To return to the thesis, [environmental concern].. is just one example of where faith communities can play a critically important role in our democracy. It is not enough to lay out a case in cold fact. It requires, as Martin Luther King Jr. understood, an appeal to the heart and soul of the individual. This is the sphere in which faith moves.
Faith can be the impetus which moves grand, national debates and changes minds. But this cannot happen unless we allow for that voice in our public realm. The strict separation of church and state as codified in the U.S. constitution was never intended to deny the voice of faith in public, but to prevent potentates like George III from dictating how and in what manner one should worship. In Canada, that formal separation has never existed. Rather, we seek to protect all forms of worship in the framework of a culture of pluralism.
Good article. But one correction: George III did not seek to dictate “how and in what manner one should worship.” He was himself a godly man, and even though Anglicanism was the state religion in England and Presbyterianism in Scotland, in the rest of his empire, religion was a matter of provincial option, e.g., Roman Catholic in Maryland, Anglican in the southern colonies and New York, Quakerism in PA, Congregationalism in CT and MA.
The article “[url=http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2010/11/05/a-review-of-christian-muslim-conflict-and-a-modest-proposal-to-counter-it/]A review of Christian-Muslim conflict and a modest proposal to counter it[/url]” at Reuters “[url=http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/]Faithworld[/url]” is an interesting example of faith playing a role in politics.
Ian, the fact that religion was a provincial option outside of England is exactly what the author was getting at. People left England and went to the New World often specifically because they were dictated to as to “how and in what manner one should worship” in England.