Up until 1960, no Catholic had been elected President. That year, John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, was the Democratic nominee.
Fears swirled that being Catholic, he would follow the Pope’s wishes, impose Catholic doctrine, and be a threat to religious liberty. Those fears were palpable in the Church I attended at the time.
Two months before the election Kennedy spoke to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in words that resonate today, not because they reflect today’s reality, but because so much has changed.
“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote;
… where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials;
… where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind.”
Contrast those words with President Trump’s at a church in Miami leading up to the 2020 election. “Evangelical Christians of every denomination and believers of every faith have never had a greater champion, not even close, in the White House, than you have right now.”
A significant and growing part of the Republican Party believes the law must reflect religious, specifically Christian, values.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr was blunt in a speech at Notre Dame Law School. “Judeo-Christian moral standards are the ultimate utilitarian rules for human conduct. … They are like God’s instruction manual for the best running of man and human society.”
Others are equally clear. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., “That is our charge. To take the Lordship of Christ, that message, into the public realm, and to seek the obedience of the nations. Of our nation!” Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Co., “The church is supposed to direct the government … I am tired of this separation of church and state junk.”
Between Kennedy and today’s Christian Nationalists (those who believe that the nation’s civil law should reflect Christian doctrine) there is a fundamentally different understanding of the relationship between church and state, and equally important, a different understanding of the relationship between the individual and the state.
For the Christian Nationalists, Christian doctrine, personal moral behavior and public policy are not separate, but intertwined. In Barr’s words, free government is “only suitable and sustainable for a religious people … who recognize that there is a transcendent moral order antecedent to both the state and man-made law…”
Freedom is the freedom to submit.
The alternative is Democracy. An ideal that starts with the principle we are all equal, and because we are equal, we each have the freedom to be who we are. At our nation’s birth we affirmed in our Declaration of Independence that the state is subservient to the people and the purpose of government is to secure life, liberty and the ability to pursue one’s own happiness.
Former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy writing in Casey v. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania, captured the essence in a single sentence. “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.”
Freedom is the freedom to be oneself.
The “culture war” that divides us is a contest between Christian Nationalism and Democracy. A contest that is philosophical, religious and political. A contest over who we are, why we are here, the origin of morality, the nature of community and the role of the state.
Ideologies, of which Christian Nationalism is one, finds the answers to all those questions in an authoritative source be it God, natural law, or historical necessity. The ideology provides the vision of what is “best”. People are required to conform. There is no private space. Because a “better world” will result, force is justified.
When an ideology captures the political and police power of the state the freedom to be different disappears. Slowly at first perhaps, but inevitably. We have seen it happen and continue to see it happen under communism, fascism and religious governments of all faiths.
The vision of Democracy is a community of people equal, diverse and free to be themselves. Such a community requires a personal space exempt from law. There is separation between personal and public. The public deals with how we treat each and create community. It is the domain of law. The personal has to do with identity, beliefs, and values. Who I am and what I do. It is a domain for discussion and persuasion.
Democracy requires both a recognition of a right to privacy from government intrusion and a recognition that my beliefs and values may not be appropriate to enshrine in law.
The specific battles of the culture war center on sex, gender and race. Issues that could not be more individual and personal. Religious belief is mixed in, making the controversies both more consequential and more difficult to resolve.
The cultural/religious warriors interpret Biblical texts to limit gender to male and female. Gender roles are specified and sex can only be heterosexual. They adopt the Old Testament view that the human relationship with God is a relationship between the nation and God. Because we are called to be a holy nation, not just individual Christians, coercion is justified. Personal behavior, the law and God’s will must all align.
In states controlled by Republicans who have embraced Christian Nationalism, diversity is being cancelled. Those who are gender expansive are treated as though they do not exist. Their identity is denied. Medical care is withheld. Their stories are censored, books are removed from schools and taken off library shelves.
Race is the other flashpoint. There too, the story of slavery, the story of continued oppression, the story of the movement toward personal freedom and equality, is censored. Racial history is rewritten, cancelling the long and continuing struggle by Blacks to overcome and allowing Whites to forget their role.
The relationship between Church and State has always been fraught. Tension increases whenever the Church seeks state power to enforce doctrine, or the state uses its power to restrict the private practice of belief. The threat increases if a major political party joins forces with the Church.
But doctrines change. Attitudes change. Social norms change. Perhaps the current culture war is a fever that will break.
There is a long history of Biblical texts being reinterpreted (or ignored) to accommodate new understandings. We no longer believe the world is flat. We accept evolution. We reject ethnic cleansing. We stay open on Sundays. We charge interest on loans. The texts used to condone slavery are passed over.
Within the last month the Vatican repudiated the “Doctrine of Discovery” which justified colonialism and the exploitation of indigenous people. Adultery and fornication, although subject to the same Biblical maledictions as alternate gender roles and non-heterosexual sex, don’t seem to elicit the same legislative fervor to criminalize.
We have a choice between two fundamentally different ways of organizing ourselves in community. The decision will be made at the ballot box over the next several elections. Do we prefer the relative harmony that comes with community, where we are truly equal, where there is respect for diversity and a protected space for the private? Or the enforced conformity to an ideology handed down to us?
We get to decide.
Excellent article. What is really concerning is that Christian Nationalism is exactly that kind of movement that the original framers of the constitution were trying to protect us against by writing a constitution and making laws that respect religious and philosophical differences. On the other hand, the preference for democracy is itself a philosophical difference. Republican politicians are using political tools to dismantle these protections, and rewrite our laws in an undemocratic way. In the end, we are learning that we can never stop actually fighting the battle for our democratic beliefs. We cannot depend on reason alone to convince our opponents or secure our rights.
We can hope the up and coming young citizens can and will make a difference at election times.