SECULARISM Vs. POSITIVE SECULARITY
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Synod
opens with call for religious freedom for all in Middle East
“This interpretation—based on a very individualistic concept of freedom—has as its effect the limiting of the religious freedom of many people, people for whom the worship community is important,” the ambassador said." (emphasis added) "Limiting and confining [religion] to the private sphere" is precisely the principle of separation of Church and State which is essential to freedom of worship. We and others who espouse the strict separaton of Church and State are charged with "fundamentalist secularism.") The entire text of "CIVILITAS EUROPA SECULARISM AND SECULARITY" follows, with highlights and notations]: "SECULARISM AND SECULARITY
It is a real pleasure to be visiting the University of Navarra again.
This great university is truly a beacon for those of us who believe that
faith and reason must work together if we academics are to
do our part in advancing what John Paul II called
the civilization of love. And I congratulate Professor Alvira and
his associates for having launched this project on Religion and
Civil Society, a venture that directly confronts the challenges facing
the world’s democratic experiments.
With regard to the topic that I have been asked
to discuss— secularism and secularity—let
me begin by noting two recent developments that many people have found
surprising. The first is the fact that one of the central themes of the
current leader of the Catholic Church has been his praise of secularity.
The second is the growing chorus of prominent atheists or agnostics who
are expressing concern about the ability of their societies to
remain free, democratic and humane without the support of habits
and attitudes grounded in Biblical religion.
Both of these developments are
signs of a more general ferment relating to the
role of religion in a secular state. Until relatively recently,
most people in western countries have regarded the position of religion
in the polity as substantially settled along the lines of one or another
of the two principal models of secularity that emerged, respectively,
from the French and American revolutions.
Over the past few decades, however,
all previous understandings about religion in
society have [been] thrown into turbulence. The pressures
come from several directions: There are developments in biotechnology
posing moral dilemmas that could not have been imagined by previous
generations; there are the well known changes in behavior and attitudes
in the areas of marriage, family life, and human sexuality; and in many
countries there has been a marked increase in religious diversity due to
migration. In addition, as even political "realists" have had to
acknowledge, religion is playing an important
role in shaping events in our increasingly globalized and interdependent
world.
The retreat from rigid secularism on the part of many intellectuals and
public figures is a remarkable sign of how these changes are affecting
long-held attitudes. In the case of Jürgen Habermas, it was concern
about biological engineering and the instrumentalization of human life
that led him to conclude that the West cannot abandon its religious
heritage without endangering the great social and political advances
that are grounded in that heritage. Habermas
stunned many of his followers a few years ago by announcing that,
"Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty,
conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western
civilization. To this day, we have no other options. We continue to
nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern
chatter."
No less significant were the remarks of French
President Sarkozy when he greeted Pope Benedict in 2008. Referring to
the Christian religion as France’s “living patrimony,” Sarkozy
added that “it would be crazy to deprive ourselves of the contributions
of that patrimony to intellectual and cultural life.” One can
imagine Voltaire turning in his grave when Sarkozy went on to say,
"For this reason, I am calling for a positive
secularism. A positive secularism offers our consciences the
possibility to [reflect on] the meaning we want to give to our
lives….Positive secularism is an opportunity, an encouragement, a
supplementary dimension to the political debate. It is an encouragement
to religion, as well as to all currents of thought."
And consider the case of Tony Blair who never discussed his faith while
he was Prime Minister of England because, he said, people would consider
that to be "weird". But in a speech in Italy last year,
Citizen Blair criticized such negative attitudes
towards religion for allowing "the aggressive secularism in part of the
West to gain traction." Persons of faith,
he said, should "show how faith is standing up for justice, for
solidarity across peoples and nations." He added that one thing
he learned as Prime Minister was that "a society to be truly harmonious,
to be complete, requires a place for faith."
Meanwhile, Italian Senator Marcelo Pera, a
professed agnostic who is also a prominent philosopher, published a book
last year with the provocative title: "Why we should call
ourselves Christian." The preface to that book is a letter written by
none other than Pope Benedict, who earlier, as Cardinal Ratzinger,
had entered into a dialogue with Pera that was published under the
title"Without Roots," a reference to Europe's neglect of its
cultural foundations.
Clearly something important is happening when
even the leader of France--the country that most strenuously defends
the principle of the secular state--calls for a "positive
secularism," echoing the very terms that Pope Benedict so often uses in
his own calls for a “new reflection on the true meaning and importance
of laïcité.” Something is happening when the former head of the British
Labor government says he wishes he had spoken more in public about his
faith. Something is happening when the leader of the Catholic Church and
a prominent Italian agnostic begin singing duets.
Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That ye
be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by
word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
Let no man deceive you by
any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away
first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son
of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called
God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of
God, showing himself that he is God.
Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with
you, I told you these things?
And now ye know what withholdeth that he
might be revealed in his time.
For the mystery of iniquity doth already
work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the
way.
And then shall that
Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his
mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:
Even him, whose coming is after
the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying
wonders, And
with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish;
because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be
saved.
And for this cause God shall send
them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but
had pleasure in unrighteousness. [This is the time of the gathering of the nations in final rebellion against God and His Truth revealed in the Bible]: And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. Rev. 16:13-15
These developments inevitably have re-focused attention on the old
French and American models of secularity—and they support the
distinction made in the title of this section of our program:
Secularity does not necessarily entail
secular-ism. What both the French and American models had in common, in
their 18th century origins—and what set them apart from countries with
official state churches—was their commitment to
a secular, non-denominational state.
The principal feature that differentiated them
from each other was that the French model, at the
outset, was marked by hostility to Christianity in general and to the
Catholic Church in particular: to Christianity because it was
thought by many to be an obstacle to the creation of a free and rational
society; and to the Catholic Church because it
was thought to have had excessive temporal power.
The American model was
more hospitable to religion because the descendants of Protestant
Dissenters who had fled English persecution wanted a state where the
various Protestant sects could live peaceably with one another. The
English experience caused them to be more concerned about the threat
that the State posed to religion than vice versa. In other words, the
branch of the Enlightenment that was essentially anti-clerical and
irreligious had little influence in America at the time of the
Founding—except where the minority Catholic religion was concerned.
Thus, it is commonly said that the American model
of secularity was devised to protect religion and churches from
government, whereas the French model, and the systems that followed it,
were designed to protect government from religion and churches. It needs
to be kept in mind, however, that the model contained a strong strain of
anti-Catholicism that persists to this day.
Nevertheless, Pope
Benedict has often praised what he calls the “positive” American
understanding of secularity, contrasting it with the "negative" form of
secular-ism inherited from the French Revolution. He has even gone so
far as to say that the American version could be a "fundamental model"
for Europe, in that the United States is a place “where the
religious dimension, with the diversity of its expressions, is not only
tolerated but appreciated as the nation’s ‘soul’ and as a fundamental
guarantee of human rights and duties.”
The papacy is very impatient of any restraining bonds; in fact, it
wants none at all. And the one grand discovery Leo XIII has made, which no pope
before him ever made, is that turn which is taken now all the time by Leo and
from him by those who are managing affairs in this country--the turn that is
taken upon the clause of the Constitution of the United States: "Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof." Leo has made the discovery that the papacy can be
pushed upon this country in every possible way and by every possible means and
that congress is prohibited from ever legislating in any way to stop it. That
is a discovery that he made that none before him made and that is how it is
that he of late can so fully endorse the United States Constitution.
We all know of course that that was intended to be the expression
of the American people always, that religion should have no place in
governmental affairs and no connection whatever with it. But the papacy is
never satisfied without taking possession of everything in the government and
running it in the interests of the church and Leo XIII has found out that this
can all be done under the cover of that constitutional statement which was
intended to prevent such a thing forever. Thus the papacy in plain violation of the Constitution will crowd
herself upon the government and then hold up that clause as a barrier against
anything that any would do to stop it. And every one that speaks against this
working of the papacy, behold! He "is violating the Constitution of the [The major part of Protestant America, including the leadership of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, are either unsuspecting of this chicanery or actually endorsing it because they are enamoured of the idea of shaping the morality of this nation by the enactment of religious laws.]
Models and Reality
As we social scientists know, however, reality is always
more complicated than any model. The fact is that the
so-called French model has long contained some elements of positive
secularity, while the American model, increasingly, has drifted in
the direction of negative secularism.
In present-day France, for example, a notable
instance of "positive secularity" is the generous program of subsidies
for the (mostly Catholic) religious primary and secondary schools that
are attended by 17 percent of French schoolchildren--something
that would be clearly unconstitutional in the United States—and in
any case would never be approved by the non-Catholic majority .
I would also note that France, like most European
nations, has laws in many controversial areas—such as abortion,
experimentation on embryos, reproductive technologies, and same-sex
adoption—that are closer to the teachings of the major religions than
the laws of the U.S.
As for the United States, elements of negative
secularism have been introduced through a series of Supreme Court
decisions that, beginning in the 1940s, have cast doubt over the
constitutionality of nearly every form of public cooperation and
accommodation with religious institutions. Now I come to a sign of the times that should claim the attention of our project: it is that negative secularism in Europe and the United States alike has accelerated in the wake of the sexual revolution. That era of social experimentation saw the rise among opinion makers of open disdain for religious believers and open hostility toward religious institutions—especially those religions that make strong truth claims and strong demands on their members. Not surprisingly, that period also saw the appearance of new legal rights in the areas of abortion, assisted reproduction, sexual orientation, and embryonic experimentation--rights that clash with the religious beliefs of many citizens. Today, there is powerful resistance to laws protecting the conscience rights of individuals and the autonomy of religious institutions. Religious freedom increasingly is coming into conflict not only with various "new rights", but with the interests of powerful lobbies such as the sex industry, the abortion industry, the population control lobby, and the assisted reproduction industry.
As a leading U.S. expert on religious liberty has
put it, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was
originally designed to limit government, has been increasingly
interpreted by the Supreme Court to constrain religion and to relegate
it to the private sphere. There are, of course, exceptions to these
trends, some of which, like the exemption of religious institutions
from taxes, are very important. But it is not an exaggeration to say
that the present situation in the U.S. can best be described as one
in which positive and negative models of
secularity are engaged in a fateful struggle.
The eruption in 2002 of what has come to be known as the clerical sexual
abuse crisis fell like a bomb into that volatile situation. There can be
no doubt that incalculable harm was done to the cause of promoting
secularity over secular-ism in the American model.
This brings me to an important, if obvious, point:
There is no pure example of either positive or
negative secularity in the world today. Each nation’s system of
Church-State relations is constantly being shaped and reshaped by
complex political compromises. And let me follow that observation with
another point that should be obvious: no country's system can serve as a
model for another if by "model" we mean something that can be copied.
Each nation’s system of church-state relations is
the product of its own distinctive history and circumstances. Most of
the continental European systems were decisively shaped by
confrontations between Enlightenment secularism and Roman
Catholicism, against the background of religious conflict. The American
system was initially shaped by the desire to protect the various
Protestant religions from the State, and to promote peaceful
co-existence among Protestant confessions. That
is why the Pope said, when he praised the American model: “Certainly, we
in Europe cannot simply copy the United States; we have our history."
What he meant when he referred to the U.S. system as a "model" is that
the U.S. experience shows that a secular state need not necessarily
be hostile to religion.
On his trip to the United States in 2008, he
clearly demonstrated his awareness that the American model was in
need of attention. He took the occasion to warn us that the erosion
of the positive form of secularity would have serious implications
for liberty as well as for religion. “The preservation of freedom,”
he said, "calls for the cultivation of virtue, self-discipline,
sacrifice for the common good and a sense of responsibility toward the
less fortunate. It also demands the courage to engage in civic life
and to bring one’s deepest beliefs and values to reasoned public
debate. In a word, freedom is ever new. It is a challenge held out to
each generation, and must constantly be won over for the cause of good.”
The question of the relationship between religion and freedom brings us
to the heart of the project that we are gathered to discuss. What is the
role of religion in sustaining a free and humane society?
The classic analysis of that question still begins with the
two propositions about religion and freedom advanced by Tocqueville in
the preface to Democracy in America. One of those assertions flew in the
face of everything that was held to be true by most devout Christians at
that time. It was that freedom would be good for religion. The second
proposition seemed equally preposterous to enlightened skeptics like
most of Tocqueville’s friends. It was that religion would be beneficial
for emerging democratic societies.
Tocqueville was emphatic in advising his skeptical friends to get over
their prejudices against religion if they hoped for the success of free
and democratic government. “Lovers of liberty,” he said, “should hasten
to call religion to their aid, for they must know that one cannot
establish the reign of liberty without that of mores [by which he meant
the habits and attitudes of citizens and statesmen], and mores cannot be
firmly founded without beliefs.” Religion, he wrote, “is the guardian of
the mores, and the mores are the guarantee of the laws and pledge for
the maintenance of freedom itself.” In other words: Culture is prior to
politics and law, and religion is at the heart of culture.
For a long time, however, many intellectuals clung to the belief that
the free society could get along just fine without religion, and that
the sooner we got rid of religion the freer we would be. They did not
dispute that the preservation of a free society depends on citizens and
statespersons with particular skills, knowledge, and qualities of mind
and character. But a number of political philosophers, of whom John
Rawls is perhaps best known, contested Tocqueville’s assertion that the
democratic experiment was dependent in crucial ways on a culture
nourished by Biblical religion (by which he meant religion based on the
Hebrew Scriptures and the Apostolic Writings). Rawls and
others maintained that the experience of living in a free society
was sufficient in itself to foster the civic virtues of moderation and
selfrestraint, respect for others and so on, that a decent
society requires.
That faith in the ability of democracy to generate the virtues it needs
in its citizens has been shaken, however, in the social and cultural
upheavals of the late 20th century. With families, schools, religious
groups, and other institutions of civil society in
distress, non-believers like Habermas and Pera are starting to
express concerns about the political effects of the breakdown of so
many habits and customs that once provided cultural supports for
liberal democracy. They have begun to ask, for example: Where
will people learn to view others with respect and concern, rather than
to regard them as objects, means, or obstacles? What will cause most men
and women to keep their promises, to limit consumption, to answer their
country’s call for service, and to reach out to the unfortunate? Where
will a state based on the rule of law find citizens and statesmen
capable of devising just laws and then abiding by them? Habermas has
gone so far as to assert that the good effects that Rawls and others
attributed to life in free societies may well have had their source in
the “legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of
love."
In this new situation, there are really no models to follow because so
many of the challenges are so new. But to say there are no models is not
to say there is no wisdom and experience on which to draw.
Historical
experience indicates that there is a high correlation between religious
liberty and the maintenance of a democratic state that respects
individual freedom, equality, and the rule of law, and that attends to
the needs of its least advantaged members. Conversely, there is a high
correlation between the denial of religious liberty and the denial of
other basic freedoms.
In 2009, the non-partisan Pew Forum reported on the growing body of
empirical evidence that underscores the contribution of religious
freedom to democratic governance, domestic tranquility, economic
development, women's advancement and international peace. A Pew
researcher found, after conducting research on 200 nations around the
world that "the presence of religious freedom in a country
mathematically correlates with the longevity of democracy" and with the
presence of other goods, including civil and political liberty, women's
income, press freedom, literacy, lower infant mortality, and economic
freedom."
So, how do things look for the civilizations of Europe and the Americas
as they face the challenge of protecting religious liberty within a
secular state? In a sense, we would seem to be wellequipped. Despite
many differences, we all are the beneficiaries of a common cultural
inheritance in which religion and liberty are inextricably intertwined.
It is an inheritance that includes the classical civilizations of Greece
and Rome, the Hebrew Scriptures and the Apostolic Writings, the
explosive energies of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, the concept
of the rights of man, and so much more.
But under present circumstances, it will take great wisdom and prudence
on the part of citizens and statespersons in free societies to find ways
to keep the public square open to religiously grounded moral viewpoints,
and to protect the intermediate institutions that compose each country's
“moral ecology.”
Equally, if not more decisive will be the
response of religious individuals and groups themselves. As we all know,
it took a long time for mainstream Christianity to accept that liberty
would be good for religion. For the Catholic Church, the major turning
point was the Second Vatican Council where the Church
officially declared the acceptability of a secular state in which
Christianity, while fairly treated, enjoyed no special legal status. It
is a remarkable sign of how far we have traveled that a Catholic Pope is
now able to say as Benedict XVI has done, that, “It is necessary to
welcome the real achievements of Enlightenment thinking— human rights,
and especially the freedom of faith and its exercise, recognizing these
as elements that are also essential for the authenticity of religion.”
I conclude with this thought: If the calls from various quarters to
develop more healthy and positive forms of secularism are to succeed,
the challenge for religions will be as great as the challenge to
governments. It will be up to religions to encourage their members to
the responsible exercise of freedom. It will be up to them to teach
their members to advance their religiously grounded moral viewpoints
with reasoning that is intelligible to all men and women of good will.
It will be up to them to reject ideologies that manipulate religion for
political purposes, or that use religion as a pretext for violence. And
it will be up to them to find resources within their own traditions for
promoting respect and tolerance. (That, of course, was Pope Benedict’s
main message in the famous Regensburg address, a message
almost completely obscured by the controversy that followed.) |