Contra Theocracy (2010)

 Originally published as a Facebook Note February 23, 2010.

My church--MY church, which is into love and tolerance, and is practically universalist--having inserted a snide remark about separation of church and state into an otherwise charming children's musical last weekend, I thought I would undertake to defend this bedrock American principle.

The words "separation of church and state" do not appear in the Constitution. They encompass the principles of two clauses of the First Amendment, which prevent Congress from making any "law respecting an establishment," and "prohibiting free exercise" of religion. For most of our history, these were fairly innocuous and uncontroversial, largely because Protestants ruled and everyone else put up with it.

More recently "establishment clause" jurisprudence got a whole lot more interesting, because (a) beginning in 1947 courts have held states as well as Congress to its standard, and (b) around the same time justices began to consider what "no establishment" would mean in the context of a pluralistic society in which Protestants were not privileged. This resulted in the famous 1962 decision in Engel v. Vitale, which declared unconstitutional long-standing daily prayers in many school districts. The decision was highly controversial at the time, and remains so. A number of follow-up decisions, addressing prayers in schools as well as a variety of other public fora, have yielded mind-boggling complexity as well as more controversy.

This confusion is unfortunate, but the Court's core principle remains consistent throughout: that government should not lead us in worship. I maintain that this is a good principle, for non-religious people, for religious minorities, and even for the religious majority. First of all, on a subject as important to so many people's consciences and identities as religion, government should not play favorites. Each of us, with the help of our family and friends and whoever else, should be able to work out our own religious identity without the government blessing some views to the detriment of others. It's just fair. Secondly, what should be important to the believer is whether they have the freedom to develop their relationship with God, and to act out their beliefs in society, not whether their religion get official designated as the Official Religion of the U.S.A. The former religious practices are about doing God's will, the latter are about boosting your own ego. Finally, countries that have official state religions--Britain and Germany, for two--have meager religious lives. The United States (along with Canada, to a degree) is an outlier among developed nations in terms of its religious vitality. This is because religious groups must work hard to promote themselves and win and motivate believers; they can't rely on government to do it for them.

In the musical, Moses is relieved to find he doesn't have to get the Supreme Court's permission to proclaim the Ten Commandments, since he has the permission of the Supreme Being. (The 2005 Van Orden case suggests neither does a state government, but that was heavily qualified, and I'm not sure whether it was decided wrongly.) Moses is an unquestionably great world-historical figure, but he was a prophet who led a society defined by religious laws. I don't want to live in ancient Israel. We in today's United States benefit from a vibrant public sphere in which all manner of religious and other thought can be promoted, and no one is legally disadvantaged because of their beliefs or lack thereof.

Does Allen Pote, who co-wrote the musical, want to live in a theocracy? If he does, it's because his soft-boiled evangelical Christianity is the dominant religion in America today, and where you stand on issues like these depends on where you sit. But I'm here to tell you that if there was a universalist majority in America today, my insistence on church-state separation would be just as intensely felt.

Probably the real lesson in all this is that I should get myself a sense of humor, fully embrace the laid-back Iowan persona and not let anything bother me, and when I see kids being cute just say "Awww!" and leave it at that.