Religion and politics meet at Chappaqua Library

October 31, 2008
by Charles J. Sirey

Sunday evening,152 people met at the Chappaqua Library to engage in a two-hour long exchange on the questions that arise when religion is mixed with politics.

Two prominent law professors, Michael J. Perry of Emory University and R. Kent Greenawalt of Columbia University led the discussion on “Religion and Politics: What Happens When They Meet.”

Given the country’s current political climate and with the election only days away, many attendees came expecting to hear a discussion, hopefully heated, about the religious right and the liberal left in recent and current politics. What they got from Greenawalt and Perry was something far less contentious.

The panelists elevated what could have been an argumentative, even disruptive, discussion to the lofty heights of legal academia and spent an hour presenting views that seemed only slightly oppositional. Then they took questions from the audience, many of which fell outside of the panelists’ narrow range of disagreement. Some even dipped into contentious issues the presentations had so elegantly stepped around. Neither audience nor panelists got exactly what they came for, but they did get just enough to make for an unusual and interesting evening. Compromise is the soul of politics, after all.

Constitutional scholars clarify the disestablishment clause

Senior Rabbi Joshua Davidson of Temple Beth El welcomed the speakers and audience on behalf of the Chappaqua Interfaith Council to this event, the third in its series of discussions on Religion and Public Life, and the first co-sponsored by Chappaqua Public Library.

Reverend Tom Lenhart of The First Congregational Church introduced the distinguished panelists: R. Kent Greenawalt, a long-time professor at Columbia University who has taught in the fields of constitutional law and legal philosophy; and Michael J. Perry, the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law at Emory University. Perry previously held the Distinguished Professor of Law Chair at Wake Forest University, specializes in American constitutional law and human-rights theory and is a leading authority on the relationship between morality and religion. Both men are well known authors of respected books on the relationships between religion, politics, public life and the constitution

Both speakers agreed on the importance of the famous “wall” between church and state erected by the founding fathers in the constitution. They also agreed that many public policies that had origins in religious rationale are not necessarily violations of the disestablishment clause of the constitution, which states that Congress shall make no law establishing religion or restricting the practice thereof. A violation of this clause would only occur if a policy were based either solely on a religious tenet or for which it is impossible to conceive a non-religious basis. And even then, the panelists would make allowances for religiously based policies that have been so long in existence that they assume the quality of custom or tradition.

For example, during the question period a man asked why the phrase on our money, “In God we trust,” didn’t violate the disestablishment clause. Greenawalt cited the rule of prudence: “If a dominant religious view exists it is prudent to allow laws developed from it, because it helps the democracy work better.”

Perry agreed, and added the point that a program invoking a generic “God” rather than a specific Hebraic, Catholic, Muslim, Mennonite, etc. one is therefore acceptable. The Supreme Court said the Pledge of Allegiance is not in violation of the disestablishment clause, because it, like “In God we trust” on money, is no longer religious in a specific sense, as would be a specific reference to Jesus or Mohammed.

Greenawalt cited another example of prudence: a public law in India prohibiting the killing of cows on the streets. The law, obviously religious in origin, has been so long a public practice that it has become a tradition.

But the panelists parted company when a woman in the audience wanted to know why “someone down in Texas could get away with making a public statement that the United States was a Christian nation?”

“He can say anything he wants to,” responded Perry. “It says so under the First Amendment.” However, this questioner can take solace in a 1797 treaty between our fledgling democracy and the Muslim nation of Tripoli, wherein our founders stated unequivocally that “…the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.” According to Perry, it is perfectly appropriate to articulate one’s religious rationale in a political sphere and express any opinion, even if it is wrong.

Religion private; politics public

While both panelists recognized the wall between church and state, Perry saw none between religion and politics. 

Greenawalt did. For him, religion is private; politics is public. He believes that all public policy should be based upon public rationale, not religious ones. Furthermore, if the rationale did start as a religiously inspired one, the policy should be presented for legislative consideration only after being transformed into a public rationale, as the prudent rulings mentioned above demonstrate. Greenawalt’s detached political philosophy and narrow focus calls for political discussion to be based only upon a public rationale. He cited a famous 1960 statement by John F. Kennedy in response to public concerns about the nominee’s Catholicism being too strong an influence on the public policy he would create as president.

Kennedy said, “A man’s religion is a private matter, not a public one.” In a speech in 2008, presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said essentially the same thing.

Perry believes, however, that Kennedy’s response was strategic rather than factual, and that he was trying to reassure a nervous electorate. In spite of both Kennedy’s and Romney’s wishes, Perry sees no way to keep religious influence from creeping into public life with issues like civil rights, abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage, etc. For him, it is reasonable to want to know something about candidates’ religious backgrounds because of religion’s relevance to character and value systems as well as for an indication of the kinds of public policies candidates are likely to support. All of which makes religion a very public thing.

Furthermore, Perry saw nothing wrong with revealing a religious rationale in addition to a non-religious one in explaining the reasoning behind a particular public policy, as long as the non-religious rationale is the clear primary reason. For example, an administrator might say he favors funding Head Start programs because statistics demonstrate that the earlier children get such help the more successful citizens they are likely to be in later life. Perry believes the administrator can then add that his religion teaches him to be compassionate without violating the disestablishment clause.

Greenawalt disagreed. His conviction is that laws should be based solely upon public conclusions. “Coercive and discriminatory enforcement on purely religious morality” is against the restrictive clause of the Constitution, he argued. Greenawalt believes that by invoking a religious rationale in any way, one opens the way to create antagonisms between people that will get in the way of their acceptance of the public policy.

The discussion continued at a lively pace, ranging across the surprisingly broad field of questions that constitutional law has a unique ability to raise. By the time the lively discussion ended, everyone was ready for the refreshments provided by the co-sponsors, the Chappaqua Public Library and the Chappaqua Interfaith Council. While the attendees may not have left with all their questions answered, they must certainly have come away with added respect for the subtleties of constitutional law and the amazing foresight of our founding fathers.

The members of the Chappaqua Interfaith Council are: the Baha’is of New Castle, Chappaqua Friends Meeting, First Congregational Church, Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Presbyterian Church of Mount Kisco, St. John and St. Mary’s Catholic Church, St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal Church, Temple Beth El of Northern Westchester and the Upper Westchester Muslim Society.
       
More about the panelists

In addition to writing numerous articles on the subjects of morality and religion, Michael J. Perry has published ten books, including Under God: Religious Faith and Liberal Democracy and Religion in Politics: Constitutional and Moral Perspectives. (For more information about Michael Perry, go to www.emory.edu) In the past two decades, R. Kent Greenawalt has concentrated on the place of religion in American political life and issues of religious freedom. He is the author of several books on religion and politics, including his recent two-volume work Religion and the Constitution, Private Consciences and Public Reasons; and Religious Convictions and Political Choice. (For more information about Kent Greenawalt, please go to www.columbia.edu)

Charles S Sirey represents Chappaqua Friends Meeting on the Chappaqua Interfaith Council. He is a retired principal of a New York City-based advertising agency and currently lives in Chappaqua with his wife, Dr. Aileen R. Sirely. In his career he has also been a feature writer and an editor.