The American Future

I'm halfway through Simon Schama's The American Future, a Christmas present. The second section is largely about the role of religion in American political life and the ongoing tension between the Jeffersonian view of separation of church and state and those who have attempted (and attempt) to make religion a state mandate.

What I'm enjoying most about the book is the way the narrative takes debates fought from the early years of the nation, gives them life through the stories of individuals and then leads you gently to those same debates, playing themselves out in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in the relationship between church and politics and in race relations.

Schama argues that:

"...the Founding Fathers believed ... that religious truth would best be served by keeping the state out of the business of its propagation; that the power of religious engagement would not just survive freedom of conscience, but be its noblest consequence. It was a daring bet: that faith and freedom were mutually nourishing. But it paid off and it has made America uniquely qualified to fight the only battle that matters... the war of toleration against conformity; the war of a faith that commands obedience against the faith the promises liberty. That, actually, turns out to be the big American story."

But most interesting for me was the role of the evangelicals in the end of slavery in America.

"The fervour of the abolitionist evangelicals complicates the way we might fee about the 'wall of separation' erected by the Virginia Statue and the First Amendment between morality and politics. Of course it was entirely possible to arrive at an abhorrence for slavery from rationally derived ethics; the degradation of man to commodity; the violation of natural rights to sovereignty over person, and so on. Historically, though, both in the early nineteenth century, and again in the 1960's, the force of shame directed at slave-holders and segregationists was religious.....

The abolitionist argument that some enormities were so vicious that they had to be made accountable to the principles of the gospel, even if that meant breaching the establishment clause of the First Amendment in the interests of a higher good, is not altogether different from the way Right to Life evangelicals argue today. History sets such snares to make us think harder."

Of course, just because organised religion did a Good Thing in relation to slavery does not mean that those who believe in ceiling cat (and other gods) and who take up the abortion cause are doing a Good Thing. For every virtuous defense of the last six commandments by believers, there is a history of punishment for those who have transgressed the first (disposable) four. That slavery doesn't appear in the commandments isn't a surprise - not only is it rife through Testament One - The Original, it also gets an endorsement in The Sequel:

"Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed. If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful. You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts. Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them. (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)"

Perhaps what this demonstrates most of all is that the "pick and choose" approach to which bits of the Bible are still relevant today (the prohibition of homosexuality) and which bits aren't (stoning adulterers) means that someone is making this choice, and it ain't God. This becomes even more clear when things that were clearly OK in the Bible, like slavery, stopped being OK at some later point. "Treat others as you would be treated" is a fine ethic, but it's hardly exclusive to Christianity, and it's hardly consistent with slaves giving their masters full respect.

Our own last Prime Minister would often tell the traditional churches to stay out of politics, at least in relation to indigenous issues, but had no problem courting the more evangelical and earthly churches, who generally render unto Caesar only matters on which a conservative government can be trusted. That our new Prime Minister refers to the invisible sky-captain as often as he does doesn't fill me confidence, but at least he will always be a technocrat first and foremost.