Wednesday, March 21, 2012

The Escondido Principle of Separation of Christianity and State - Reviewed

I was recently directed to this interesting review of Darryl Hart's book (The book is titled: "A Secular Faith: Why Christianity Favors the Separation of Church and State"):
Hart thinks the root error of Christians who try to bring their faith into the arena of politics is the failure to understand that it just doesn't fit. Christianity is “essentially a spiritual and eternal faith.” It is “useless” for resolving “America's political disputes” and, because of its intolerance of other faiths, “impractical if not damaging to public life.” Christian evangelicals of both left and right come in for criticism in Hart's book, but the left—he includes Jimmy Carter and Jim Wallis in this category—gets blamed mainly for “lighting the fire of the culture wars,” thus legitimizing the right's crusade to bring its version of Christian values into the political arena.

We get the drift of Hart's own political orientation early on when he remarks that Sen. John Kerry, “an observant Roman Catholic,” was rejected by many voters because he “looked to be insufficiently devout.” That is a peculiar way of putting it. If looking to be devout were what Americans most wanted from politicians, Bill Clinton would have gotten 100 percent support in the 1992 election instead of the modest 43 percent he actually received. As for John Kerry, a number of polls have shown that the reason many people, not just Catholics, turned against him was not that he didn't look sufficiently devout but that he opposed all attempts to outlaw the physical act of [graphic depiction of the murder of an infant omitted by T-Fan].

But that gets us into religion, Hart might say, and religion should be kept out of politics. Religion belongs in church, and the purpose of churches is mercy; politics has to do with the state, and the state's purpose is justice. “To confuse the two is to misconstrue the bad cop (the state) and the good cop (the church).” Hart's church is one that would be hard to locate in Western history. It has an abstract quality, reflecting very little of the actual traditions of Christian people. In this country, as ­Tocqueville was not the first or last to observe, Americans have kept Christian denominations separate from the state, but not Christian morality or culture.
There is more at the link above.  I have yet to see Hart's response to this review. Doesn't the description in this review resemble items 10 and 23 of Frame's list

N.B. The credit line for the review was interesting: "George McKenna is professor emeritus of political science at City College of New York. His latest book is The Puritan Origins of American Patriotism (Yale)."  This should prevent (or at least alter) some of the ad hominem used by Hart against Frame for Frame's review.

-TurretinFan

12 comments:

Truth Unites... and Divides said...

"Doesn't the description in this review resemble items 10 and 23 of Frame's list?"

Yes. Frame's list is looking better and better.

Zrim said...

I don’t know about Frame, but when Sweetman writes, “The controversy is about where the line is drawn. Hart's line is one that would push religion into the far corners of American public life. Christians would be allowed to go to church and to pray at home and at private gatherings, but they could not make any reference to their religion in debates over public policy, nor display any signs or symbols of their religion in any state-subsidized place” I wonder where she was during the introduction. It is there that Hart distinguishes the legal secularist from the Christian secularist. What she describes here sounds more like the former than the latter.

Take, for example, that predictable and signature set of politics of abortion. (Why all roads lead to this one, I’ll never know, but it’s good for predicting with 100% accuracy the end of the second paragraph in the post proper.) I see nothing wrong with appealing to the sixth and second greatest commandments while debating this public policy. It sure beats appealing to the alleged right to life and alleged innocence of children, which are foreign notions to the Bible—you know, that thing by which anti-2k theocrats all want society normed. So why do anti-2k theocrats so uncritically adopt the unbiblical language and concepts of the pro-life movement when they want the Bible to inform all of life?

Godith said...

Why do the Hart-less bring up abortion? Three guesses; the first two don't count.
Why does that bother you?

Natamllc said...

Psa 94:6 They kill the widow and the sojourner, and murder the fatherless;

They murder the fatherless/the aborted! This may be one reason why, Godith?

turretinfan said...

Zrim: Could Sweetman simply be drawing out the result from the cause?

"I see nothing wrong with appealing to the sixth and second greatest commandments while debating this public policy."

How about appealing to the third and first greatest commandment when debating FCC regulations? Also "nothing wrong with" it?

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see that you are on this side of the fence with us. On the other hand, I can't help but think that we're waiting for the other shoe to drop. I met with a heap of resistance for suggesting that this issue is not one that Christians can reasonably disagree about, for example.

"So why do anti-2k theocrats so uncritically adopt the unbiblical language and concepts of the pro-life movement when they want the Bible to inform all of life?"

That sounds like a problem, but a very different problem from the one we find in Hart.

-TurretinFan

Mark Van Der Molen said...

This should prevent (or at least alter) some of the ad hominem used by Hart against Frame for Frame's review.

Mark Van Der Molen said...

This should prevent (or at least alter) some of the ad hominem used by Hart against Frame for Frame's review.

This should prevent (or at least alter) some of the ad hominem used by Hart against Frame for Frame's review.

"This should prevent (or at least alter) some of the ad hominem used by Hart against Frame for Frame's review."

Of course, let us note there is a difference between "should" and "will".

Mark Van Der Molen said...

Being new to this blog's format/procedure for posting, it is making me stutter!! :-)

Godith said...

I was quite unclear. Zrim somehow says he doesn't get why people like TurretinFan are so anti-abortion. It's pretty obvious. But why does that bother Zrim (and Hart)? Biblical Christians should not be simply one-issue folk, but mentioning abortion (the abortion holocaust) is surely warranted.

JB said...

"alleged innocence of children"

If I'm reading you right, I don't think most would take innocence here to mean 'sinless', but innocent of any wrongdoing for which they might be put to death.

It is biblical language
Psa 106:37 They even sacrificed their sons And their daughters to demons,
Psa 106:38 And shed innocent blood, The blood of their sons and daughters, Whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan

& Confessional language
WLC Q. 135. What are the duties required in the sixth commandment?
................. comforting and succouring the distressed and protecting and defending the innocent.

turretinfan said...

See also Deuteronomy's prohibition on punishing the children for the crimes of the parents (as occurs in the case of abortion of children produced by rape).

Truth unites... And divides said...

Zrim: "So why do anti-2k theocrats so uncritically adopt the unbiblical language and concepts of the pro-life movement when they want the Bible to inform all of life?"

The terminology of "anti-2k theocrats" in your question is not helpful.

First, many of the folks opposed to Escondido 2k are 2k themselves. This leads to the next observation: folks opposed to E2k make sure to distinguish E2k as E2k or R2k or something similar. Folks supporting E2k call it 2k, which assumes that their version of 2k is "mainstream" 2k. It's kind of a funny dance. And I'm sure that both you and TFan observe this same dance. Third, just because folks oppose E2k doesn't make them theocrats.