Submitted to a Candid World

The oldest causus belli in America’s culture war is, perhaps, also the most basic: was America founded as a Christian nation? The traditional wisdom about where the battle lines should be drawn on this matter – progressives “holding the line” on a secular vision of America, with theocrats insisting on Christianity as THE “founding faith” ((Interesting side note: John McCain believes that the Constitution – not abstract notions of foundational values – affirmatively established a Christian nation (YouTube). This is so patently false as to be an obvious attempt to pander to the religious right, and an indicator that McCain, for all his attempts, just can’t speak their language.)) – unfortunately leaves the truth somewhere in the crossfire.

A Partial Defense of Religion in the Public Sphere

In fact, the Founders contemplated neither extreme. History, insofar as it can be used to reconstruct America’s foundational values, indicates that the Founding generation did – to a certain extent – see a strong confluence between religion and democracy. In an oft-quoted passage, Alexis de Toqueville, surveying the nascent American Republic, considered religion integral to the American democratic ideal:

The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.

Early American religion served to justify and legitimize early American democracy (“Endowed by our Creator…”). Clearly the Founders hoped that, by guiding the private lives and works of its citizens, faith would strengthen the moral fiber of the Republic. But just as clearly, they intended a strong separation between private faith and public faith. America could brook no tyrant, not even if God was on his side.

Hence our careful constitutional compromise between free exercise and non-establishment of religion, a fusion of seemingly contradictory requirements that strives to validate the multifaceted potential of civic religion. In the spirit of free exercise, government gives faith a chance to realize its great potential for good (in the form of subtle accommodations for charity-minded religious institutions), while, in the spirit of non-establishment, limiting its equally great potential for mischief (by erecting “The Wall” between church and state).

Taxing Religious Politics

The legal implications of America’s compromise between its inherent religiosity and its fear of theocracy range from the profound to the mundane. Let’s start with the mundane, and work our way back up.

Taxes. To encourage the positive role of religious institutions as community builders, churches, synagogues, etc., are typically exempt from federal taxation unless (since 1954) they endorse a political candidate, or function as a political action group. This concession validates the Founders’ vision of religion as a desirable entity, and a potential pillar for the Republic’s morality, while limitations on the exemption ensure that the republican barrier between politics and faith remains intact, pragmatically limiting both church and government to their areas of competence.

Of course, as religion and politics become increasingly intertwined (abortion, gay rights, etc.), religious leaders have to face the harsh reality that their political role is, to some extent, circumscribed by their budget: ministers can play the part of the culture war field marshal, but the state won’t subsidize it. Attempts to characterize this limitation as an impediment to free speech rely on the proposition that religious institutions are somehow entitled to special treatment, merely because they’re religious institutions. But this has never been the law and, as argued above, it’s certainly never been the reason behind the law. American religion has never been an excuse for special treatment in otherwise neutral policy arenas like crime, tax or, say, academic performance:

The American constitutional tradition only creates special laws for religion when they’re necessary to affirm religion’s special place in our lives, and when it’s reasonable to assume a confluence between religion’s goals, and the goals of pluralistic republican government. Political advocacy is serious business – but it’s also regulated business. The mere fact that political speech comes from a pulpit, and not a television, is not reason for it to avoid those regulations.