Few think that transubstantiation, predestination, Trinitarian theology or the nature of episcopal authority are legitimate topics of political discussion.   Religion enters our public discourse primarily as a voice on certain moral issues.

But should religious viewpoints, even on moral issues, have any role in our political debate?  Some say no, on the grounds that effective arguments require premises that virtually everyone taking part in the discussion accepts.  A religious argument, based on, say, the authority of the Bible or of the Pope, would therefore, be out of place in a public debate among citizens with every variety belief and disbelief.

But this line of thought misunderstands the point of political debate.  The goal is to reach consensus about conclusions, but not necessarily consensus about the reasons for the conclusions.   We have, for example, come to a consensus about extending full civil rights to all adult citizens, regardless of race or gender.  But some argued for this conclusion from the equality of all human beings as children of God, others from self-evident truths about human nature, and still others from the overall increase in happiness that would result from equal treatment.   Not everyone accepted the premises of all of these arguments, but that did not prevent such arguments from having an essential role in our national debate about civil rights.  They helped form what John Rawls called an “overlapping consensus,” in which different groups of citizens accepted the same conclusions from quite different arguments.  So there is no objection in principle to religious arguments in political debates.

What is striking on the current American scene, however, is the extent to which people see certain political and economic positions  as required by their religious commitment.  We may understand — even if we do not accept — the thinking of those who condemn abortion on religious grounds. But many conservative religious groups  endorse a wide range of political and economic positions that have no religious basis.  For example, The Family Leader (the group that has called for presidential candidates sign a pledge supporting “family values”) has a Voter’s Guide that specifies the “attributes of a strong Christian leader.”    According to the guide, a strong Christian leader “understands key elements of God’s law,” which means that, for example, the leader “upholds the Biblical principles of responsibility and accountability in civil life, thereby limiting the size and cost of civil government”; “encourages an ethical and free enterprise system, and understands it is the only economic model in accord with Biblical principles”; and “understands the right to bear and keep arms” for defensive purposes.   The guide also specifies that strong Christian leaders must subscribe to various views about how to interpret the United States Constitution.

There is no honest line of argument from what the Bible says to substantive conclusions about the size of the United States government, the need for a free enterprise system, the right to bear arms or the proper interpretation of the Constitution.  Family Leader (and many other religious groups with a conservative political agenda) are disguising partisan political positions as religious convictions. This cripples efforts to have meaningful discussions about their political views.

Proponents of conservative views that require sober argument from empirical facts and generally accepted principles, instead merely assert them with religious fervor.  Opponents are understandably irritated by the irrationality of claims that distinctively modern questions about capitalist economics and democratic government were answered in the Bible 2000 years ahead of time.  Eschewing this sort of appeal to religious considerations would be a good start toward reducing the acrimony and frustration of our political debates.