Saturday, September 30, 2017

The 500th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation: What Does It Mean Today?

   By Rudy Barnes, Jr.

            This year marks the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.  It’s a good time to reflect on how that watershed event shaped our religion, politics and culture.  The Reformation did not liberate Christians from religious oppression in Europe.  In fact, it exacerbated religious oppression with sectarian wars that did not end until the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.

            It was then that Europeans, exhausted with religious war, accepted the concept of secular sovereignty.  It was the precursor of the Enlightenment, with its democracy, human rights and the secular rule of law.  They were political concepts that originated in natural law and reason, not in religion, and they superseded the political sovereignty of God with the sovereignty of man.

            The real transforming power of the Reformation was not in the Protestant theology of Luther or Calvin, but in the power of the printing press.  It made the Bible available to the public and freed people from the dictates of the Church, and it allowed them to question the divine right to rule.   But it did not prevent religious war from ravaging Europe for almost 130 years.  It would be the end of the 18th century before democracy became a political reality.

            Thomas Jefferson was a child of the Enlightenment who drafted the Declaration of Independence and promoted the religious freedom enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.  Jefferson was inspired by John Locke (1632-1704), who assisted the Lord’s Proprietors of Carolina to draft a Fundamental Constitution in 1669 that provided, “neither pagan nor Mohometan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the commonwealth because of his religion.”

            But Jefferson was a slaveholder, and the political freedoms of the Enlightenment were initially limited to white men in America.  It would take a Civil War that cost more American lives than all its wars since, and then two Constitutional Amendments (the Thirteenth in 1865 and the Nineteenth in 1920) before political liberty was extended to blacks and women.

            The Enlightenment marked the end of religious war and the dominance of religion in politics in Europe, but it did not bring peace to America.  Religion was a dominant factor in the Civil War, especially in the South where it defended slavery; and since then religion has been a major factor in American culture, politics and military crusades—often at the expense of reason.

            Religion, reason and political freedom have a symbiotic relationship.  Freedom allows immorality, and laws cannot eliminate immorality without curtailing freedom.  Moral decadence and radical religion in America have challenged both reason and the purpose and power of Christianity.  The test of any religion is whether its followers choose to obey the moral dictates of their faith when they are free to disobey them.  And Christianity has failed that test.

            For Jews, Christians and Muslims the greatest commandment to love God and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves—including our neighbors of other races and religions—is a common word of faith.  That moral imperative of faith cannot be enforced by law, and it did not prevent Christian Americans from going to war against each other; and since that Civil War it hasn’t prevented other misguided military crusades or reduced moral decadence in America.
  
            Unlike Europe, America never experienced a religious reformation, but America is a religious nation that needs to restore reason to its religion, politics and culture.  Radical religion and politics threaten the demise of democracy.  On the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, new innovations in communicating ideas, like the printing press over 500 years ago, could and should stimulate a new and needed reformation of our religion and our politics.     


Notes:     

Alan Wolfe has predicted the merger of Christianity and other religions in Western democracies with the secular libertarian values of the Enlightenment, and projected that Islam will follow suit.  In And the Winner Is…the Coming Religious Peace (The Atlantic, March 2008), Wolfe noted that The Protestant Reformation of 1517 quickly engulfed half of Europe, migrated to the New World, and…by 1618, the Thirty Years’ War had begun, resulting in the devastation of large swaths of western Europe and the death of some 30 percent of Germany’s population. Every new outburst of religious passion, while producing ecstasy and revelation for some, had disrupted established loyalties, fueled intolerance, and led to violence between the chosen and the damned.
Looking to the future, Wolfe referred to a recent cover story in The Economist, titled “The New Wars of Religion,” that proclaimed, “Faith will unsettle politics everywhere this century.”
Things have changed since Wolfe’s article in 2008.  While religion has indeed unsettled politics everywhere this century, it has not been in the way that Wolfe envisioned it.  In predicting a coming religious peace, Wolfe opined that …breathless warnings about rising religious fervor and conflicts to come ignore two basic facts. First, many areas of the world are experiencing a decline in religious belief and practice. Second, where religions are flourishing, they are also generally evolving—very often in ways that allow them to fit more easily into secular societies, and that weaken them as politically disruptive forces.The most important phenomenon in the United States. is…the creation and spread of a free religious marketplace which …revives religious devotion wherever it reaches, but also tends to moderate the religions offered within it.  Wolfe went on to say that American evangelicalism is becoming less hostile to liberal ideas such as tolerance and pluralism.  Political events since 2008 have proved Wolfe wrong in predicting that religious revivals will lead the United States to a coming religious peace, unless the elections of Donald Trump and Roy Moore are considered moving in the direction of peace.  See https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/03/and-the-winner-is/306654/.

Kurt Andersen has a presented a more dire—and fantastical—picture of religion in Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, a 500-Year History (Random House, 2017).  Andersen sees the Reformation as allowing Protestants to reject the Vatican and start their own religion, then reject that religion and “start their own new religions again and again.”  Then “The Enlightenment liberated people to believe anything whatsoever…and in the marketplace of ideas, [it was assumed that] reason would win.”  Andersen contradicts Wolfe in noting that reason never did win in this religious and political free-for-all in the marketplace of ideas, and he cites Emanuel Kant’s explanation that religion is burdened by questions “it is not able to ignore, but which…it is also unable to answer.”  Today the fantastical mystical doctrines of religion continue to trump more practical moral doctrines (pages 52, 53).  It should be noted that Andersen’s book emphasizes the fantastical (mystical) side of religion and does not address its moral imperatives.

In reviewing Jared Rubin’s Rulers, Religion and Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not, Christopher Kissane of The Guardian considered Rubin’s view of the Reformation (and the printing press) in Europe, and how it related to Islamic culture:
The driving motivation of most rulers is not ideology or to do good, but to maintain and strengthen their hold on power: “to propagate their rule”. This requires “coercion” – the ability to enforce power – and, crucially, some form of “legitimacy”. In the medieval world, both Islamic and Christian rulers claimed part of their legitimacy from religious authorities, but after the Reformation, Rubin thinks that European governments had to turn away from religion as a source of political legitimacy.
…Islamic rulers, by contrast, continued to rely on religious legitimation and economic interests were mostly excluded from politics, leading to governance that focused on the narrow interests of sultans, and the conservative religious and military elites who backed them.
…The source of Europe’s success, then, lies in the Reformation, a revolution in ideas and authority spread by what Martin Luther called “God’s highest and ultimate gift of grace”: the printing press.
…Europe’s long reformations were more a maze than a path. As Rubin notes, “getting religion (mostly) out of politics took centuries” – centuries of radical social upheaval and destructive warfare. He argues persuasively for the importance of both religion and secularization in economic history, but religious change affected not just politics but culture and ideas.

On Thomas Jefferson’s role in drafting the Declaration of Independence and promoting the Freedom of Religion in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, see Jon Meacham, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, (2012, Random House), Part III. 
 
On a Fundamental Constitution drafted for the colony of Carolina by John Locke in 1669 that provided a measure of religious freedom, see James Lowell Underwood, The Dawn of Religious Freedom in South Carolina (2006, University of South Carolina Press), at pages 2-4.

On how social media and the internet have transformed American politics (much like the printing press), and how Steve Jobs gave us Donald Trump, see  https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/steve-jobs-gave-us-president-trump/2017/09/05/f4f487e4-9260-11e7-aace-04b862b2b3f3_story.html?undefined=&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1.



Related Commentary:

(12/8/14): Religion and Reason
(12/15/14): Faith and Freedom
(1/11/15): The Greatest Commandment: A Common Word of Faith
(1/18/15): Love over Law: A Principle at the Heart of Legitimacy
(3/29/15): God and Country: Resolving Conflicting Concepts of Sovereignty
(4/12/15): Faith as a Source of Morality and Law: The Heart of Legitimacy
(1/23/16): Who Is My Neighbor?
(1/30/16): The Politics of Loving Our Neighbors as Ourselves
(2/27/16): Conflicting Concepts of Legitimacy in Faith, Freedom and Politics
(6/18/16): A Politics of Reconciliation with Liberty and Justice for All
(8/2/15): Freedom and Fundamentalism
http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/08/freedom-and-fundamentalism.html (8/9/15): Balancing Individual Rights with Collective Responsibilities
(4/23/16): Standards of Legitimacy in Morality, Manners and Political Correctness
(7/9/16): Back to the Future: Race, Religion, Rights and a Politics of Reconciliation
(7/19/15): Religion, Heritage and the Confederate Flag
(1/23/16): Who Is My Neighbor?
(1/30/16): The Politics of Loving Our Neighbors as Ourselves
(4/30/16): The Relevance of Religion to Politics
(5/7/16): Religion and a Politics of Reconciliation
(8/5/16): How Religion Can Bridge Our Political and Cultural Divide
(9/10/16): Liberty in Law: A Matter of Man’s Law, not God’s Law
(9/17/16): A Moral Revival to Restore Legitimacy to Our Politics
(11/19/16): Religion and a Politics of Reconciliation Based on Shared Values
(11/26/16): Irreconcilable Differences and the Demise of Democracy
(1/21/17): Religion and Reason Redux: Religion Is Ridiculous
(2/25/17): The Need for a Revolution in Religion and Politics
(3/4/17): Ignorance and Reason in Religion and Politics
(3/18/17): Moral Ambiguity in Religion and Politics
(4/22/17): The Relevance of Jesus and the Irrelevance of the Church in Today’s World
(6/24/17): The Evolution of Religion, Politics and Law: Back to the Future? http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/06/the-evolution-of-religion-politics-and.html.
(7/1/17): Religion, Moral Authority and Conflicting Concepts of Legitimacy
(7/15/17) Religion and Progressive Politics
(8/5/17): Does Religion Seek to Reconcile and Redeem or to Divide and Conquer?
(8/19/17) Hate, History and the Need for a Politics of Reconciliation

(9/2/17): The Evolution of the American Civil Religion and Habits of the Heart http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/09/the-evolution-of-american-civil.html.  

Saturday, September 23, 2017

Tribalism and the American Civil Religion

  By Rudy Barnes, Jr.

            Tribalism is the human tendency to relate to a group of like-minded people in politics and religion.  The centrifugal force of American politics has created a partisan duopoly of extremes on the left and right, leaving political moderates with nowhere to go.  American religions are also tribal, but they are not bipolar.  There is a wide diversity in the many American religious beliefs.

            Michael Gerson has questioned the prevalent view that America’s bipolar politics are immutable.  Americans could avoid partisan extremes by choosing multi-party politics like those of European parliaments; but Americans have chosen to limit their politics to one of two choices.  It’s the good guys (us) versus the bad guys (them)—the red team versus the blue team.  Politics are like sports in America: There’s a winner and a loser, and nothing in between. 

            But political issues are seldom black and white.  There are shades of grey—a third way—in almost all critical issues, especially those that lead to war.  In hindsight the Vietnam and Iraq wars were mistakes, and the U.S. Civil War was probably America’s worst mistake.  Slavery in the U.S. could have been eliminated without that terrible war, and preservation of the union was not a sufficient justification for the 600,000 casualties of that awful American tragedy.

            Gerson speaks of “…the dangerous triumph of cultural identification over unifying political ideals” and asks, “Who is at fault for this mental divide?”  Gerson speaks of needing the spirit of Abraham Lincoln for “mutual forgiveness” and “genuine reconciliation.”  But in 1860 Lincoln and southern fire-eaters polarized America and led it into its most destructive war.

            Both sides bear responsibility for that great American tragedy.  The voices of reason and options short of war were ignored by the bipolar political tribalism of that day.  Since then America has continued to limit its political choices to just two partisan alternatives, an overly simplistic approach that has produced extremist politics; but it doesn’t have to continue.

            Multiple parties could moderate our polarized two-party duopoly, as in parliamentary systems.  But Americans don’t seem willing to consider sensible alternatives to bipolar tribalism in politics.  In the polarized 2016 election, Americans rejected third-party candidates in favor of either a Republican or Democrat.  And they deserved what they got.

            Gerson asks: Who is at fault for our bipolar tribalism?  The answer is: We are.  As Pogo observed, We have met the enemy and it is us.  In a democracy we cannot escape responsibility for our political decisions, and any politics of reconciliation to remedy our bipolar tribalism will require ending our two-party duopoly—and that doesn’t seem likely anytime soon.           
           
            The religious half of the American civil religion is also tribal, but it’s not bipolar.  That’s because American religions have diffused into numerous sects.  And an increasing number of believers have disowned religion as nones to practice a more individualized “spirituality.”  While Inus Younis considers individualized spirituality an interim phase that leads to religious affiliation, there is no evidence that nones are returning to institutional religion.

            Tribalism defines American politics and religion, and our polarized two-party politics can take a lesson from our diffused religions.  Good religion and politics require independent and critical thinking and a commitment to provide for the common good, and both should be based on the greatest commandment to love God and to love our neighbors—including our neighbors of other races and religions—as we love ourselves.

            That’s a common word of faith of Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, and it can defuse polarized tribalism in the American civil religion and promote a politics of reconciliation.  


Notes:


 

On the good religion of Michael Cromartie that is “…a better kind of faith…that can teach us to think critically, not just about society at large, but about religion itself.”  See http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/faithbased/2017/09/michael_cromartie_s_good_religion.html.


Related commentary:

 (1/11/15): The Greatest Commandment: A Common Word of Faith
(6/7/15): The Future of Religion: In Decline and Growing
(9/20/15) Politics and Religious Polarization
(4/23/16): Standards of Legitimacy in Morality, Manners and Political Correctness
(7/9/16): Back to the Future: Race, Religion, Rights and a Politics of Reconciliation
 (1/30/16): The Politics of Loving Our Neighbors as Ourselves
(4/30/16): The Relevance of Religion to Politics
(5/7/16): Religion and a Politics of Reconciliation
(8/5/16): How Religion Can Bridge Our Political and Cultural Divide
(9/17/16): A Moral Revival to Restore Legitimacy to Our Politics
(10/8/16): Revolutionaries, Moderates and Reactionaries in a Polarized Democracy
(10/22/16): The Need for a Politics of Reconciliation in a Polarized Democracy
(11/19/16): Religion and a Politics of Reconciliation Based on Shared Values
(11/26/16): Irreconcilable Differences and the Demise of Democracy
(12/10/16): Partisan Alternatives for a Politics of Reconciliation
(6/24/17): The Evolution of Religion, Politics and Law: Back to the Future? http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/06/the-evolution-of-religion-politics-and.html.
(7/15/17) Religion and Progressive Politics
 (8/19/17) Hate, History and the Need for a Politics of Reconciliation
(9/9/17): The Evolution of the American Civil Religion and Habits of the Heart http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/09/the-evolution-of-american-civil.html.
(9/16/17): The American Civil Religion and the Danger of Riches


Saturday, September 16, 2017

The American Civil Religion and the Danger of Riches

   By Rudy Barnes, Jr.

            Civil religion is where religion and politics meet to shape the concepts of legitimacy that define a nation’s values.  The libertarian values of the Enlightenment have been the traditional political component of the American civil religion, with Christianity its dominant religious component; but capitalism and its progeny, materialism and hedonism, have challenged both faith and freedom as priorities of the American dream and the American civil religion.   

            American democracy must balance individual rights, which are not mentioned in scripture, with providing for the common good or public welfare, which is a moral mandate in scripture.  Donald Trump was elected by evangelical Christians who are followers of the growing prosperity gospel.  It is a self-centered gospel that conflicts with the altruistic gospel of Jesus, and it emphasizes individual rights at the expense of providing for the common good.

            The prosperity gospel has its roots in pseudo Old Testament theology that assures the faithful that if they obey God’s law they will be rewarded with prosperity and health, while the disobedient will be punished with suffering—all in this world, not the next.  Jesus challenged that deontological standard of righteousness with the concept of love over law expressed in the greatest commandment to love God and your neighbors as you love yourself.    

             The American civil religion has ceded the moral high-ground it once held as a model of liberty and justice for all and become a symbol of materialism and hedonism, exemplified by Donald Trump.  Christianity in America has evolved from the altruistic gospel taught by Jesus into a self-centered gospel promoted by high-flying evangelists like Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, Jr., Paula White, Joel Osteen and Robert Jeffress, who all ignore the danger of riches

            Jesus did not teach that riches were evil, only that the love of riches corrupted the soul.  (e.g. the story of a rich man at Mark 10:17-27; parable of the rich fool at Luke 12:15-21; treasures and the heart at Luke 12:33,34; and you cannot serve two masters at Luke 16:13).  And St. Paul confirmed this, warning Timothy: People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap…For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. (1 Timothy 6:9-10).

            In 18th century England John Wesley often preached on the danger of riches.  When it came to money, Wesley taught his Methodists to “make all you can, save all you can, and give all you can.”  That’s not only a good policy for individuals, but also for wealthy nations like the U.S.  Both individuals and nations have a duty of stewardship to protect and promote individual rights and to provide for the common good.

            A related challenge for American democracy is to avoid disparities in wealth that threaten political stability.  While middle-class income in the U.S. has increased since 2008, so has the disparity in wealth between the middle class and the rich, with the top fifth of earners receiving over half of America’s income.  That disparity should be reduced, but the rich have been able to protect their wealth from tax reforms that would make taxes more equitable.

            America is a rich and powerful nation, but its very soul—the American civil religion—is threatened by the danger of riches.  Self-centered materialism and hedonism have displaced the altruistic faith and collective civic responsibilities that are needed to provide for the common good, and polarized partisan politics are exacerbating that danger to democracy. 

            Perhaps it’s an idealistic illusion to believe that the American civil religion ever emphasized liberty and justice for all.  If it never did, then it should have—and America can still claim that ideal as the heart of its civil religion.  But that will require a revival in both American religion and politics that can balance individual rights with providing for the common good.            


Notes:     

On materialism eclipsing faith and freedom in the American dream (and civil religion), see https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/upshot/the-transformation-of-the-american-dream.html.

Alan Wolfe has quoted Max Weber, who once quoted John Wesley on the danger of riches:
A hundred years ago, in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber quoted the great evangelical John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church:
I do not see how it is possible, in the nature of things, for any revival of true religion to continue long. For religion must necessarily produce both industry and frugality, and these cannot but produce riches. But as riches increase, so will pride, anger, and love of the world in all its branches.  See https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/03/and-the-winner-is/306654/.

On the cheap prosperity gospel of Donald Trump and [Joel] Osteen, see https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/opinion/trump-osteen-harvey-church.html.



           
Related Commentary:

(12/15/14): Faith and Freedom
(1/11/15): The Greatest Commandment: A Common Word of Faith
(1/18/15): Love over Law: A Principle at the Heart of Legitimacy
(3/8/15): Wealth, Politics, Religion and Economic Justice
(4/12/15): Faith as a Source of Morality and Law: The Heart of Legitimacy
(10/18/15): God, Money and Politics
(1/23/16): Who Is My Neighbor?
(1/30/16): The Politics of Loving Our Neighbors as Ourselves
(2/27/16): Conflicting Concepts of Legitimacy in Faith, Freedom and Politics
(6/4/16): Christianity and Capitalism: Strange Bedfellows in Politics
http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2016/06/christianity-and-capitalism-strange.html (6/18/16): A Politics of Reconciliation with Liberty and Justice for All
(8/2/15): Freedom and Fundamentalism
http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/08/freedom-and-fundamentalism.html (8/9/15): Balancing Individual Rights with Collective Responsibilities
(1/23/16): Who Is My Neighbor?
(1/30/16): The Politics of Loving Our Neighbors as Ourselves
(4/30/16): The Relevance of Religion to Politics
(5/7/16): Religion and a Politics of Reconciliation
(8/5/16): How Religion Can Bridge Our Political and Cultural Divide
(9/10/16): Liberty in Law: A Matter of Man’s Law, not God’s Law
(9/17/16): A Moral Revival to Restore Legitimacy to Our Politics
(11/19/16): Religion and a Politics of Reconciliation Based on Shared Values
(11/26/16): Irreconcilable Differences and the Demise of Democracy
(2/25/17): The Need for a Revolution in Religion and Politics
(3/4/17): Ignorance and Reason in Religion and Politics
(3/18/17): Moral Ambiguity in Religion and Politics
(4/22/17): The Relevance of Jesus and the Irrelevance of the Church in Today’s World
(6/24/17): The Evolution of Religion, Politics and Law: Back to the Future? http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/06/the-evolution-of-religion-politics-and.html.
(7/1/17): Religion, Moral Authority and Conflicting Concepts of Legitimacy
(7/15/17) Religion and Progressive Politics
(8/5/17): Does Religion Seek to Reconcile and Redeem or to Divide and Conquer?
(8/19/17) Hate, History and the Need for a Politics of Reconciliation

(9/9/17): The Evolution of the American Civil Religion and Habits of the Heart http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/09/the-evolution-of-american-civil.html.