Church and State Clash on the Steps of the Capitol
White nationalist militias with names like Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, The Three Percenters, and Texas Freedom Force were at the forefront of the mob that stormed the nation’s Capitol last month and have been the focus of subsequent criminal investigations for their actions.
There were others, also, in that same crowd who carried the cross, the holiest of Christian symbols, as they sought to overturn the election, the central rite of democracy. What to make of them? What brought them to the steps of the Capitol?
Breaking the windows and bashing in the doors of the Capitol can be seen as the physical acting out of the rising political effort by militant, nationalistic Christians to breach the constitutional wall separating Church and State. Their goal is to impose laws not rooted in the consent of the governed, but based on eternal Truth handed down by the Deity. With banners flying, they embodied the words of the old hymn, “Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before.”
Their insistence that civil law be subservient to God’s law calls into question Democracy itself. What do votes matter when, “Thus sayeth the Lord”? The will of the people must bow to the higher authority. Only then is possible to have true freedom, happiness, prosperity and a well-ordered society.
Senator Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, personifies both the religious fervor and the political militancy that came together at the Capitol on January 6. It is fitting that he was the one who led the effort in the Senate to throw out the certified votes from four states and negate the election.
Hawley describes himself in speeches as a born-again Christian who accepted Jesus as his savior when he was five, sitting on his father’s knee. He cites scriptures from both the Old and New Testaments to support the creed he preaches. Jesus is Lord over all of life. In particular, he is Lord over the public sphere. Government is not God. Government is limited and subject.
In a commencement address at King’s College, he told the graduates they are called to transform society, to stand for Christ’s lordship, and to seek the obedience of the nations, of our nation. The will of the people matters naught. In fact, Hawley notes, the idea that individuals have the capacity and freedom to adopt their own purposes is rooted in the teachings of Pelagius, a fourth century British monk, that was condemned by the Church as heresy.
The belief that people can “fix their own destinies” and “create themselves”, both foundational democratic concepts, is in Hawley’s telling, the cause of our social, economic and political problems.
In a piece written for Christianity Today, Hawley quotes from a 1992 Supreme Court decision written by Justice Anthony Kennedy. “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” That sentence, Hawley writes, is the “most eloquent contemporary statement” of the heresy condemned by the Church 1600 years ago. The heresy that is the cause of our nation’s ills.
In rejecting Pelagius, Hawley sides with St. Augustine, who was a bishop of the Church in the fourth century. “We are fragile. We are fallible. We suffer weakness.” We need God’s guidance in both our private and public endeavors. For Hawley, political action must be directed by Christian truth. “Replacing (the heresy) and repairing the profound harm it has caused is one of the great challenges of our day,”
Emmanuel Macron, President of France, a country with a much different history than ours, takes the opposite position. In matters of Church and State, the State is sovereign. Responding recently to sectarian tension and violence, he emphatically affirmed the supremacy of the State. “I have never said that I want moderate Muslims. That is not my problem. I don’t ask a Catholic to be moderate. I don’t give a damn. When it comes to someone’s religion, that does not concern me. On the other hand, I demand of every citizen, whatever their religion, to respect the rules of the Republic, because he or she is a citizen before being a believer or a nonbeliever.”
The relationship of the individual to the State is not simple. How does one balance the often-competing claims of independence, freedom, justice, equality, community and order? Few of us, I think, are comfortable with the prescriptions of either Hawley or Macron. Both lead too easily to arbitrary authority.
Throughout history politics and religion have been intertwined. Religious leaders have enlisted the power of government to enforce belief and combat heresy. Political leaders have used religion to cloak themselves and their actions with divine blessing and authority. The combining of the two fomented holy wars, crusades, inquisitions, persecutions, martyrdoms, forced conversions and burnings at the stake.
The writers and adopters of our constitution wanted none of that. The first phrases of the Bill of Rights affirm, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion; or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …” Church and state were to be separated.
It is a noble goal, but there is no way to separate them completely. How they mix is a work constantly in progress.
In the early years there was not much controversy. Most of the population went to church every Sunday, the nation looked on itself as “Christian” and even though there was no direct connection between church and state, prayers were offered in public schools and Christian symbols populated public spaces.
Beginning in the 1960s, secular activists filed law suits seeking greater separation. Court decisions ended prayers in public schools and limited the placement of religious symbols in public places. Roe v. Wade made abortions legal.
The consistent message from the Court at that time was summed up in a second 1992 decision, also written by Justice Kennedy. “The design of the Constitution is that preservation and transmission of religious beliefs and worship is a responsibility and a choice committed to the private sphere …”
Some conservative Christian, seeing these decisions as an attack on their faith, pushed back. They organized politically, elected legislators of like mind, filed multiple lawsuits seeking to expand the permissible practice of private belief into the public spheres of business and politics.
For Hawley and others, there can be no accommodation. The law must bend to doctrine. The State is not separate from the Church. The call to battle brings the cross to the steps of the Capitol.
There will always be competing values. The requirement to balance those values comes with being human and living in community. There is always tension. The Greek concept of limits is useful, I think, in giving us a way of dealing with the tension. There are no absolutes. Valuing any virtue above all others is destructive. Strength carried to an extreme becomes a weakness.
This is not looking for compromise somewhere in the moderate middle, but living with the tension of competing values and choosing in the moment between “yes” and “no”. The answer to the recurring question on which side does one come down, varies with the circumstances.
When the religious leaders tried to trap Jesus into choosing between obligations to the state and one’s religious convictions, his answer was essentially, it all depends. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
Pascal, the French philosopher, made a similar point in different words. “One does not show greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once.”
Those among us who understand ambiguity and are willing to accommodate the values of others are those most suited to lead in a diverse democracy. Those who are certain they know the Truth will, in service of that Truth, always be tempted to join the insurrection and sacrifice democracy.
Douglas Kane is the author of "Our Politics: Reflections on Political Life" published in 2019 by Southern Illinois University Press
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