VAN BIEMA: What theyre describing is the situation that tended to precede revival? So Im wondering how Romney is going to be able to walk that line, and how you think he can do that. MCCLAY: Well-(laughter.) In this connection, I just [have] a few final comments. The view that What a man wears and eats and the condition of his external surroundings are all part of his secular existence. They dont understand, and many of us dont understand, that this is, in fact, the way its supposed to work. Im all for objectivity and I dont view it as a myth. Timothy Smith, one of the great scholars of American evangelicalism who wrote a book in the 50s, I think, called Revivalism and Social Reform, still in print-Its a terrific exposition of just how progressive these movements were, all of them, not just abolition. Im also happy to accept the importance of evangelicals in the American Revolution and in the progressive movements of the early 19th century. DIONNE, THE WASHINGTON POST: I just happened to look up-because I have this computer here-Stevenson got 37 percent of the Protestant vote; Kennedy got 38 percent. CROMARTIE: Well be meeting here about that. Obviously, there will be factors in play other than religious ones, and maybe the religious ones will be the least important, but I think, on some level, there needs to be a moral consensus for a solution to be effective and widely accepted. 16:26a). January 1, 2009. sex, or national origin. MCCLAY: You mainly want me to comment about the media, I assume, right? The conception of the Enlightenment as essentially anti-clerical, irreligious, rationalistic [and] philosophically materialist is a generalization from the French experience, which doesnt fit the American one, just as the American Revolution was a very different kind of revolution from the French Revolution, [in being] much more self-consciously backward looking and even restorationist. JACQUI SALMON, THE WASHINGTON POST: I wanted to know what you would make of this revivalism in atheism of Stephens friend, Christopher Hitchens, and his ilk. Even the whole question of the ontological character of the scriptures; this is a fascinating subject that various people have written about. MCCLAY: I wont deny that there are always ample reasons for pessimism and seeing American culture as in some way characterized by these countervailing forces. Nothing in life is foolproof; one can find secular and religious justifications for that statement. Every time I look at the Daily Kos or something like that, I come away with this sense of fear that that part of the body politic is becoming rabidly disaffected. Its very worrisome to me; whether their disaffection was justified or not, Im interested in order. The Apostle Paul states the difference in words no one should misunderstand: We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Cor. MCCLAY: But Elizabeth Cady Stanton was something of a free thinker, at most. 2:14). Speaker: On the contrary, it would insist that religion is a social institution for whose flourishing the rights of free association are necessary. They are, in fact, assuming that you can take certain features of modernity and put them to work for the sake of traditional core values that they see as being fundamental. This very individualistic, voluntaristic, Protestant approach to religious faith and the absence of any serious opposition to it led America to a high degree of democratization of religion. The founders understood the term establishment in a very specific way as referring to a state church established by a national government that could command assent to, or at least privilege, its doctrinal statements, receive tax monies thats the important thing to support it, and perhaps require attendance at its services The founders did not want this. There is supposed to be common and constant tension. Just the context we will provide in stories as we write about it will give people an insight and a view on Mormonism that perhaps they didnt have. STONE: Yes, they are in decline now, but at one point 50 years ago, they were a major force in this country. One approach to the problem of differentiating a religious from a non- religious ethic would be to formulate a definition of religion that would clearly distinguish between religious and nonreligious traditions; however, a broad definition of religion would include some moral traditions, such as Marxism, commonly thought to be forms of secular humanism. Okay. MCCLAY: I think it depends on how the Bible is read. MCCLAY: Ive got to think about this a little. Where does that come to us from? I think something a little more mundane but of more concern to more people is the whole question of how health insurance is going to be provided to the great mass of Americans, and what kind of programmatic solution to that problem can be found. MCCLAY: Theres a lot of interesting stuff in what you said-. Its a very difficult ideal, I think. That is, if you were an abolitionist, you would put it in Christian terms. Sometimes they clash with one another, but the American culture has found room for both to be present. Theres nothing more conservative than the academy, nothing more resistant to change, even though a lot of the disciplinary structures of the academy go back to the 19th century and to assumptions at the founding of the German research-university model that no longer obtain in the way research is done, in the cognitive and epistemological assumptions that people make coming to the work of scholarship. For the spiritual mind, it is the power of God unto salvation to all who accept its message. This very individualistic, voluntaristic, Protestant approach to religious faith and the absence of any serious opposition to it led America to a high degree of democratization of religion. (+1) 202-419-4372 | Media Inquiries. He went back and looked at a lot of stuff, and it was not an issue at all. But again, Im not saying that there are no reform movements that have enjoyed some success that have not been primarily secular in character. There is supposed to be common and constant tension. And why when Stewart Burns wrote a biography of King, he was not being fanciful in calling [Kings] lifework a sacred mission to save America. We enshrine the separation of church and state, but at the same time we practice the mingling of religion and public life. As Stephen had said, this may be the case of the more we know, the less tolerant we as a nation will become, coming out of whatever Romney says. SALMON: We know that doesnt mean Americans are converting from devout religious faith to atheism, but they are certainly a lot more outspoken. If you were for slavery, you would put it in Christian terms. MCCLAY: I dont blame him for feeling that way. MCCLAY: Yes, a Byzantine emperor, thank you. That is a tough question, but I think he should certainly suggest that he wont take direction without-Its one of those things where you dont want to say, I have stopped beating my wife. Even to raise the suggestion that its thinkable that he could take direction from the church-He could hurt himself by saying that. A second approach would argue that some moral beliefs are independent, both in content and justification, of religious convictions; such a set of moral beliefs could be described as a secular version of natural law. The imams are paid by the state. More generally, to go back to the point I made earlier, 18th-century Americans experienced surprisingly little tension between their version of the Enlightenment and their version of Protestantism. MCCLAY: I havent read Lillas book either. (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax Theres a way in which, especially if you go back to the three networks era, that the pressure to come up with a definitive account of things that would be the view of it from every perspective, from no place in particular, is, in a way, too much expect, and that its much healthier now to have a sense that different venues are going to have a different characteristic outlook. MCCLAY: Thats right, but I think Claire made a great point about the fact that hes already used faith as a positive, so he has to find a way of connecting that to-Its not just, You should tolerate my weirdness because we have a tradition of tolerating religious weirdness. Its Theres something about my faith that is an asset, that you should like and not merely tolerate., CROMARTIE: Its interesting in this session how much time weve spent on what we havent heard yet. But Tocquevilles visit to America convinced him that liberty and religion were not necessarily opposed to one another and their antagonism or attention was not necessarily a bad thing. No, I think this is a sign that, in fact, theres a certain intellectual self confidence among some Christians. The Chinese Bible Tells Me So. CROMARTIE: Not surprised by it, is what she said. Im not convinced that in my subject-religion and secularism and the relationship between them in American history-that Im necessarily setting out some universal model thats going to be universally applicable. The one study I know thats been done that actually tried to track atheism among scientists took some data from 1914. Share your feedback here. It points in the direction of a useful distinction, which I made briefly at the outset, between two broadly different ways of understanding the concept of secularism, only one of which is hostile or even necessarily suspicious of the public expression of religion. There was very little conflict between the more secular-minded and the more religious-minded over, for example, the drafting of the Constitution. These are quite remarkable developments, the rapprochement between Catholics and Protestants, between Christians and Jews, particularly evangelical Christians and Jews. So what Im arguing here is that social and religious tolerance became practical necessities before they became enshrined principles. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. Furthermore, the First Amendment, which prohibits the establishment of a religion and protects the free exercise of religion, was not intended to secularize the national government, but instead to protect against sectarian conflict and exclusiveness and the power grab by some national church. In other words, Christianity had certain theological resources available already at the very beginning for a kind of separation of church and state, although it did not come to pass fully until after those bloody wars of the 16th century had made the principle of religious toleration seem inevitable, and therefore, the need for a secular state. right to determine a reasonable conception of the patient's good.. This is one of the keys to understanding the relationship of religion and secularism in the United States. Habermas saw [the prospect of human cloning] as an assault on the fundamental dignity of the human person, and he was interested in engaging Ratzinger to see what resources there might be in the Christian intellectual tradition to make sense of these impending phenomena.
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