Of course, the religious heritage of which Romney spoke is profound. The Puritans’ vision of “a city upon a hill” in America serving as a beacon to humanity was based on a “covenant” with God. As the Bill of Rights was formulated, George Washington issued his Thanksgiving Proclamation alluding to “that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.”
But if religion informed America’s formation, its distancing from the political sphere was decisive to the republic’s resilience. Indeed, the devastating European experience of religious war and intolerance played an important role in the founders’ thinking. Seen against this backdrop, Romney’s speech and the society it reflects is far more troubling than Europe’s empty cathedrals.
Romney allows no place in the United States for atheists, who do not merit a mention. He opines that “Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom,” yet secular Sweden is free while religious Iran is not.
He shows a Wikipedia-level appreciation of other religions – admiring “the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims” and “the ancient traditions of the Jews” – that suggests his innermost conviction of what America’s true religion is. In all, masked beneath professions of tolerance, a faith-first Christian vision emerges.
Romney rejected the “religion of secularism,” of which Europe is on the whole proud. But he should consider that Washington is well worth a Mass. The fires of the Reformation that destroyed St. Andrews Cathedral are fires of faith that endure in different forms. Jefferson’s “wall of separation” must be restored if those who would destroy the West’s Enlightenment values are to be defeated.
The author overlooks or ignores that secularism itself is a worldview that seeks to impose itself on others. It too has a value system and morality. I am getting tired of articles like this that seek to protray athiests as some how objectively worldview and value neutral. It just is not true.
Every election and politics is always about imposing one’s values. The only real argument is whose values are going to be imposed.
Br. Michael, Agreed. Atheism can be just as orthodox and exclusionary as any other faith, in its intellectual pseudo-superiority and hubris.
Having said that, I do believe that the separation of church and state, albeit really artificial as long as humans are driven by their own hearts and beliefs, needs to be maintained to guarentee religious freedome for all. And let’s go ahead and define the bricks in that wall as money. If money flows from government to religion, then the wall is broken. Everything else should flow freely back and forth between government (of, by, and for the people) and faith.
“Where religion and politics join, their child is politics.”
KTF!…mrb
Is Sweeden free – I thought it was socialist? 🙂
Please define what you mean by “separation of church and state”? If you mean that that there should not be a state established church then I agree. If you mean that one’s religious beliefs should remain private and not impact your public actions then I disagree because it can’nt be done.
The prhase is now being used to mean the imposition of secularism, yet if we think of a religion as a worldview, which I think we must, then athiesm and secularism are every bit as much of a religion as is Christianity. And as such, consistancy demands that they also be separated from the public sphere.
Recommended reading on the issue of religion in public life is “The Culture of Disbelief”, by Stephen Carter of Yale Law School.