Sen. Barak Obama (D-IL) recently gave a speech on the role of religion in public life. It has been much heralded as a strong defense from the political left of religion in public square.
Obama is right that Alan Keyes, and anyone else for that matter, is a fool for suggesting that Jesus would or would not vote for this or that particular candidate. The prudent course is to be measured yet confident in the mixing of one's religious convictions with public affairs.
Obama says:
At worst, there are some liberals who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or thinking that the very word "Christian" describes one's political opponents, not people of faith.
Political scientists Bolce and De Maio point out that this isn't just "some liberals." The research suggests that a large and growing contingent of the Democratic activists have an active hatred towards religious people in general, and evangelical Christians in particular. This is a trend Obama is courageously trying to stem, it seems.
Obama speaks with some eloquence on the need of faith in our lives, especially since to modern world tempts us with so many false, and thus ultimately unfulfilling, gods.
Each day, it seems, thousands of Americans are going about their daily rounds - dropping off the kids at school, driving to the office, flying to a business meeting, shopping at the mall, trying to stay on their diets - and they're coming to the realization that something is missing. They are deciding that their work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness, is not enough.
They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives. They're looking to relieve a chronic loneliness, a feeling supported by a recent study that shows Americans have fewer close friends and confidants than ever before. And so they need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them - that they are not just destined to travel down that long highway towards nothingness.
Obama defends the role of religious appeals in our political discourse:
[I]f we scrub language of all religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice.
Imagine Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address without reference to "the judgments of the Lord." Or King's I Have a Dream speech without references to "all of God's children." Their summoning of a higher truth helped inspire what had seemed impossible, and move the nation to embrace a common destiny.
The Senator makes a point I have made ad nauseum on this blog: most (if not all) major reform movements in our nation's history have had a profoundly religious character:
Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King - indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause.
I find the Senator in error here:
Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason.I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.
The Senator assumes a conflict between faith and reason. The entire field of Theology suggests the opposite. For example, the whole project of Thomas Aquinas was to find the harmony between his Christian faith and Aristotelian philosophy. If you have a couple hours on your hands, see John Paul II on the subject. I think it is enough for people of faith to air their various religious opinions with humility. The people at-large can then decide who makes a more convincing case. While it is always wise to have additional secular arguments on one's side, society does itself a disservice when it holds religious opinions to be "second-class" opinions.
We could all gain from reading the Obama's concluding story about the role of abortion in his Senate race.
Liberals need to answer this argument: if liberals can reject religious conservative arguments against abortion and homosexuality as "imposing your values on me," why isn't the religious left's argument in favor of greater public spending on anti-poverty (or anti-AIDS, etc.) programs subject to the same attack? Liberals might say, "if you don't like abortion, don't have one." Why couldn't conservatives say "If you want to give money to the poor, do it. Why force me to do what you say is my Christian duty? Quit imposing your religion on me." If it is wrong for conservative Christians to "impose" their beliefs on abortion and homosexuality, it is equally wrong for liberal Christians to "impose" their religious beliefs on social justice issues. Just for the record, I think both the conservative and liberal religious arguments in favor of their policy preferences are totally legitimate, but I am not the one who complains about "imposing your religion on me." In my view both sides do a lot of proposing. I don't really see much imposing, unless it is from liberal courts.
See Joe Knippenberg for more thoughts.
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