One of the most wonderful aspects of the religious pluralism that characterizes the West is how it encourages mutual respect — of believers of different types for one another, and of believers for non-believers (and vice versa). Today, Baroness Warsi of England, a Muslim and a member of the Tory cabinet, is leading a British government delegation visiting the Vatican, in reciprocation of Pope Benedict XVI’s historic visit to the U.K. in 2010. In an article in the Telegraph, she explains that she is standing side by side with the pope in the fight for respect for religious faith — and goes even further than that:
I will be arguing for Europe to become more confident and more comfortable in its Christianity. The point is this: the societies we live in, the cultures we have created, the values we hold and the things we fight for all stem from centuries of discussion, dissent and belief in Christianity.
These values shine through our politics, our public life, our culture, our economics, our language and our architecture. . . . You cannot and should not extract these Christian foundations from the evolution of our nations any more than you can or should erase the spires from our landscapes.
Perhaps the tide is indeed turning in Europe? Equally impressive is the baroness’s ability to denounce what she calls “militant secularisation” without lapsing into a pernicious religious-identity politics:
There is a crucial caveat to all of this. I am not calling for some kind of 21st-century theocracy. Religious faith and its followers do not have the only answer. There will be times when politicians and faith leaders will disagree. What is more, secularism is not intrinsically damaging. My concern is when secularisation is pushed to an extreme, when it requires the complete removal of faith from the public sphere. So I am calling for a more open confidence in faith, where faith has a place at the table, though not an exclusive position.
Some of our politicians in the U.S. spit out the word “secularism” as if it were a dirty word; some of them, even, who are smart enough to know better, to realize that there is a legitimate secular sphere that is influenced by people of faith, and influences them in turn. The Founders could have established the U.S. as a confessional republic, but they knew that the Christianity in which most of them believed would thrive much better without a national establishment. In the best of American political thought, and in the best of theology for that matter, “religion” and “secularism” are not mutually exclusive categories. In a pluralist society that respects religious liberty, they reinforce each other. (H/t to Rod Dreher for pointing out this important and encouraging story, and Godspeed to the baroness and her delegation.)
"Perhaps the tide is indeed turning in Europe?"
Really? Are you serious?
One person who calls herself a muslim (I'd like to hear that from her iman first) and suddenly the tide of the Islamification of Europe is turning? Honestly?
I think a whole lot more people in France who burn cars when they're "angry" would like to disagree with you. Never mind what the imans across Europe preach to their followers.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt's "imam," oh ye Islamic expert...
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"One person who calls herself a muslim (I'd like to hear that from her iman first)"
So when someone identifies him/herself as a Christian do you need to hear confirmation of that from his or her minister?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThank you Mr. Potemra. You provided a welcome piece of good news. It seems to me far better, far more conservative, to praise and support Muslims who seek accommodation and harmony with liberal democracy than to emphasize the incompatibility of liberalism with Islam, democracy with the Koran.
Along the same lines, the following obituary in the Weekly Standard five years ago: External Link
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseJefferson wasn't there when the Constitution was written. He promoted the "separation of Church and State" phrase, particularly in the early 1800s, as well as in the Virginia Constitution that he bragged about on his gravestone. Virginia is not the U.S. Clergyman Roger Williams' motive and emphasis in using such a phrase was particularly to keep government from dominating religion or establishing one religion or church. Regarding interpretation of the Constitution, the courts have never had exclusive right to interpret the Constitution. As an example, note that the Supreme Court has refused to rule on the War Powers Act and leaves it to the other two branches to interpret that extremely important law that all U.S. Presidents have refused to accept as binding and that Congress insists is binding. President Obama is engaging in preventive or defensive wars or acts of war in far greater intensity than did President Bush, and with even less legal deference to Congress and the Courts. (President Obama offended liberals by retreating from his rejection of "signing statements" and so took up the traditional Presidential position that constitutionally he does not have to accept every aspect even of laws that are passed and that he has signed.) In the mid-40s, a Supreme Court Justice tried to smuggle into the Constitution the "separation of Church and State" and "wall of separation" phrases and interpretations. Chief Justice Rehnquist had about 80 citations wherein he both rebutted that phrase and showed how it had never been the dominant interpretation of the Constitution. Among other things, that's why government payment for faith-based community projects by religions was ruled to be legal under the law put through by President Bush. Note that the ruling was not that the government money could only be given and support for the projects could continue only if religions acted exactly as non-religious groups do; it ruled constitutional some accommodations (!) for religious convictions, values, and standards. Since it's legal to allow those community projects to get government money to support their projects without the government dominating the way they carry out their mission, it seems to be true a fortiori and even more obviously that government cannot tell those engaging in those community projects, charities, colleges, and hospitals that they have to ascertain that money is in effect spent for insurance of employees to support payment for services that aren't even directly part of their mission, but rather related to their employees. And the Supreme Court just ruled that the U.S. Attorney General was arguing for an unconstitutional practice when it tried to force a Lutheran school to accept the government's definition of a minister. By analogy, the Supreme Court may well rule that HHS and the Justice Department are wrong to try to force employees of religious charities, colleges, and hospitals to be insured in ways that religions find violate their convictions, values, and standards, and possibly violate even their definition of a minister and their definition of the mission of those charities, colleges, and hospitals. The phrase that seems to make more sense and to be more faithful to the actual U.S. history of actions and interpretations regarding the relation of Church and State is the phrase "distinction of Church and State." We need to recall the conclusion of one expert on the First Amendment: the history of its interpretation by those in government and by historians and other intellectuals is like what results when persons look down into a well and see their own reflection there. And we need to recall that the writers of the First Amendment, including Madison, made it deliberately ambiguous as a way to get it approved. So any interpretation of the First Amendment that does not indicate that the interpreter has taken into account that ambiguity in the original amendment, its implementation, and its interpretation is not an adequately accurate interpretation.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNote as an example of seeing in the well of the First Amendment one's self or one's previous convictions, Jefferson can be interpreted as seeing a somewhat extreme version of the secularist position. Roger Williams, in a certain sense, can be interpreted as seeing a somewhat extreme version of having religions be free to do pretty much what they want, incuding in effects on public policy, so long as it was not only one religion or church that was having the effects. The extreme of Jefferson was the Soviet Constitution on matters of religion, whereby what sounded like a good policy ended up in practice as dominance of government, society, religion, and the individual by the government, indeed, by the Communist Party. There may be Asian or African governments that have what sounds like a good Constitution on these matters, but that in practice have dominance of government, society, religion, and the individual by the government that amounts to dominance in practice by one religion. There are advantages in the studied ambiguity and ambivalence in the Madison formulation of the First Amendment, and in historical taking into account of those ambiguities and ambivalences in implementation and interpretation.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt's "imam," oh ye Islamic expert...
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