By Rudy
Barnes, Jr.
The
Protestant Reformation gave birth to civil religion 500 years ago. That watershed event was enabled by the printing
press, the first generation of social media that informed the public of
religious and political issues. Today
its progeny, the internet, has had the opposite effect. It has overwhelmed the public with too much
information, blurring fact with fiction and sacrificing reason to personal
preference. Fake news has corrupted the
American civil religion.
America
did not experience a Reformation and a catharsis of religious war before it
became a libertarian democracy. Perhaps
that’s why the American civil religion has evolved into a parody of religion,
reason and politics, with radical religion and politics now the norm rather
than the exception. America needs a reformation
to restore reason to its civil religion.
Thomas
Jefferson was a founding father of the American civil religion who understood
the symbiotic and often dysfunctional relationship between religion, reason and
morality. Jefferson was an enigma: He was a slaveholder who understood the
importance of liberty and reason in politics, and he was a deist who was
critical of the church but considered the teachings of Jesus “the most sublime
moral code ever designed by man.”
Reinhold
Niebhur (1891-1971) was a 20th century theologian who, like Jefferson,
emphasized reason and the moral teachings of Jesus in politics. Kurt Andersen is a religious skeptic who has
described how the internet has created a media fantasyland that defies reality and reason to promote fundamentalist
Christianity and its political progeny, the radical right.
Over
70% of Americans claim to be Christians.
Most are politically active evangelical neo-Christians who now follow a
self-centered prosperity gospel that
conflicts with the altruistic gospel of Jesus.
In 2016 they elected Donald Trump president, a narcissist who is the
antithesis of Christian morality; and in September 2017 they elected Roy Moore
as the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate—a man who exemplifies a similar
toxic mix of religion and politics.
To
restore sanity and reason to the American civil religion, its moral foundation
must be the greatest commandment to
love God and to love our neighbors—including our neighbors of other races and
religions—as we love ourselves. That
love command is a common word of
faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, and it can promote a politics of
reconciliation if it is made a moral imperative of both our faith and our
politics in the American civil religion.
The
love command is a merger of the mystical and moral components of religion. We love God (the mystical) by loving our
neighbors of other races and religions as we love ourselves (the moral). There can be no politics of reconciliation with
exclusivist religions that condemn unbelievers, or with fundamentalist religions
that consider their scriptures and holy laws to be the inerrant and infallible (perfect
and immutable) word of God.
The
moral decadence and radical politics in America are evidence that Christians have
ignored the moral standards of legitimacy taught by Jesus. The remedy is not more laws to restrict our freedom,
but more moral restraints in exercising our freedom. There is no place for religious law in a libertarian
democracy. The test of any religion is
whether its followers obey its moral standards when they are free to disobey
them. Christians in America have failed
that test.
Americans,
like the Jews of Jesus day, often confuse obedience of the law with doing the
right thing. Jesus taught otherwise. He asserted the primacy of love over law with the greatest commandment. Loving your neighbor as you love yourself is a
moral obligation of faith that cannot be enforced by law, but one that must be
obeyed by the faithful.
In
America, Christian moral standards of legitimacy shape its civil religion; but
most Christians now follow a “prosperity gospel” that is closer to the objectivist
philosophy of Ayn Rand than to the moral teachings of Jesus. To restore sanity and reason to the American
civil religion, Christians must restore the primacy of the moral teachings of
Jesus to a church that has subverted those teachings to self-centered, exclusivist
and divisive religious doctrines.
Notes:
Thomas Jefferson embraced the
moral teachings of Jesus but expressed contempt for institutional Christianity.
Jefferson wrote Henry Fry on June 17,
1804: "I consider the doctrines of Jesus as delivered by himself to
contain the outlines of the sublimest morality that has ever been taught; but I
hold in the utmost profound detestation and execration the corruptions of it
which have been invested by priestcraft and kingcraft, constituting a
conspiracy of church and state against the civil and religious liberties of
man." Thomas Jefferson, The Jefferson Bible, edited by O. I. A.
Roche, Clarkson H. Potter, Inc., New York, 1964, at p 378; see also Jefferson’s
letter to John Adams dated October 13, 1813, at pp 825, 826; Jefferson's
commentaries are at pp 325-379. While many considered Jefferson a heretic,
Jefferson wrote of himself: “I am a Christian in the only sense in which he
[Jesus] wished anyone to be; sincerely attached to his doctrine in preference
to all others and ascribing to him every human excellence, believing he never
claimed any other.” (p 334) Jefferson cut
and pasted selected portions of the gospel accounts from four Bibles in four
languages: Greek, Latin, French, and English (from the King James translation).
Jon Meacham described Jefferson’s prominent role in shaping the American civil
religion in American Gospel, Random House, New York, 2006 (see pp 56-58,
72-77, 80-86, 104, 105, 247-250, 263, 264, and reference to Jefferson’s Bible
at p 389). See also, Introduction to The Teachings of
Jesus on Morality and Law: The Heart of Legitimacy, at page 10, posted at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3gvZV8mXUp-aTJubVlISnpQc1U/view.
Reinhold Niebuhr (1872-1971) is
considered by many to be America’s foremost theologian, who “…wrote and spoke
frequently about the intersection of religion, politics and public policy, with
his most influential books including Moral Man and Immoral Society and The
Nature and Destiny of Man.” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Niebuhr.
In Fantasyland: How America
Went Haywire, a 500-Year History, Kurt Andersen states that the Reformation
allowed Protestants to reject the Vatican and start their own religion, then
reject that religion and “start their own new religions again and again.…The
Enlightenment liberated people to believe anything
whatsoever…and in the marketplace of ideas, [it was assumed that] reason
would win.” But Andersen observes that
reason has not won in America’s fantastical religious free-for-all, 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.” In religion fantastical mystical doctrines have
always trumped moral doctrines (pages 52, 53).
Andersen emphasizes the rise of the evangelical and fundamentalist
“prosperity gospel” of Christianity and its right wing politics, but ignores
the more mundane but reasonable moral imperatives taught by Jesus.
Christopher Douglas has taken
exception to Andersen’s assertions that the origins of current Christian craziness
was in the Hippie New Agers of the 1960s and in Postmodern Academics. See https://progressivechristianity.org/resources/how-america-really-lost-its-mind-hint-it-wasnt-entirely-the-fault-of-hippie-new-agers-and-postmodern-academics/.
Modern Christians are split on the
two major theological issues of the Protestant Reformation: sola fide, being saved by faith/grace
alone, and sola scriptura, considering
the Bible the sole source of religious authority for Christians. See http://www.pewforum.org/2017/08/31/u-s-protestants-are-not-defined-by-reformation-era-controversies-500-years-later/?utm_source=Pew+Research+Center&utm_campaign=bf7c71a186-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_09_06&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3e953b9b70-bf7c71a186-4001.
Alan Wolfe has observed that following
The Protestant Reformation, 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. Wolfe
cited a cover story in The Economist, titled “The New Wars of Religion,”
that asserted that “Faith will unsettle politics everywhere this century.” In contrast to Andersen, Wolfe predicted a coming religious peace based on 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 also
asserted that American evangelicalism is becoming more tolerant and pluralistic. But political events since 2008 have proved
Wolfe’s sanguine views wrong, unless the elections of Donald Trump and Roy
Moore indicate that the U.S. is moving toward peace. See https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/03/and-the-winner-is/306654/.
On the cheap prosperity gospel of Trump and [Joel] Osteen, see https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/opinion/trump-osteen-harvey-church.html.
On Roy Moore’s radical right religion
and politics according to the gospel of
Bannon, see
Robin R. Meyers has urged Saving
Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus
(HarperCollins, 2009). Myers emphasized restoring
the moral teachings of Jesus to prominence over mystical and exclusivist
beliefs in Christianity.
For an example of how the
internet has distorted reason and reality to create Islamophobia, see https://progressivechristianity.org/resources/islamophobia-misinformation-and-blatant-lies/.
Related
Commentary:
(12/8/14): Religion and Reason
http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2014/12/religion-and-reason.html (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
(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
(6/28/15): Confronting the Evil Among Us
(7/5/15): Reconciliation as a Remedy for Racism and Religious Exclusivism
(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
(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
http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2016/11/religion-and-politics-of-reconciliation_19.html
(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
(9/2/17): The Evolution of the American Civil Religion and Habits of the Heart
http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/09/the-evolution-of-american-civil.html.
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