What’s Wrong with the World

The British government isn't even 'morally neutral' - if such a position is ever possible. It seems to me that a declaration of moral neutrality would itself be a moral statement. If we dig deep enough, we discover that no law is ever independent of a moral (or immoral) foundation.

On the contrary, the government here is complicit in or condones immorality as it trims to the spirit of the times. A recent example among many, is Mr Cameron's boast that the crowning achievement of his administration would be to legalise same sex marriage.

A society that advocates religious neutrality is, I fear, a society that will soon become a secular society. Secularism is not the neutral public space where all religions can live together in harmony. That was the promise D. L Munby's 1963 book The Idea of a Secular Society and Its Significance for Christians.
Religious neutrality is a mere stepping stone to secularism. But the danger does not end there. Lesslie Newbigin points out that "...we have learned something about the secular society...that what has come into being is not a secular society but a pagan society, not a society devoid of public images but a society that worships gods which are not God. But the myth of a secular society remains strong."

The institutions of this community - schools, courts, agencies, etc. - all believe they must conduct themselves in a way that is "neutral " with respect to religion so as not to offend non-believers. Over time, it becomes a community in which all public manifestations of Christianity are suppressed

Soon everyone looks askance at any laws or ordinances that might in some way have derived from Christian morality, and these too are excised.

Well, I'm going to cry, "Distinguo!"

It's kind of unclear here what it means to "prefer" Christianity or why "all public manifestations of Christianity" must be suppressed in order for the courts, say, to be religiously neutral in a relevant (and, I would say, defensible) way. For example: It is our opponents who say that a law that "might in some way have derived from Christian morality" is a violation of "religious neutrality." _I_ say that we should not grant them that. If the legislature passes and the courts apply a law, say, against pornography, that is not an "establishment of religion." It is evident by the natural light (yes, really, it is) that pornography is extremely evil and severely harmful. It is arguable rationally that a society should not want its GDP and tax revenues to derive from the manufacture and sale of pornography.

When the Pope himself talks about many of these things--say, abortion, in Evangelium Vitae--he addresses himself to all men of good will. Catholic theologians and moral philosophers themselves (and as everyone knows, I'm not Catholic, but this comment is in response to a post by a Catholic colleague) have not simply stated but _insisted_ that various moral precepts, relevant to public policy, are available to non-Catholic by the moral law written on the heart.

What _would_ be a violation of defensible religious neutrality? Well, here would be an example: Two litigants come before the court in some dispute. The judge asks each of them, "What is your religion?" One says that he is a Christian and the other says that he is a Muslim. The Muslim is suing the Christian. The judge says, "Well, in that case, I'm going to dismiss this case. I think the Christian is so much more likely to be in the right here and to be telling the truth that it isn't even necessary to bring it to trial."

Here's another example that I would say is wrong, though I don't know if Jeff would agree that it is wrong: A law that said that all judges (or all public officials in some other capacity) must be explicitly Christian, that they cannot be anything other than Christian. Or that they have to be Catholic, or Protestant, etc.

Granted all law has a moral basis, and some law can be defended from natural law. Lydia asks:

What would be a violation of defensible religious neutrality?

Christendom should insist that Christ is King and that the Ten Commandments bind not just Christians but the civil state. Christendom has a right to establish limits to its tolerance of unbelief and deviation from established Christian doctrine.

By, "What would be a violation of defensible religious neutrality?" I meant to imply that there _is_ such a thing as a defensible and legitimate concept of religious neutrality. I therefore meant to ask what sorts of legal set-ups would be a violation of such a legitimate concept and, hence, bad ideas, bad governance.

I have no problem with the display of the Ten Commandments in a courtroom. I was very privileged to meet Judge Moore.

By, "What would be a violation of defensible religious neutrality?" I meant to imply that there _is_ such a thing as a defensible and legitimate concept of religious neutrality.

Of course I disagree with this premise. Even a simple law against abortion favors the religious tenets of some religions over others. Mormonism, for instance, favors exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother (putting aside the ambiguity of this rationale for now). Catholicism does not. Laws choose sides, even if by default, even if they don't mean to. No law is religiously neutral.

Catholic theologians and moral philosophers themselves (and as everyone knows, I'm not Catholic, but this comment is in response to a post by a Catholic colleague) have not simply stated but _insisted_ that various moral precepts, relevant to public policy, are available to non-Catholic by the moral law written on the heart.

The natural moral law is available to all, but mere availability is a pretty low threshold for justifying its statutory imposition. The light of natural reason did not turn pagan darkness into civilization. Mankind needs revelation, and indeed the light of revelation is necessary to restore the place of reason itself.

In today's post-modern milieu, the authority and even the existence of the natural moral law is flatly denied. Going forward, it's not going to be reason that prevails over our deteriorating culture, but faith - if there is to be any triumph at all.

Mormonism, for instance, favors exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother (putting aside the ambiguity of this rationale for now). Catholicism does not. Laws choose sides, even if by default, even if they don't mean to. No law is religiously neutral.

All that the first part is saying is that some religious bodies take particular stands on moral issues and other religious bodies take contradictory stands, at least on specifics. (By the way, I didn't know that the Mormon religion had an official and specific position on the details of what abortion policy ought to be. Is this actually true?)

But that doesn't support the conclusion that "No law is religiously neutral." Indeed, I would say that to say so is simply to elide, if not to deny, the existence of natural light on ethical matters, so that any law against, say, murdering your five-year-old child is now a "religious" law and somehow automatically favors some specific religion. Yet there has been, though not universal, at least widespread agreement across various religions about the evil of killing five-year-old children. And as an actual matter of logic, it is not even remotely necessary to reason through the tenets of some specific religion to come to the conclusion that killing five-year-olds is morally reprehensible. Many, many non-religious people or people with varying religions see this for themselves. The natural light is not just some theoretical thing. It has actual effects and is actually being used by people all the time.

As to the exceptions concerning abortion, it's almost childishly easy to show that if abortion is wrong at all, an exception for rape or incest is inconsistent with the _reason_ for which abortion is wrong. That is why Governor Perry recently changed his mind on the matter after being confronted by a woman who was conceived in rape. He realized his own inconsistency. He didn't just convert to Catholicism and then abandon those exceptions because a religious authority told him to. He didn't have to go that route.

The life of the mother is seen by a lot of people as a harder exception to do without, and I can understand _psychologically_ why it is found to be harder, chiefly because people find it extremely difficult to accept the existence of a situation in which you are not permitted to *do something* to save at least one person's life. Moreover, people are usually psychologically more attached to the mother than to the unborn child. But there, too, one can indeed give perfectly good arguments from the humanity of the unborn child to the conclusion that there should not be such an exception for the deliberate and intentional killing of the child.

All these things are matters, and have been matters, for careful moral reasoning and discussion for a long time. And that by Catholic theologians and teachers themselves. They have not simply appealed to authority but rather to the full humanity of the unborn child and therefore to the child's entitlement to be treated as a patient equal in worth to the mother. In a sense, by sweeping all of that aside impatiently and treating all moral matters as inherently religious, you are denying the practice and approach of your own Church.

Both Lydia and Jeff (with Thomas) have valid points, I think.

No society has ever established its laws, and its authority to speak bindingly, on a prior rational argument from first principles about what is human nature, what is "the common good", and how is the common good to be achieved. ALL societies operate within a presumed context that pre-exists their selection of specific positive law, and that context consists of human nature, of particular customs, and of a panoply of ideas about the nature of the community (e.g. whether the community is tribal, city-state, geographic, or otherwise). Laws are, at first instance, an exercise of the political authority to regulate public behavior given that context. It is, therefore, literally irrational to ask that each and every law be ordered to the common good by a definite, a-priori logical basis that prescinds from the given culture.

Most of what we consider sufficient basis for law is sufficient in a strict accounting only when it may presume upon much of the existing cultural, customary context of society. Rarely are we prepared (or able) to give a totally sufficient accounting of a law all the way back to its deepest roots, even past the most ingrained parts of custom. But that doesn't mean that such laws are ungrounded, or unacceptable, or unreasonable. Given our customs, laws proscribing pornography are legitimate _even if_ you have trouble stretching the rational basis for them into non-religious principles. (Such rational basis exists, but you need not expect 98% of the people to have them at hand.)

Since a good share of pre-modern culture consists in religion and the tendrils of religious outlook extruded into other aspects of life, one ought to expect LOTS and LOTS of laws that touch on religion and how it relates to the common good even so far as the common good is under the secular authority. Excluding from law the right to RELATE to religion and the practices it fostered is to force law to avoid a huge share of its proper sphere regarding the common good.

Where nearly all in the community share one religion, a vast number of the laws ought to be about the things that touch on that religion.
There are (as suggested above) many ways in which a religion has tendrils into non-religious activity. For example, for centuries in which France was almost totally Catholic, there was a religious rule forbidding eating meat on Friday. Naturally, then, there would (and did) grow numerous customs about eating other foods on Fridays, customs like Friday fish frys as public events. It would be insane to suggest that there should be no laws in such a society that gave support and encouragement to no-meat Friday practices, merely because such encouragement gives aid and comfort to Catholicism in a way it doesn't to other religions. Such laws need not be taken so far as to prohibit (secularly) the eating of meat on Friday, though.

So, what about a Protestant (one of the 2% not Catholic in the community) who sets up a road-side stand that he only opens on Fridays, and he ONLY sells cooked meat, hot and ready for eating? Would it be a legitimate secular objective to take action against this practice as being inappropriate to the mores of the community?

Of course selling meat is a legitimate business activity. No question about that. Further, none of the Catholics ought to be willing to patronize the road-side stand on Fridays, and it is for them to look after their own souls. It is not his lookout to establish their religion before selling to them.

In order to decide whether it is legitimate for the state to try to stop this, you have to decide, not whether stepping in favors one religion over another (obviously it does), but whether the good to be achieved in doing so in this sort of instance is more important to the common good under the care of the authorities than the evils that also attend favoring one religion over another. OF COURSE in America today the goods the state could achieve would be miniscule, and the evils larger. But in 15th century France, the proportions would be quite different.

Last point: all laws ought to be conformable to the natural law (i.e. not directly at odds with it), even when they spring out of particular customs that are different from place to place. Because custom "has the force of law", custom also has the pride of place: as a society we have a right to presume that it is in conformity with natural law until it is made manifest with clear evidence that it is not. Attempts to upset deeply held customs (and the laws that support those customs) by arguments that they are "unnecessary" or "inappropriate" should be held to a very high standard of proof, not a level that says things like "well, I don't see why I should have to close my store on Sunday just because you don't want to shop on Sunday." The inter-connectedness of laws and customs and the social fabric is rarely seen very clearly, and rarely will we be able to explicitly state all of the goods that will be lost by changing a customary situation. The argument to overturn custom should be forced to squarely state and consider ALL POSSIBLE goods that flow in connection with it, not just the principle one.

In a sense, by sweeping all of that aside impatiently ...

I haven't swept anything aside: the world has placed limits on the efficacy of "careful moral reasoning" whether you happen to like it or not. Natural reason and the moral law do not persuade most people today apart from the most basic moral precepts, and even these are accepted uncritically by most, or "on faith" as it were. This is as much the result of intellectual limitations as it is moral depravity. Most men are not philosophers nor should we expect them to be. And Christians don't have the option of settling for what the world is capable of agreeing on by means of natural reason. We ought to aim a little higher than a society which, through the use of natural reason, manages to "come to the conclusion that killing five-year-olds is morally reprehensible".

...and treating all moral matters as inherently religious...

All moral matters touch on religion, if not inherently then at least tangentially. That doesn't mean that all moral matters are exclusively religious. Natural law forbids murder: so do the Ten Commandments. There's a lot of overlap. God would not have given us the fifth commandment if He thought that natural moral law was sufficient to prevent murder. It is not sufficient. We need authority as well, and for many, authority is the starting point.

" ...you are denying the practice and approach of your own Church."

I wonder if you'd like to reflect on whether that comment was particularly gratuitous. Just a suggestion.

Tony, I read your comment carefully, and can't find a thing to disagree with. Very well said.

Most men are not philosophers nor should we expect them to be. And Christians don't have the option of settling for what the world is capable of agreeing on by means of natural reason.

I would submit that it isn't necessary to be a philosopher to come to conclusions _nowadays_ regarded as "controversial," such as, to name but a few,

--Homosexual acts are unnatural, and it is impossible in principle for two men to be married,

--Unborn babies should not have their arms and legs ripped off,

--It is terribly wrong to withhold food and fluids from a cognitively disabled woman for thirteen days until she dies.

What I am opposing here is the idea that only by some highly abstract and abstruse moral reasoning, largely inaccessible to ordinary folks, can the moral law put a halt to the grave evils we see growing up around us. This simply isn't true. In fact, it is the self-styled intellectual elites who have systematically _undermined_ the moral common sense of the masses, based in an intuitive grasp of the moral law. It is philosophers who are now flirting with post-birth infanticide and sneering at hoi polloi who are still horrified at the thought and require no philosophical argument to be so horrified.

I wonder if you'd like to reflect on whether that comment was particularly gratuitous.

In all seriousness, I didn't intend it to be so and am genuinely regretful if it caused offense. I meant to be making a sincere argument. It seems to me that you are giving insufficient weight to the natural light possessed by all men and are implying that it is largely out of reach and cannot help us in policy matters. Not only do I think that incorrect, I believe that a vast weight of your own tradition, right up to writings in recent decades on some of the very issues at hand (such as abortion), says otherwise, and I am therefore appealing to that as an argument on my side that should be relevant to you.

Alex and Thomas, thanks for your comments as well. I think this is worth repeating:

Lesslie Newbigin points out that "...we have learned something about the secular society...that what has come into being is not a secular society but a pagan society, not a society devoid of public images but a society that worships gods which are not God. But the myth of a secular society remains strong."

I think that the point I made about Governor Perry, above, is particularly relevant. Hopefully no Perry supporters will be offended if I say that he is not an intellectual. What convinced him was not an abstract or difficult argument but merely focusing his attention with some sympathy on a woman who asked him whether it was really his position that she could legitimately have been destroyed as an unborn infant because of the evil committed by her father. This is something that any man of normal intelligence and good will is capable of grasping.

Tony, what I'm going to say in this comment may well all be stuff you agree with, so please don't take it as a disagreement.

I think it's very important to avoid the following false dichotomy: Either a moral precept is simply derived from tradition by accepting the authority of tradition or else it is known by a tortuous and abstract process of reasoning from premises far removed from the normal course of thought of ordinary folks.

What a mother does when she understands that she ought to protect and cherish her child is neither of these.

Good tradition, including the tradition of true religion (or specific religions insofar as they teach truth) draws attention to and reinforces our understanding of moral precepts. Our grasp of what Lewis called the Tao stands in a mutually reinforcing relationship to good traditions.

This is why people often "sell short" their own pro-life case when, for example, they say that it is "just based on religion" or that they are "pro-life because they are Catholic." Were I discussing this matter with such a person, I would ask him something like this: Really? It's _just_ because you're Catholic? You mean, you have no sense of human connection with the unborn child? You are in no way moved by pictures of unborn children to recognize their common humanity with you and our duty of protecting them as small, helpless human babies? The wrongness of abortion is just some kind of bare religious posit for you that you accept on pure authority?

Obviously his answer to all those questions should be, "No." So what's really happening? His religion draws his attention to all those other things, and those other things have their weight in his mind as well. So he's making a mistake--and a mistake that could later cost both him and the pro-life cause dear--if he says, "Oh, this is just a matter of faith for me. This is just something I believe because of my religion."

What all of this means is that *certainly* we should pursue evangelism. It may well be true that one of the very best ways to get people to recognize and return to important human truths is by getting them to recognize important religious truths.

However, I believe that we should not assent to overstatements such as, "All laws are religious laws" and the like. I think this, and the attempt to defend it, actually run the serious risk of doing a disservice to that knowledge of the Tao which even we ourselves, as Christians, are constantly accessing when we assent to moral truths for a whole _host_ of reasons. We want to be, and to encourage others to be, men with chests, in Lewis's phrase--that is, men who are in touch with those human insights about caring for children and the helpless, honoring parents, and the like, that are the common heritage of mankind through the imago dei.

Tony, some thoughts on your very interesting example of the Protestant with the roadside hamburger stand in 15th century France. Let us suppose that the local authorities do proscribe his hamburger stand. Let's suppose that the penalties in question are not in any sense draconian but are sufficient to deter him from having the stand open. I'm probably not going to be up in arms about this, for a number of reasons, one of which is that if he's only open on Friday this is highly unlikely to be an important part of his livelihood and another of which is that the penalties are not draconian. It's just not that big of a deal to me either way, though if I were given a vote on it among the authorities I would vote against penalizing him.

But let's try it the other way. Suppose that the French city fathers, though Catholic to a man, decide _not_ to penalize him in any way. And suppose that one of their reasons is some sort of notion of permitting religious differences concerning such issues as eating meat on Fridays (a position for which, if I may say so, there is a good deal of warrant in the Pauline epistles).

Does this mean that they are "denying Christ before men" as the last lines of the main post might be taken to imply? Does it mean that now their country is doomed, by some inexorable sociopolitical law, eventually to proscribe Catholicism because the Catholic government authorities have decided not to enforce Catholicism?

It seems to me that the questions that have been raised here go a good deal beyond, "Could it ever maybe be okay to have blue laws?" to a far stronger position.

All laws teach; good laws teach good morals, while bad laws teach bad morals (at least in a general sense). If the 15th-century hamburger stand is permitted, what is taught is that (1) the state has power to judge the extent of the prevailing religion's express moral obligations, and (2) those moral obligations are not universal, even within the extent of this particular cultural milieu. The second point, by elevating a merely observable truth to a point of jurisprudence, undermines the close association between culture and religion; the prevailing religion is therefore marginalized from culture (even if only by a small step). More grievously, the first point directly threatens the (even merely cultural) validity of the religion's authority to teach at all. That authority becomes seen as arbitrary, because the state's new claim of power tends to monopolize the available claims to rational basis, which, if upheld and recognized generally, also tends to marginalize the claim of religious power to rational basis. Further, if the first point is upheld, the state as human institution is unable to relinquish this power, but must now continue to judge the content of religion (at least in external behavior, like the Friday abstinence). Even in cases where the religious behavior is judged positively, it eventually becomes dependent on the approval (or at least permission) of the state.

Lydia,

I think Jeff is saying (much more eloquently) what I said in your "Liars" thread. I think you are overestimating the efficacy of the natural law in moral discourse in the modern West. In the federal Prop 8 trial, the judge dismissed with a wave of his hand the obvious fact that two people of the same sex can't make babies. I've had more than one pro-abort tell me that abortion must be legal because the government is obligated to "help women overcome their biology." They've also freely admitted that the fetus is human, but still insist that the woman's "right to control her body" trumps their right to life.

The natural law only has force as long as people believe in the authority of nature's god. Without that component, it's just an exercise in deriving ought from is.

Without that component, it's just an exercise in deriving ought from is.

Well, no, it isn't, really. See, if you say that, you're _agreeing_ with our opponents that there is no such thing as an actual rational perception of right and wrong based on the natural light.

Our opponents will _say_ that you are "just deriving ought from is." They'll say lots of things. That doesn't mean we should grant them those premises.

The truth is that people nowadays are accepting a lot of things that are totally crazy. It may be that getting them to accept Christianity is the best way to get them to return to human sanity. It may even be that evangelism is the only way to do this for any large number of them. It will also save them from the fires of hell, which would be a good enough reason for evangelism in itself.

But we shouldn't let the fact that people, taught quite deliberately by a destructive and insane ideology, are tearing out the motherboards of their own minds and hearts cause _us_ to deny that there is a law written on the heart.

Let's not let the Judge Walkers of the world define for us what is or is not rational, a true perception of reason. Let's not accept his premise and then say, "Okay, you're right. It's all religion. So you all have to accept my religion or else you have no reason whatsoever to accept anything remotely like normal, traditional morality."

And let's _especially_ not do that as between Catholics and Protestants, implying that all good laws are distinctively "Catholic" religious laws (or Protestant laws, as I suppose some Calvinists might try to argue!), or we'll tear apart our own coalitions, such as they are.

If the 15th-century hamburger stand is permitted, what is taught is that (1) the state has power to judge the extent of the prevailing religion's express moral obligations,

[snip]

the first point directly threatens the (even merely cultural) validity of the religion's authority to teach at all

Deacon David, I confess that I don't understand this at all. The whole _question_ is whether the governmental authority should pass a law criminalizing Friday hamburger stands. That is obviously the question Tony was raising by the example. The ball is de facto in the governmental authority's court. The ball is not somehow put into the governmental authority's court by failing to pass such a law! If anything, it would be passing the law against the hamburger stand that would assert the authority of the governmental authority over religious matters--specifically, to force the Protestant to behave, in this area, like a Catholic.

I cannot for the life of me see how you get the idea that _failing_ to pass such a law somehow _increases_ governmental authority over religion. How does the failure to pass such a law teach that the government has power to judge "the extent of the prevailing religion's express moral obligations"? The moral obligations, presumably, just are what they are. The Catholics are (we are to grant ex hypothesi for the hypothetical scenario) obliged not to eat meat on Friday. You seem to be saying that the government _must_ shut down the Protestant's hamburger stand or else the government is somehow judging that Catholics are _not_ obligated to refrain from meat on Friday. Huh? That one's a head-scratcher.

It almost seems that you are saying that the governmental authority must, in a nearly robot-like fashion, _automatically_ enforce _all_ Catholic moral rules upon the people in the jurisdiction or else the government is setting itself up to judge (negatively) the moral validity of these obligations. So if the governmental authority is not simply an enforcement arm of the Catholic Church on all cultural matters of teaching and practice, including dietary rules for its own members, this undermines the Church's ability to teach its own members!

I'm sorry, but I think that sort of idea is crazy.

"One example that immediately pops to mind is Sunday closing laws."

Not necessarily. Imagine this scenario. 95% of the residents of the city of Pope are Catholic. Thus, they believe they are religiously obligated to take Good Friday off for meditation, fasting, reflection, prayer, and practicing the stations of the cross, among other things. For this reason, the local public school district takes Good Friday off every year, since the vast majority of its students and faculty miss the day anyways.

Is the government neutral in this instance? Hardly. But is it fair and just? Absolutely, since it takes into consideration the traditions, practices, and beliefs of its people in a way that is respectful and accommodating.

A "neutral" regime would ignore these consideration, and would be less civil for doing so. When "neutrality" is the enemy of justice, then it should be actively resisted by the polis and its leadership.

Lydia, I agree with your restraint of the general force of law in regards to religion: it is NOT the case that refusing to use the force of civil law to uphold a religious custom constitutes either "denying God before man" or starting on an inexorable pathway towards repudiating the religion itself. As long as the choice to not use the force of civil law is taken with a view to the whole common good, it is easily possible to see that choice being right some of the time, in choosing to pass up an opportunity to re-enforce a practice or a custom with civil law.

Nevertheless, doing so is quite often the wrong choice, a choice that damages the common good that is under the care of the civil authority. This is because the common good is a complicated weave of many separate threads of goods, where a large share of the threads are (considered on their own) either religious or stemming from religious practices, because those threads are interposed and tied up with other practices and other goods that are secular. Given a specific culture, a specific set of customs including religious customs, refusing to uphold and promote any portion of the society that is found explicitly in the religious customs or in practices closely related to religion (that is, refusing to touch any portion of the entire body of such customs) INEVITABLY means the loss of that culture, which means the loss of the community as an integral entity. While the law may or may not "compete" directly with religion for authority (it need not in principle), they undoubtedly influence each other's breathing space in the public square. If one will not cooperate _with_ the other, then it must perforce end up in a zero-sum game of speaking space in the public square: where one gains, that constitutes the other losing. By demanding that the state not cooperate in supporting the existing culture as that culture is formed by religion, you effectively ask the state REPLACE the religion as the foundation of all those practices and customs that make a culture, which are not simply religious practices. But this is an impossibility GIVEN a religious culture. All you can achieve doing this is the death of the said culture and thus the birth of a fundamentally different culture.

In my hamburger stand example, I can easily see the city fathers coming to either of 2 resolutions: (1) this Friday-only business is certainly both a direct poke in the eye of Catholic sensibilities, and an attack on the religious integrity of Catholic beliefs without the nicety of trying to present an argument for same. It is harmful to the good of sound Catholic customs, with insufficient countervailing purpose, and should be closed down. Or alternatively, (2) the goods which it attacks directly are, while real and certain, of tertiary importance, and we are willing to permit such attacks - they may prove a kind of inoculation against more important (but more hidden) attacks.

For myself, I suspect that I would propose a third approach, to leave the Protestant's stand intact, but put up a sign in front: "This Protestant is thumbing his nose at your religion and at you. Catholics who patronize this establishment are at risk of religious penalty." Oh, and then telling the guy: "we won't do a thing about it if someone throws rotten eggs at you for your disrespect of their customs." But we will leave you alone as long as there is nothing like violence.

Good tradition, including the tradition of true religion (or specific religions insofar as they teach truth) draws attention to and reinforces our understanding of moral precepts.

Lydia, most people have a real sense of the law written on their hearts, but they are unable to account for that in any explicit manner. Saying "I see it intuitively", given an atheistic secularist's argument in favor of abortion, doesn't further the discussion in the least. Resting on explicitly religious authority is another route, a route which the atheist will disparage as being useless or worse. My sense is that a person should be able to rest it equally well on the authority of custom - custom that the atheist is himself an inheritor of whether he likes it or not - because custom stands as a kind of a testimony of the ages to the real, valid expression of deeper law than the explicit positive human law. A person should be able to say to the novel innovations of the revolutionary: begone, your ways having nothing to do with our ways.

Saying "I see it intuitively", given an atheistic secularist's argument in favor of abortion, doesn't further the discussion in the least.

I think the intuitive pro-lifer ought to be able to say (as, of all people, the young non-intellectual Justin Bieber recently said in an interview!), "Well, it's killing a baby, so I'm against that..."

That pushes it back to killing a baby, and at that point, if they don't get it, _they're_ the ones being crazy and irrational.

By the way, I knew one agnostic Jewish philosopher, very bright guy, twenty years ago who came to the conclusion that abortion is wrong because it's killing a baby and hence, if allowed, would meant that infanticide should be allowed. He treated that as a reductio of abortion.

The baby-killing argument functions well as either an intuitive or a philosophical argument. The only thing that obscures this is the fact that too many of our bioethicists are morally insane.

I admitted, in another discussion, that ultimately I rely on moral intuition when claiming to "see" that abortion is wrong. Reasoned arguments make no difference to my confidence that what I "see" in this case is right.

I believe I could give reasons in support of my view that abortion is evil, but the principle or premise from which I begin is intuitive. Isn't this necessarily the case - even for moral philosophers?

Given a specific culture, a specific set of customs including religious customs, refusing to uphold and promote any portion of the society that is found explicitly in the religious customs or in practices closely related to religion (that is, refusing to touch any portion of the entire body of such customs) INEVITABLY means the loss of that culture, which means the loss of the community as an integral entity.

Tony, at first I misread this section and was confused, but I think I now understand that you are saying that in such a culture the government should be willing to uphold and promote _some_ portion of the society that is found explicitly in the religious customs of the society. Otherwise, that culture will be lost, etc. Have I got that right?

Now, I don't know whether that is true (about the inevitable loss of the culture without some religious promotion), but here's where I see the probable differences of opinion between myself and Jeff coming in. I don't object to what I think most people fifty years ago would have deemed non-burdensome recognition of specific religion by governmental entities. This could include things like Christian prayers before the opening sessions of legislatures, Christmas trees in government buildings, special recognition of Christian holidays by the President (without frantically insisting on recognizing all the _other_ religions' holidays as well), and the like. If you'd put it to them, I don't think most Americans at that time would have thought it a big deal if felons who adhered to non-Christian religions couldn't always get all the trappings of their religion in order to engage in services behind bars.

These are examples of "recognition" of Christianity generally, though not necessarily of some specific form of Christianity (Catholicism as opposed ot Protestantism, for example) that don't seem to put any great burden on non-Christians. Even Sunday closing laws are not a _huge_ deal, provided they are legislated at a fairly local level. (Trying to amend the Constitution so that stores must always be closed on Sunday seems more than a bit over the top!)

But quite obviously, by historical observation, those weren't "enough" to preserve a distinctively Christian society. Now, I'm inclined myself to think that such things never will be "enough." Even if you have an _oppressively_ Christian society, or an oppressively Catholic society, this isn't even close to a guarantee of that continuing. Nor is it necessary to pass slowly and gradually through stages of religious toleration to aggressive secularism.

Would Jeff Culbreath, Deacon David, and others in this thread be _satisfied_ with the sorts of relatively minor and symbolic recognitions of Christianity that I have sketched above? Would that be enough from their perspective to constitute "preferring religious truth" and "preferring the truth that it knows"?

What if we imagine instead a majority Catholic society in which Catholics have been bidden to fast from meat *all* through Lent? Would others on this thread then say that the governmental authorities ought to require Protestants to sell no meat at all during Lent?

The thing is, perhaps I'm wrong, but it definitely does not sound to me like the sorts of symbolic recognition of religion that, to me, are not a big deal, are going to be the kinds of things that Jeff is urging as obligatory on the government of a society that needs to preserve the "religious truth it knows."

While we're talking about elephants in the room, here's one: In a majority Catholic society, should Protestant preachers be locked up for trying to evangelize Catholics to Protestantism? Would a failure to do that mean that the government of the country in question was setting itself up for Catholicism eventually to be prohibited or proscribed in some way? (And if so, what does this say about Catholic confidence in their own religion? If Protestants are allowed to preach, will they inevitably "win"?)

The thing is, Tony, I suspect you and I are not too far apart on many of these issues. But I much fear that on such issues I am quite far apart from Jeff C. and from some others commenting in this thread.

I believe I could give reasons in support of my view that abortion is evil, but the principle or premise from which I begin is intuitive. Isn't this necessarily the case - even for moral philosophers?

Alex, in some sense, yes, I think that is true. That is part of what I was getting at concerning, "It is wrong to kill a baby" as working equally well for Justin Bieber and for my old philosopher acquaintance as a first premise. I would be inclined to call that intuitive knowledge of premises like, "It is morally wrong deliberately to kill babies" a kind of a priori knowledge, but a priori knowledge doesn't have to be dead and contentless. It can be interesting. :-)

The thing is, Tony, I suspect you and I are not too far apart on many of these issues. But I much fear that on such issues I am quite far apart from Jeff C. and from some others commenting in this thread.

Yes, I am sort of in the middle here. I definitely DON'T agree with Deacon David's thesis here:

All laws teach; good laws teach good morals, while bad laws teach bad morals (at least in a general sense). If the 15th-century hamburger stand is permitted, what is taught is that (1) the state has power to judge the extent of the prevailing religion's express moral obligations, and (2) those moral obligations are not universal, even within the extent of this particular cultural milieu. The second point, by elevating a merely observable truth to a point of jurisprudence, undermines the close association between culture and religion;

That's too high a bar. Not all civil laws are religious issues, and not all civil laws touching on a practice that is descended from religious practices are important enough to worry about whether their impact on the religion is damaging. Some things are trivial, including some religious things.

But I accept the other side of the coin here: a culture consists of a fabric of (at least) 10,000 customs, stories, patterns, etc. If you lose a thread or two at the fringe, you needn't say "the whole thing is unraveling". But you cannot say "law should hold as irrelevant to society 1/3 of the threads in the fabric, because they are religious." Since a vast number of customs either are themselves part of the religion or something attached to the religion as playing a bit part in it, assisting or cooperating therein, cutting all these off from legal support would ensure that eventually some major discrepancy would enter in, some incompatibility between new (legally enshrined) practices and existing customs. And I don't think that you can view the permitted areas of law cooperating with a specific religion as only those areas that are trivial to religion or trivial to the society: if one of the major components of a people's religious practice is a foundational aspect of how they arrange their lives (like going to church on Sunday), simply ignoring that in law is a guarantee of non-trivial incompatibility between law and pre-existing custom. That's not reasonable.

Law must needs be allowed to cooperate with religion, in significant ways. I say "cooperate" advisedly, though. The typical mechanism by which church and state meet should, generally, be law making allowance for religion, as opposed to law mandating something on behalf of religion. Francis's example is good: having public schools closed on Good Friday is an accommodation, it does not FORCE Jews, Muslims, or pagans to practice any Christian activity, it only arranges public breathing space in which Christians can do so without social / legal impediments.

Let's take a more interesting example: in a 98% Protestant country, the new king is annointed and crowned and in a religious ceremony in a Protestant church, in the middle of which the chief nobles all swear fealty to him. A few nobles are Catholics. I don't think it is inappropriate for the Catholics to be required to attend the religious ceremony as part of their civil obligation, since they are required to swear fealty along with everyone else. Although there are religious sects that teach that even being present in some other religion's worship ceremony is sinful, I don't think that this inherently creates a condition that the state MUST accommodate with some special rule. (Maybe it would be _prudent_ to do so, like having a special separate fealty ceremony afterwords for the non-Protestants, but I would say that is an issue that can go either way, and it is possible that under some circumstances it might NOT be the more prudent approach). What would be unacceptable would be to require the Catholics to be not only present during the ceremony, but to worship in the Protestant manner as participants of that religious action. Swearing fealty to the king is not by its nature an act of worship to God, and Catholics can do that part without participating in Protestant religion. (But designing the oath of fealty so that it ALSO incorporates an act of adherence to Protestant faith would be wrong.)

Likewise, I don't that it is automatically a violation of appropriate civil restraint from religious promotion if the law were to require non-Catholics in a 98% Catholic state to attend Catholic religious ceremonies on certain occasions, as long as the law doesn't require them to participate therein. For example, it might be reasonable in a 98% Catholic country that the other 2% at least have a passing first-hand knowledge of the Catholic mode of worship, maybe by all being present for Mass on the 4th of July each year.

The really troublesome cases are where the law simply commands (or forbids) an action such that it is consistent with one religion and directly incompatible with another religion. American modern notions seem to think that this should ALWAYS be out of bounds, (except when the religion being promoted is secular atheism of course). I don't think it is that easy. The easiest example I can think of is when we put Prohibition into the Constitution. Some Protestant groups thinking drinking is always wrong. If the amendment had been done without a religious exception, it would have been a bad law that I would have disobeyed freely, happily, with clean conscience. I am sure that there were some extremist prohibitionists who _wanted_ no exceptions, but grudgingly went along with them in order to get 95% of the loaf.

My intuition suggests that we would be much better off with small towns that are "Catholic towns", side-by-side with "Protestant towns", and "Jewish towns", and "atheist towns," where they are free to arrange the laws to suit religious customs readily, affirmatively, strongly. Larger political entities like the state should generally have hands-off approach to matters that are in disagreement between the separate communities, MOST of the time. But if you have a state that happens to be 98% one religion (say Baptist), the mere fact that there is a Jewish town in it should not preclude the state from making some laws that support and promote Baptist customs even when they interfere marginally or trivially with Jewish customs. And I would be wary of trying to generalize that, but there should be a lot more reticence in the Baptist 98% imposing something that explicitly opposes a direct, foundational Jewish principle, but that this still leaves room for the theoretical possibility of room for some legal opposition. Declaring the state to be "under the reign of Jesus Christ" would be a pretty bitter pill to Jews to swallow, for example. I would generally be inclined to view a NEW law of that nature (where it had not been enshrined in law or custom in the past) as probably inappropriate, and instead suggest individual laws be made compatible with Jesus's reign so that the practical effect is there without the pro-forma declaration. But if the state had been formed with that declaration before the Jewish group formed such a town, I would tell them they should put up with it, the custom is in place and should not be changed.

What troubles me most about this conversation is the implication that Christianity will somehow "die" unless its standards are codified into law by the government.

Do we now assume that the only way the Church can thrive is with state-backing?

When - in the history of the world - has state-sponsored religion worked well for anyone?

Chucky asks;

When - in the history of the world - has state-sponsored religion worked well for anyone?

While we're talking about elephants in the room, here's one: In a majority Catholic society, should Protestant preachers be locked up for trying to evangelize Catholics to Protestantism? Would a failure to do that mean that the government of the country in question was setting itself up for Catholicism eventually to be prohibited or proscribed in some way? (And if so, what does this say about Catholic confidence in their own religion? If Protestants are allowed to preach, will they inevitably "win"?)

I think that Catholics and Protestants alike have learned something from the long, sometimes painful experience of confessional states in a divided Christendom in the matter of handling dissenters. In a majority Catholic society with a significant Protestant minority, I would propose allowing Protestant-governed jurisdictions where they would be free to evangelize the Catholics who chose to live there. However, I might also favor policies - depending on circumstances - that discouraged the dissemination of heretical ideas in the greater Catholic society. Certainly direct assaults on the Church would not be tolerated.

But one thing is non-negotiable: man's obligation to the truth doesn't end where statecraft begins. If the Catholic Church contains the fullness of truth and is the highest religous authority on earth, then Catholic statesmen are obliged to act on that reality wherever it matters, and to the greatest extent that prudence and justice will permit.

If the United States were Catholic, here's what it might look like in practice: http://cantuar.blogspot.com/2012/03/if-america-were-fully-catholic-country.html

A common mantra from Christian Nationalists is that secular society is hostile to religion whenever strict neutrality is observed. People imagine that if government officials are prevented from endorsing or promoting their religion while exercising their authority or fulfilling the duties of their office, that is an expression of hostility towards their religion. Atheists are furthermore accused of being behind this hostility because they want to use the government to destroy religion.

Jeff says:

I might also favor policies - depending on circumstances - that discouraged the dissemination of heretical ideas in the greater Catholic society.

Under Franco the religious liberty that had existed since the Glorious Revolution of 1868 was rescinded. The Roman Catholic Church became the official established Church of Spain.

What happened to protestants during the period of Franco's rule? Initially the going was rough. Protestant Spanish language Bible translations were suppressed. Protestant schools were closed. The protestant expression of the Christian faith was forced underground.

The Roman Catholic Church accommodated protestants by usually permitting protestants to have their children baptized in their local Roman Catholic parish by the parish priest. [Anglicans, Reformed, & Lutherans regard Roman Catholic Baptism to be valid. It is Trinitarian Baptism with Trinitarian intent.] The Roman Catholic Spanish language translation of the Bible became more readily available and became widely used by protestants.

Less then years after Franco had defeated the Communists a large degree of religious liberty was restored. In the early 1940s a Bill of Rights was passed that granted freedom of private worship. Protestant Churches were allowed to reopen and publicly worship. The protestants were not permitted to publicize their worship services or have signs on their chapels indicating that this was a protestant place of worship.

In the late 1960s, under General Franco, religious freedom was granted to Trinitarian protestants. Good protestant Bible translations were permitted to be printed and distributed. Non trinitarian cults like the Latter Day Saints and Jehovah's Witnesses were still not tolerated.

For a period of more then thirty years protestants enjoyed significant religious liberties in Spain even though the Roman Catholic Church was established de jure.

Thomas, frankly, I find all of that horrifying. "Significant religious freedom." I suppose by contrast with the outright religious persecution you've admitted was the case at first, it was significant, but the notion that we should be oh-so-grateful to a Catholic government for _permitting_ "Protestant" Bible translations (while judging which of them are "good" and only permitting those) and _permitting_ Protestant services is frankly disgusting to me. And did the signs come back? If that's the idea around here about "preserving truth"--telling Protestants (or Catholics, for that matter, in a majority Protestant country) they can't advertise--then the heck with it. And, indeed, that's exactly the sort of thing I expected.

Jeff, I read the linked post on what America would look like as a Catholic country. There is a lot I could say about it, and I won't try to say all of that just for reasons of time, inter alia. One comment that comes to mind is this: Since in his schema the President of the United States has to take his oath of office "to" the Sacrament held in a monstrance, the President of the United States would either have to be a Catholic or something of a deceptive cynic--willing to pretend to revere the Sacrament even if he did not revere it. Now, I suppose one could come right out and say: "In a fully Catholic United States such as so-and-so favors, the President must be Roman Catholic." If one does _not_ say that but retains his idea about the oath of office, one is risking something fairly grave--the misuse of the Sacrament in a cynical fashion by someone who does not believe in it. Catholics themselves should think twice about this.

That's just one comment of many I could make.

The other thing that strikes me is that he says nothing about "permitting" or "not permitting" Protestant evangelism, or setting up what one might call "Protestant free-speech zones"--towns or jurisdictions in which Protestant evangelism is permitted, outside of which it is not. (This, I take it, is one of your proposals, intended to be moderate.)

Perhaps the author of that blog post would approve of all of that. In fact, given his other proposals, that isn't so far-fetched. But he says very little about Protestant-Catholic relations, so perhaps not.

In any event, I think what you propose isn't really all that moderate, especially since you add:

I might also favor policies - depending on circumstances - that discouraged the dissemination of heretical ideas in the greater Catholic society.

Again, that's exactly the sort of thing I thought of in reading the main post, and that is just one of several reasons why I have raised objections. (That and the fact that it's simply a cause of confusion to say, "All laws are religious laws.")

Lydia, you say, "I cannot for the life of me see how you get the idea that _failing_ to pass such a law somehow _increases_ governmental authority over religion. How does the failure to pass such a law teach that the government has power to judge "the extent of the prevailing religion's express moral obligations"?" In making my comment above, I was imagining that, given the predominance of Catholic practice suggested in the example, there is no precedent for a hamburger stand open on Fridays; and that it's only the state stepping in to protect (privilege?) this one that will keep it open. That's why I leapt to the conclusion that the state necessarily judges the religious practice, either positively (by closing the stand and supporting the practice of abstaining on Friday) or negatively (by protecting the stand and declaring, at least by implication, the relative lack of importance of the practice of abstaining). If that's a misreading of the example, please excuse.

I think, in the actual 15th century, this question would most probably have been decided by an ecclesiastical court, rather than a civil (municipal, ducal, royal) one. And the religious court would certainly have the power to judge its own practice, without any such sort of implications following on. This would be true even if, as Tony suggests, one argued that the religious good touched on by the hamburger stand is of a lower order, and thus permitted the hamburger stand to remain open.

But I think part of the truth of Neuhaus's Law, which Jeff C. was suggesting originally, is precisely that, since the modern state has monopolized the realm of jurisprudence and justice, and since the modern state professes a secular basis, the state's "religious neutrality" always opens the door to that kind of negative judgement about religious practices, and therefore also about religious truths (whence proscription follows).

So, in response to your further question, "Would Jeff Culbreath, Deacon David, and others in this thread be _satisfied_ with the sorts of relatively minor and symbolic recognitions of Christianity that I have sketched above," I would say Yes, to the extent that these sorts of recognitions of Christianity represent not merely a positive judgment of the relationship between religion and culture (such a judgment could change, as you point out it in fact has), but also a deliberate and explicit statement of the state's lack of authority in such cases.

and that it's only the state stepping in to protect (privilege?) this one that will keep it open.

Meaning that otherwise annoyed Catholics will forcibly shut it down using private force? That may be true, though I completely disagree with the term "privilege" if that's all that we're talking about--protecting the stand owner from private force. So your idea then is that the state is "judging" against the obligation not to eat meat on Fridays if it prevents a Protestant hamburger stand open on Fridays from being shut down by private force? I don't agree with that conclusion. I would also note that this argument could apply even if the hamburger stand were open _all_ week, not simply on Fridays. Catholics might consider it their prerogative privately to force the owner to close, "Close your stand, buster, or we'll close it for you" on Fridays under that circumstance as well.

You say that you would be satisfied with the sorts of symbolic gestures I was talking about above. What about Jeff C's further suggestion of preventing Protestants from preaching outside of special Protestant towns or zones? That goes significantly beyond any of those things I was talking about.

Jeff C.,

While I tend to agree with you in principle, I am much more sympathetic with Lydia in practice. I am finally finishing up my Civil War history and one is always struck by the section dealing with creation of the Republican party in the 1950s -- the issue of Catholic immigration changing the character of Protestant America was very real (I believe Paul Cella is a secret member of the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, although if you asked him he'd tell you he "knows nothing"! -- Just kidding Paul ;-)

So the American experience suggests that Protestants would have been wise to keep out as many Catholics as possible if those Catholics would one day gain the majority vote and ban their Bibles, their places of worship, etc. I'm not sure if America would be a better place in this alternate history.

Again, that's exactly the sort of thing I thought of in reading the main post, and that is just one of several reasons why I have raised objections.

You were right to think so, and I understand why you would object.

(That and the fact that it's simply a cause of confusion to say, "All laws are religious laws.")

I don't believe I have ever said that "all laws are religious laws". If so, I take it back. That's obvously wrong. What I meant to say is that all laws have a moral basis, and that:

"all moral matters touch on religion, if not inherently then at least tangentially."

Which is a very different kind of statement, don't you agree? In other words, you can never say that laws are religiously neutral, just as you can never say that laws are morally neutral, or neutral with respect to the existence of persons, or society, or language, or culture. I hope I'm making myself clear: religious neutrality is not possible.

My point stands by empirical observation alone. The light of reason and the moral law that is "written on our hearts", though accessible to every man, has never stood alone in building or maintaining any civilization. Religious authority has always and everywhere been necessary, and once it is removed, society comes unraveled. Laws which do not favor Christianity favor, instead, some other belief system or worldview, whether or not it has achieved the status of a "religion" in the public lexicon.

It's worth noting that the very idea of natural law implicitly favors, for example, Roman Catholicism over Eastern Orthodoxy, as the latter tend to reject natural law outright (mostly because they don't understand what is meant by "nature"). If a state legislates the indissolubility of marriage on the basis of natural law, the Eastern Orthodox, who permit up to two divorces and three marriages, would rightly consider this a law that favors Catholic doctrine.

Lydia;
In England, under Charles II, a series of pieces of legislation were enacted, including the Act of Uniformity [1662] and the Five mile Act [1665], that ejected 2000 puritan ministers from their pulpits and excluded non conformists from much of public life. These acts were not repealed until the 19th century. The Baptists and Congregationalists grew in number during the same period of time. The number of practicing Roman Catholics also increased in number.
Franco established the Roman Catholic Church and protestant numbers grew dramatically during his tenure.
Protestants in Spain de facto enjoyed more freedom under Franco then they did in Communist Republican Spain were freedom of religion was the law.
Eastern Orthodoxy faired well in the Ottoman Empire, when compare to the fate of Christians in todays, officially religiously neutral, Turkey.
Certainly the Church of Rome should apologize for its complicity in the Saint Bartholomew Day massacre. Having said that let me say that the current threat to the Protestant proclamation of the Gospel is not Rome. The danger is not a land with an established Church that discriminates for of against Protestants, Roman Catholics, or Eastern Orthodox, as the case may be. The danger is a secular society [under the guise of religious neutrality] that does not tolerate the participation of Christians in public life.

I was not imagining actual violence or threats of violence against the hamburger stand's owner. I was, however, imagining the force of custom ("Whoever would buy a hamburger on Friday?"), public persuasion (sermons on Friday abstinence), and possibly private law (of the sort that existed in the 15th century and doesn't exist in Europe or America today), leading to the closing of the stand. In those circumstances, would it not take a special act on the part of a civil (royal) power to protect the stand? Does not the decree of its permissibility necessarily include preventing the use of the same custom, persuasion, and possible private law to that end?

Does not the decree of its permissibility necessarily include preventing the use of the same custom, persuasion, and possible private law to that end?

I would assume it would rule out "private law," though I admit I'm not entirely sure what private law is. The other two, no, certainly not. The fact that the stand can't be _required_ to close doesn't prevent anybody else from appealing to custom or preaching and persuading.

Jeff, I inferred "all laws are religious laws" from your statement that "No law is religiously neutral" and your attempt to relate this to rape and incest exceptions.

I think you are making a mistake of equating the _overlap_ of religious tenets with some law, on the one hand, with the claim that that law _favors_ that religion, on the other hand. This just seems to me to be a flat error. In fact, your original example of exceptions to abortion laws is a particularly poor example for your own case. As I pointed out, Governor Perry did not come to reject rape and incest exceptions for any specifically religious reason but for what I would call a natural law reason after he was confronted by a woman who was conceived in rape. There is nothing specially "Mormon" about rape and incest exceptions--many non-Mormons embrace them. There is nothing specially Catholic about not having such exceptions--plenty of non-Catholic pro-lifers reject them for reasons having nothing to do with Catholicism specifically.

A law against murder that would as a matter of course punish as murder the burning of widows on pyres is not therefore inherently "anti-Hindu" nor "Catholic" (since of course Catholic moral teaching would condemn suttee). I would say that it is a religiously neutral law, even though the practice of suttee was a Hindu practice that would be punished under that law. There is overlap between the moral tenets of, say, Catholicism and a great many good laws, but that doesn't mean that such laws are Catholic laws or somehow "favor" Catholicism and hence are not religiously neutral.

Jeff, I inferred "all laws are religious laws" from your statement that "No law is religiously neutral" and your attempt to relate this to rape and incest exceptions.

The inference was a mistake, then, wasn't it?

I think you are making a mistake of equating the _overlap_ of religious tenets with some law, on the one hand, with the claim that that law _favors_ that religion, on the other hand.

They are two different claims: I haven't conflated them. I used the former as an example of the latter. Abortion law, whatever it might be, is always more consistent with one set of religious tenets than it is with another. That's all I'm saying: the law is not neutral with respect to religious teaching.

In fact, your original example of exceptions to abortion laws is a particularly poor example for your own case. As I pointed out, Governor Perry did not come to reject rape and incest exceptions for any specifically religious reason but for what I would call a natural law reason after he was confronted by a woman who was conceived in rape.

I must be the world's poorest communicator. It doesn't matter what Gov. Perry's reasons were: the fact is that he has embraced a position more favorable to, and consistent with, Roman Catholic doctrine than it is favorable to and consistent with, say, Mormon or Jewish or United Methodist doctrine. His position, if enacted into law, would not be religiously neutral. How any one individual comes by his agreement with such a law is not the point.

There is overlap between the moral tenets of, say, Catholicism and a great many good laws, but that doesn't mean that such laws are Catholic laws ...

True, we agree.

... or somehow "favor" Catholicism and hence are not religiously neutral.

I disagree. The moral orientation - the degree of consistency or lack thereof - of any given law with respect to religious teaching simply exists. You can't wish it away.

Jeff C.,

You say, quite emphatically, "That's all I'm saying: the law is not neutral with respect to religious teaching. But isn't quite a bit of religious teaching neutral with respect to the law? My understanding of Catholic social teaching suggests that there are many laws that aren't really a matter of particular importance to God (see Matt. 22:21).

For example, does Catholic (or Christian) doctrine have anything to say about whether the speed limit should be 55 or 65 m.p.h.? Or whether we should have speed limits on our interstate highways? Or does Christian doctrine say anything about local zoning laws? The appropriate level of expenditure on public roads? Leash laws in public parks for dogs?

It seems like there are many matters of law of a prudential nature that are in fact neutral with respect to religious teaching.

For example, does Catholic (or Christian) doctrine have anything to say about whether the speed limit should be 55 or 65 m.p.h.? Or whether we should have speed limits on our interstate highways? Or does Christian doctrine say anything about local zoning laws? The appropriate level of expenditure on public roads? Leash laws in public parks for dogs?

Absolutely. Is protecting human life important? Is getting along in peace and order with our fellow man important? Religion has something to say about this. Speed limits are not exclusively Catholic, obviously, but their underlying moral justification is consistent with Catholic teaching. If the speed limit were 125mph on the interstate, or 15 mph, these laws would be far less favorable to Catholic doctrine because they do not appropriately balance individual freedom with the common good.

Once again, please note that it is not necessary for a specific religious doctrine to have directly inspired the law for the law to have religious significance.

Lydia, when you say, "The fact that the stand can't be _required_ to close doesn't prevent anybody else from appealing to custom or preaching and persuading," I think I'm finally grasping your response to my first comment. If this brand new royal law isn't going (whether by intention or accident) to be appealed to for curbing custom and persuasion, etc., as I imagined it, then that clearly mitigates the leap I was making to that law undermining the church's authority to teach morals. I'd argue there's still a tendency to try to move in that direction (which we've seen historically, for both practical and ideological reasons), but it's less immediate than I claimed above.

I'm not, however, terribly sanguine about the thesis that permissibility _by civil authority_ of something not previously permissible _doesn't_ imply, or won't be taken to imply on appeal, that the existing custom which in effect prohibited it, is _not_ itself in some sense wrong. If the civil power is going to bother to legislate on such a matter, it will certainly tend to protect its power to legislate by desiring to force the issue. After all, if it doesn't matter whether the stand stays open or not, why involve the king? If the stand just closes, then why isn't the local custom and/or law against the stand being open on Friday sufficient?

the degree of consistency or lack thereof - of any given law with respect to religious teaching simply exists. You can't wish it away.

Jeff, I think this is a little like the "disparate impact" reasoning which I've always had my doubts about--okay, _grave_ doubts about--in discrimination law. The fact that some law has some greater degree of consistency with, which I would be inclined to call overlap with, the teachings of religion A than religion B doesn't mean that it is non-neutral as between A and B. Similarly, the fact that some test an employer applies to prospective employees has "disparate impact" in its outcomes as between racial groups does not mean that the test is "biased" in favor of one group and hence not a neutral test. The test has an _independent_ reason for it (let us stipulate) in terms of testing for skills needed for the job. From there on, let the chips fall where they may as far as outcomes.

Similarly, if Hindus (say) want to murder their widows, and if someone strictly applies laws against murder and this has "disparate impact" so that more Hindus in that region are affected by it, because more Hindus are trying to do murders than other religions (due to suttee) that doesn't make the law "religiously non-neutral" as between Hinduism and Christianity. It just means that Hindus are more off-base vis a vis a law against murder than are Christians. The law itself stands or falls for reasons that need not be specifically Christian at all.

If religious group A favors forced marriages and religious group B condemns them and the law punishes attempts to force a woman into marriage, that doesn't mean that the law is somehow biased in favor of religion B. _Anyone_ sensible, even someone who adheres to neither A nor B, should be able to see the wrong of forced marriage. The law is a religiously neutral law; it just happens that members of religion B happen to have it right on the moral point that the law addresses and members of religion A happen to have it wrong.

The bottom line is that the law (and the absence of law) is a reflection of the government's attitude towards religious truth - an attitude imparted to the public at large in both teaching and example.

When the state places atheism on "equal" legal footing with Christianity, it sends a positive message. By pretending unequal things are equal, the message is actually the propagation of a lie, and its enforcement is persecution of the truth.

Jeff C.,

I think you have a point, but ironically I think your point ends up supporting Lydia's earlier claim regarding the natural moral law:

All these things are matters, and have been matters, for careful moral reasoning and discussion for a long time. And that by Catholic theologians and teachers themselves. They have not simply appealed to authority but rather to the full humanity of the unborn child and therefore to the child's entitlement to be treated as a patient equal in worth to the mother. In a sense, by sweeping all of that aside impatiently and treating all moral matters as inherently religious, you are denying the practice and approach of your own Church.

Here is what I mean by this -- you answer my questions in the affirmative by claiming a broad mandate as it were for religion. You say to me that since all laws impact "getting along in peace and order with our fellow man" or alternatively "protecting human life" then all laws have "religious significance". Here I think you are just echoing the section of the Catechism dealing with political authority:

1902 Authority does not derive its moral legitimacy from itself. It must not behave in a despotic manner, but must act for the common good as a "moral force based on freedom and a sense of responsibility":21

A human law has the character of law to the extent that it accords with right reason, and thus derives from the eternal law. Insofar as it falls short of right reason it is said to be an unjust law, and thus has not so much the nature of law as of a kind of violence.22

1903 Authority is exercised legitimately only when it seeks the common good of the group concerned and if it employs morally licit means to attain it. If rulers were to enact unjust laws or take measures contrary to the moral order, such arrangements would not be binding in conscience. In such a case, "authority breaks down completely and results in shameful abuse."23

1904 "It is preferable that each power be balanced by other powers and by other spheres of responsibility which keep it within proper bounds. This is the principle of the 'rule of law,' in which the law is sovereign and not the arbitrary will of men."24

II. THE COMMON GOOD

1905 In keeping with the social nature of man, the good of each individual is necessarily related to the common good, which in turn can be defined only in reference to the human person:

Do not live entirely isolated, having retreated into yourselves, as if you were already justified, but gather instead to seek the common good together.25

1906 By common good is to be understood "the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily."26 The common good concerns the life of all. It calls for prudence from each, and even more from those who exercise the office of authority. It consists of three essential elements:

1907 First, the common good presupposes respect for the person as such. In the name of the common good, public authorities are bound to respect the fundamental and inalienable rights of the human person. Society should permit each of its members to fulfill his vocation. In particular, the common good resides in the conditions for the exercise of the natural freedoms indispensable for the development of the human vocation, such as "the right to act according to a sound norm of conscience and to safeguard . . . privacy, and rightful freedom also in matters of religion."27

1908 Second, the common good requires the social well-being and development of the group itself. Development is the epitome of all social duties. Certainly, it is the proper function of authority to arbitrate, in the name of the common good, between various particular interests; but it should make accessible to each what is needed to lead a truly human life: food, clothing, health, work, education and culture, suitable information, the right to establish a family, and so on.28

1909 Finally, the common good requires peace, that is, the stability and security of a just order. It presupposes that authority should ensure by morally acceptable means the security of society and its members. It is the basis of the right to legitimate personal and collective defense.

1910 Each human community possesses a common good which permits it to be recognized as such; it is in the political community that its most complete realization is found. It is the role of the state to defend and promote the common good of civil society, its citizens, and intermediate bodies.

Notice what this section doesn't say -- it doesn't say anything specifically about the Catholic faith or about specific religious practice (other than the fact that the authorities are called upon to respect "freedom...in matters of religion".) What it talks about instead is the natural moral law and the idea that human law should be in accord with "right reason" which is in turn in accord with "eternal law". We could have Professor Feser explain all of this to the public or we could have Pope Benedict or we could even have Professor Mohler at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary -- all of them could give a good account of the moral law without having to resort to specific doctrinal truth claims or without getting into disputes over whether or not we should allow Protestants (or Catholics) depending on the majority to preach the gospel. The answer is that they should both be allowed to preach because freedom of conscience is part of the moral law.

Notice what this section doesn't say -- it doesn't say anything specifically about the Catholic faith or about specific religious practice (other than the fact that the authorities are called upon to respect "freedom...in matters of religion".)

But, Jeff S., this is the positive teaching of a religious catechism. Don't let that little detail go unnoticed. I know Baptists and other Christians who would disagree vigorously with its presuppositions. Just ask Michael Bauman.

You'd be amazed at how many of your neighbors don't even believe that the "common good" exists, or is a legitimate idea.

The bottom line is that the law (and the absence of law) is a reflection of the government's attitude towards religious truth

Is it? Including laws against murder and rape? In what sense? In the sense that you wish to say that all moral truths are ipso facto religious truths?

But in that case, wouldn't that mean that you _are_ saying that all laws are religious laws? Because all laws have something to say about morals?

I think part of the problem here, Jeff (C), is that you are treating something like "is related to" or "touches upon" as automatically a transitive relation. So if one can say that all law "is related to morality" and morality is "related to religion" then all law is "related to religion." But that's a pretty strong transitivity assumption, and not one I'm prepared to grant automatically.

In fact, I'd be more inclined to say that a particular religion favors a particular law than to say that the law favors the religion! E.g. It is not that a law against abortion that has no rape or incest exception "favors" Catholicism. It is that Catholicism favors such a law. One need not follow from the other.

Deacon David, here was how Tony originally set up the hamburger stand scenario:

So, what about a Protestant (one of the 2% not Catholic in the community) who sets up a road-side stand that he only opens on Fridays, and he ONLY sells cooked meat, hot and ready for eating? Would it be a legitimate secular objective to take action against this practice as being inappropriate to the mores of the community?

It's quite clear that Tony isn't talking about repealing a previous law against selling meat on Friday but about instituting such a law in a situation where the legal situation is ambiguous, or when such a stand is completely legal, and the Protestant it taking advantage of that. So when you ask,

If the civil power is going to bother to legislate on such a matter, it will certainly tend to protect its power to legislate by desiring to force the issue. After all, if it doesn't matter whether the stand stays open or not, why involve the king? If the stand just closes, then why isn't the local custom and/or law against the stand being open on Friday sufficient?

I would answer, the king or local city fathers are being "involved" by the local Catholics who want to prohibit the stand! As for why local custom isn't sufficient, well, I guess because some Catholics are breaking their church's rules or because the Protestants are congregating at his stand so they can still buy meat on Friday. Ask the locals why custom isn't sufficient. Maybe they need to do more persuading!

More generally, I note that there are _many_ things that are not illegal but that preachers are not in any sense prevented from preaching against. Couples living in sin, for example. It is certainly possible to create barriers of custom and persuasion against an activity that is legal. I would note here that many young people become vegetarians and even vegans while at college under peer pressure even though eating animal products is completely legal. In no way does the absence of a law against some thing or activity x mean, "No one is allowed to try to persuade others not to engage in this activity."

Thomas,

If your arguments about growth in number of disfavored religions are meant to support the conclusion that the disfavorings in question were not objectionable, I cannot agree. How could such premises support such a conclusion? After all, it's well known that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church! Christianity itself grew hugely under terrible persecution that we would all condemn. So why can I not condemn as wrong-headed or worse an establishment of religion despite which Protestantism or some other religious group grew?

Similarly, it doesn't follow from, "X group, such as the Communists, persecuted such-and-such a church _worse_ than Y group" that the religious policies of Y group are unobjectionable. Again, why should it? Comparative is just comparative. Of course, anyone who knows about the history of Orthodoxy in Turkey knows that the current regime is anything but religiously neutral. It has egregiously persecuted the Orthodox church. It hardly follows that dhimmitude is justifiable or good, and I would caution the Turkish Orthodox against hankering after Islamic rule. Be careful what you wish for lest you get it.

By the way, the example of Governor Perry is relevant if nothing else to the discussion about the efficacy of natural law that we have been having. Governor Perry did not "need authority" to see that it was wrong to kill children conceived in rape. Nor did he decide that this was wrong because of custom, because it is not according to "our ways" to abort children conceived of rape. (If anything, sad to say, custom has for some time swung the other direction--it _is_ according to "our ways" nowadays to kill such children.) What I would call an obvious and pure natural law argument was indeed sufficient to change his mind when he attended to it. He recognized the natural injustice of destroying a child because of its father's evil.

You people scare me!

I don't know how any religious person can be in favor of a theocratic form of government. Every denomination or sect has, at some time in the past, been on the receiving end of government sponsored religious persecution. Why would we wish that on anyone? And, how would we stop that from happening to us once such a system is in place? Such societies are only beneficial to the religious majority.

There's also my broader point that no one has touched on yet - the implication that the Church needs the assistance of government to survive. I find that offensive. It's God's Church! Does God need man to pass laws so he can bring growth to his body? I think not. Besides, is the Church really supposed to be about ruling over peoples and nations? There is no teaching in the New Testament about how to set up a theocratic government on earth. Rather, we are told that we are 'not of this world' and that God will set up his kingdom at 'the end of the age'. In contrast, the Koran does teach Muslims how to rule over others. Theirs is a worldly religion - ours is (supposed to be) heavenly.

You're also forgetting the fact that forcing religion on people causes anti-religious sentiments to ferment. Such "blowback" may be the reason the 19th century Russian theocracy cited earlier was followed by the most atheistic form of government known to man - or why the British are so apathetic toward Christianity. I think the height of theocratic governance in this country was reached when the 18th amendment was passed. Think about that. There was actually enough religious fervor in government - both federal and state - to pass a constitutional amendment outlawing alcohol. But then what happened as a result? Did society improve? Or did the blowback produce a more determined and organized crime syndicate and an increase in lawlessness?

There's something to be said for freedom and liberty.

Chucky, maybe you could begin by simply distinguishing between "theocratic form of government" and government that accommodates, or even promotes religion _in_some_ways. I don't think anyone thought that the United States in 1950 was a "theocratic form of government" even though in every state in the union public schools had school prayer. GET A GRIP.

Jeff C, I think you need to move a little cautiously in spelling out the terms of the debate. When you say

The bottom line is that the law (and the absence of law) is a reflection of the government's attitude towards religious truth - an attitude imparted to the public at large in both teaching and example.

it's true, but in a very complex and nuanced manner. "Law" covers a multitude of different levels of laws, as well as a vast number of individual laws and an incredible web of motivations behind them by the large number of law-makers and the magistrates and police that enforce them. You're talking about a web in which any strand may impact dozens or hundreds of others, and so there is often good and bad results even from a law that defends religious practice, and these need to be weighed in the balance.

Let's take Martin Luther berating some Catholic cleric for his handling of indulgences. The cleric may have asked the local lord or magistrate to step in and penalize Luther for the "heresy" of speaking out against indulgences. The problem is that Luther was ABSOLUTELY RIGHT that some clerics handling of indulgences was morally heinous - they were selling them.

Generally, the law as a whole promotes people speaking out on the truth, because the truth is a common good. Oddly, it is a common good not only in its inherent character (when I have a truth, that does not detract from your having the very same truth, they can be held commonly without diminution), it is _also_ the case that in humans we come to the truth better in common: we refine, perfect, and correct each other's errors, and expand each other's scope of knowledge when we work together. For this reason, the state aims at people being able to speak their minds freely, that promotes the common good.

However, ALL men (on earth) hold the truth with defects, at the minimum with limits and usually with some admixture of error. As a consequence, nearly all men are subject to speaking out some portion of error when they speak the truth that they hold. Thus, IN GENERAL the state cannot expect to suppress error as spoken by a person without incidentally suppressing ALSO the truth that he holds and intends to speak, and suppressing his TRUTH detracts from the common good. Therefore, in general the state leaves intact a person's right to speak even in error in regard for the great common good of truth. The consequence seems to be that the state doesn't have the authority to suppress error merely on account of its being wrong simply, there must be added reason beyond that alone.

When a civil magistrate tries to step in and silence Luther on indulgences, he silences Luther on noting the evil of selling indulgences too, and THAT's a truth that gets silenced. More generally, silencing a person (with legal penalties) because his perspective differs from the magistrate's lends a weight against speaking out truth in general, and thus truth in general may suffer. (I saw this happen in my family growing up: Mom instituted a fine for speaking inappropriately at dinner: charges of a nickel and a dime for various sorts: slang & bad grammar & interrupting, primarily. The end result was a couple of my brothers just stopped talking at the dinner table - not good. The penal code and its improvement in speech was not worth the negative impact.)

This doesn't mean that it is impossible for a state to take action against wrongful speech - including wrongful speech about religion - in some cases. It means that the cases have to be carefully considered and weighed for the undesired consequences of state intervention. I think, for example, that it might be found that Luther violated norms of just and fair speech by not only berating an individual cleric for selling indulgences, but for claiming (falsely) that it was an official teaching of the Catholic Church that everyone needed to buy these indulgences or they could not go to heaven. But even there: in the 16th century there was a standard of pretty vitriolic and exaggerated speech between opponents, and Luther received comparable vitriol back from others, so his excessive approach may have been at least a little rhetorical. Not easy to adjudicate.

I tend to think that at some level the law needs to be explicitly in favor of religion, and (for at least a small community) in favor of a specific religion, in order to be ALL that law needs to be for social well-being. The western experiment of the last 300 years is telling us what happens when you don't. But I am cautious about how that ought to stand: if each small town has its own religion as the favored religion, can the state (by the principle of subsidiarity) keep its hands out of religion and just regulate "other stuff"? Somehow, I think that's unlikely. But it's the best model I can see at the moment.

In a very interesting article published online at First Principles, which I read this morning, James Kalb observes that the ultimate (secular) purposes of the "liberal project" are pursued in what might be characterized as a religious quest.

This paragraph in Mr Kalb's commentary seems relevant to what Jeff Culbreath has been arguing in this discussion :

"Despite claims to the contrary, it thus turns out that contemporary Western government can be identified with a particular view of ultimate and even religious issues. There is nothing surprising in that result. As Kenneth Craycraft and others have noted, religious neutrality is a myth. Basic social institutions inevitably claim the right to make decisions on matters of life and death, and to demand sacrifice—even extreme sacrifice—of personal interests. To do so, they must be seen as grounded in ultimate realities regarding the meaning and value of life, and thus correspond to an authoritative religious outlook."

The questions of liberty of religion do not admit of abstract treatments. Otherwise we are puzzled as why male circumcision may be allowed and female circumcision may not be.

I believe that the Founders of the American Republic did not have Hindus or Wiccas in mind when they allowed for a free exercise of religion. The conscience that may be allowed a free exercise of, depends on the prior history, culture and genius of that country. The American people did not allow Mormons their polygamy.

Thus if a people may restrict or impose certain disability on Catholics or Hindus or Jews, it is not per se unjust.

What does religion mean?. When one writes "at some level the law needs to be explicitly in favor of religion," ---To talk of religion is a Modern Western habit and as Belloc says of newspapers "It happens to have arisen in a world where the false conception that religion was a private affair had taken root."

Otherwise we are puzzled as why male circumcision may be allowed and female circumcision may not be.

Gian, one certainly can't discuss that topic (which probably Jeff doesn't want us to discuss in detail here, it being quite unpleasant) in the abstract, because the actual nature of the surgeries involved is relevant to the question! I will simply say, however, that it is _not_ necessary to give religious reasons to adjudicate that issue, as though we simply have decided to prefer Judaism over Islam (or African animism) in this case. Rather, one surgery is terribly, horrifically, permanently harmful while the other is not. Some people seem not to know this. I would call that a "secular" reason.

Alex says:

Mr. Kalb's commentary seems relevant to what Jeff Culbreath has been arguing in this discussion

Thomas,

While I find that I don't always agree with Mr. Kalb, I always profit from reading him. Here is the link to the piece Alex mentions:

http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/articles.aspx?article=1815

Tony:

Chucky, maybe you could begin by simply distinguishing between "theocratic form of government" and government that accommodates, or even promotes religion _in_some_ways. I don't think anyone thought that the United States in 1950 was a "theocratic form of government" even though in every state in the union public schools had school prayer. GET A GRIP.

Is it just me or were you the one that brought up a Catholic government that outlawed the consumption of meat on Fridays?

I chose to describe this type of government, or this style of governance, as "theocratic" because that's the strongest term I could use and because I think that's the way it would eventually end up. Once you start down that road---favoring one religion or denomination over another---you have to either continue on that path or retreat from it. Government never stands still.

As for school prayer... I don't know what your beliefs are but would you want your children led in prayer every day by, say, Mormon teachers? Or would you just want your kids to be free to pray to their own God, in their own way, whenever they so choose? My preference is, far and away, for the latter.

Oh, and I think I have a fairly good grip on things - thank you.

Chucky, a word in your ear: Tony is the moderate around here. Distinguish him from the suggestions heretofore made by Jeff Culbreath and others. If you really want to blow a gasket, go have a look at the post Jeff linked approvingly on what a Catholic America would look like. To my mind, pretty hair-raising stuff. Plus the prohibition on Protestant preaching suggested in this thread, and _not_ by Tony. Now _that's_ more like theocracy.

I chose to describe this type of government, or this style of governance, as "theocratic" because that's the strongest term I could use and because I think that's the way it would eventually end up. Once you start down that road---favoring one religion or denomination over another---you have to either continue on that path or retreat from it. Government never stands still.

Demonstrably, the state governments DIDN'T "go down that road". They all favored certain religions early on, and they all didn't become out and out theocracies. Therefore, it is balderdash to think that having a government that promotes a religion means it is bound to become a pro-religion theocracy. Any more than it is BOUND to become an anti-religion atheocracy (which is what we are very close to right now).

This is the slippery slope fallacy. Note: the fallacy isn't that there are in fact slippery slopes, because there are. The fallacy is that identifying a facet of reality that may potentially be one facet of an eventual slippery slope that we end up sliding down means that we WERE BOUND TO slide down it on account of that one facet. That's a fallacy.

Politics is a human art, requiring keeping in balance competing needs and tensions. It cannot help but consist of many choices that could lead to slippery slopes if we let them, so the burden of politics is constant vigilance so that we DON'T let those things go on to full-on slides down this or that slope. All of the Founders recognized this. You have to give government power, but doing so CAN lead to tyranny. So constant vigilance is required. You have to give the Congress power to write laws, but then they can write laws that violate all sorts of principles, so you use a Court to keep watch on them. Etc. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Jeff's underlying thesis behind this post (if I may attempt to pose it for him) is that we have already gone too far down the slippery slope of government support of anti-religion to the detriment of religion, and we need to exercise a counterweight toward the other direction, so that government is re-balanced. His view of where "balanced" rests is a little different from mine, but not his view that we have already gravely damaged religious practice in support of anti-religion at the hands of the state.

If you really want to blow a gasket, go have a look at the post Jeff linked approvingly on what a Catholic America would look like. To my mind, pretty hair-raising stuff. Plus the prohibition on Protestant preaching suggested in this thread, and _not_ by Tony. Now _that's_ more like theocracy.

Blow a gasket? Hair raising? Gee, does Massachussets before 1833 blow your gasket? Until then there was a Protestant religious test for public office, and taxes were levied "for the support and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality."

How about England under Charles I? Was his regime "hair raising"? His image hangs in my office, holding a martyr's crown of thorns. Though the Protestant head of a Protestant "theocracy", I admire him greatly, as do countless numbers of Catholics who respect him for his exemplary Christian fortitude. His regime was in many ways the mirror image of the imaginary Catholic America you read about at Dr. Marshall's site, except quite a bit more restrictive against Catholics. Yet despite the disenfranchisement and disabilities of Catholics, they were mostly well tolerated, Charles I had a Catholic chapel at court, and his cavaliers were led by loyal Catholic generals.

Alas, most of this is academic. We live in the United States 2012, where Catholics are not only a minority, but a lukewarm minority at that. I want Protestant Christians to prefer and affirm, in their public duties, as much of their protestant Christianity as they can muster. In this scenario there will be, by necessity, a not-always-comfortable alliance of Protestants and Catholics in many places; in other places, one or the other will dominate.

And I'd happily settle for the benevolence of a Protestant state in granting some jurisdictions the right of Catholic governance - something unthinkable in the present secularist milieu - even if Catholics were saddled with disabilities in the greater Protestant society.

A thought experiment: try starting with sound philosophical assumptions untainted by the American political "tradition" post-1961, and then try reasoning your way to a position on religious "neutrality". My hunch is that you'll end up in a very different place.

Alex: Mr. Kalb's commentary seems relevant to what Jeff Culbreath has been arguing in this discussion

Thomas: I could not find the article Alex mentioned in First Principles but Alex is certainly correct in saying Jeff echoes what Kalb wrote in 2008 in his book The Tyranny of Liberalism

Jeff S.: While I find that I don't always agree with Mr. Kalb, I always profit from reading him. Here is the link to the piece Alex mentions:

http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/articles.aspx?article=1815

I have to confess a certain debt to James Kalb, whose writings have helped to clarify my own thinking over the years. Though I don't always agree with him either, he's an important thinker on topics like this. I wish the FP site didn't use such a small font or I would read the article!

As I pointed out, Governor Perry did not come to reject rape and incest exceptions for any specifically religious reason but for what I would call a natural law reason after he was confronted by a woman who was conceived in rape.

I'd like to address this. One can arrive at a thoroughly pro-life position via thoroughly emotional, non-rational means. I would bet that most pro-lifers do exactly that. I would also bet that most "pro-choicers" do the same when arriving at their own position.

I don't know the whole story, so I could well be wrong, but I strongly suspect that Gov. Perry did not reason his way to his new position by carefully considering the implications of natural law. Rather, it seems that he was faced with a person who demanded an emotional response. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, of course, but it's the same vehicle by which others come to "pro-choice" conclusions. They're faced with a compelling, heart-rending story of a flesh-and-blood woman with a crisis pregnancy - perhaps a loved one - and the only reasonable solution seems to be abortion.

"I wish the FP site didn't use such a small font or I would read the article"

When I run across this problem, either due to font size or to an article's length (I almost never read anything longer than 2 or 3 pages online) I print the piece in order to read it.

And Kalb's Tyranny of Liberalism should not be missed.

As for school prayer... I don't know what your beliefs are but would you want your children led in prayer every day by, say, Mormon teachers? Or would you just want your kids to be free to pray to their own God, in their own way, whenever they so choose? My preference is, far and away, for the latter.

Chucky, if I were so foolish as to have my kids in school, I would far, far rather they be led in the Lord's Prayer by a Mormon, a Jehovah's Witness, or an agnostic each day than be led to treat religion as "something we don't address for 8 hours a day, including not allowing you to write a paper that touches on religion". Religion has been suppressed from the public square as being inappropriate to discuss in public concerns. That's wrong.

Jeff, doesn't your browser have a zoom function?

Marmot says:

And Kalb's Tyranny of Liberalism should not be missed.

Yes, Jeff C., since Catholics had to meet secretly in crypts and such to have Mass during the reign of Charles I (except for the Catholic Queen, whom they could hardly force to meet in a crypt), I _do_ consider the disabilities of Catholics during the reign of Charles I to be hair-raising.

Jeff, on Governor Perry's change of mind, I think you are going for very much the false dichotomy I discussed above, where I said this:

I think it's very important to avoid the following false dichotomy: Either a moral precept is simply derived from tradition by accepting the authority of tradition or else it is known by a tortuous and abstract process of reasoning from premises far removed from the normal course of thought of ordinary folks. What a mother does when she understands that she ought to protect and cherish her child is neither of these.

I think we short-sell natural law insight by thinking of it as per se some kind of abstract and philosophical thing and then pooh-pooh genuine insights like the one that I believe Governor Perry had as not _really_ natural law "reasoning." Having read what the woman said to him about how she should not have died just because of the evil her father committed, I think that was a very good argument. It doesn't have to be long or abstract to be good. In fact, many of the best natural-law arguments are not.

I would go so far as to say that when we pro-lifers show pictures of unborn babies sucking their thumbs in the womb, we _are_ appealing to natural law. We are seeking human bonding between those who have the power to kill unborn children and their potential victims. We are showing the full humanity of the unborn child to make it harder to write them off as invisible or non-persons.

That is what this woman did, too. She made it clear that the child conceived in rape is a *real person*--the real person who was speaking to him--and that his position would have consigned her to destruction. That's a valid and powerful natural-law type argument, and it changed his mind. I see no reason to write this off as some sort of mere sentimentalism. After all, emotion rooted in truth really _is_ different from emotion rooted in lies or confusion.

I think I agree with Lydia on the natural law point. I see no reason to regard natural-law arguments as emotional barren. The force of right-reason descending upon a previously-deceived mind may be emotionally powerful in a very real way.

Think about when we're forced to eventually explain what abortion is to our children. Think about the looks of heart-breaking horror. This is not sheer non-rational emotion. It is the natural and indeed perfectly reasonable response to evil.

This puts one in the mind of C. S. Lewis's famous image of the proper unity of passion and reason, mind and viscera: the "chest" -- the seat of just emotion governed by right reason. It is obviously in the traditional of natural-law thinking.

Jeff asks for

...Protestant Christians to prefer and affirm...a not-always-comfortable alliance of Protestants and Catholics...

I _do_ consider myself in an alliance with conservative Catholics. I even proudly call myself a member of the religious right.

However, I don't favor the repeal of the First Amendment and the development of an actual established Church.

I disagree completely with the ACLU interpretation of the first amendment, but it's quite clear--we might as well be clear about this, and I don't think Jeff will disagree--that the very concept of no establishment of religion that is the _actual_ meaning of the first amendment is something Jeff would like to see turned back. See, again, the linked piece on what America would look like as an explicitly Catholic country, and see his recommendations for preference that Protestant preaching be inhibited outside of specified "Protestant towns."

I certainly strongly favor Christians of various stripes joining in alliances against the aggressive secularism of our age. Where I differ is when we are asked to affirm that our ultimate goal should be an expressly confessional state with an established religion, because religious neutrality is bad, no good laws are religiously neutral, and the like. I don't think that is our goal nor should be our goal, and to tell you the truth, I think that such goals are actually not good for our alliances here and now, because they draw attention to the fact that ultimately, if we get what we allegedly want (namely, a confessional state), decisions would have to be made that would, of necessity, pit members of our present coalitions against one another!

Yes, Jeff C., since Catholics had to meet secretly in crypts and such to have Mass during the reign of Charles I (except for the Catholic Queen, whom they could hardly force to meet in a crypt), I _do_ consider the disabilities of Catholics during the reign of Charles I to be hair-raising.

By all accounts, Lydia, the penal laws were in place under Charles I but barely enforced, winning the loyalty of his Catholic subjects. There were only two Catholic martyrs under his reign, a tremendous respite.

It varied. Charles was under constant pressure from the Puritans, of course, and in the to-ing and fro-ing with Parliament could not by any means afford openly to espouse real toleration. Also, he constantly needed money, and I have read that fines for Mass attendance were sometimes useful to his coffers. If you weren't actually a member of the royal household, it was not very wise to be openly Catholic. Of course, as the case of Laud and others shows, Charles was not even able to protect his own closest friends and advisers from religiously-motivated vengeance, nor even in the end himself. The fact that it was against the law to hear Mass in England was, in those troublous and uncertain times, not merely a dead letter even though not enforced anywhere near as strictly and consistently as in the time of Queen Elizabeth or even James I. It goes without saying that open and public Catholic proselytizing was out of the question. Nor did the Catholics really try it. They were happy enough if they could get away with raising their own children Catholic and with a little quiet proselytizing on the side.

Again, yes, I do consider all of that hair-raising.

Even more hair-raising is any proposal that America, founded on there being _no_ such national religious tests or national established religion, should _become_ such a country.

... but it's quite clear--we might as well be clear about this, and I don't think Jeff will disagree--that the very concept of no establishment of religion that is the _actual_ meaning of the first amendment is something Jeff would like to see turned back.

Yes, that's true. I think that forbidding the state to act upon any facet of reality is suffocating. It forces the state and its actors into habits of unreality and ultimately promulgates falsehood and injustice. Treating unequal things as equal - treating all religions as equal - is deceitful, in the first place, and in the second place it disadvantages religious truth straight out of the gate.

When you have a tall man and a short man walking through the same door, but all doorways must be 5'4" tall, it is the tall man who must stoop get through.

Where I differ is when we are asked to affirm that our ultimate goal should be an expressly confessional state with an established religion ...

We don't differ much. I don't believe that should be anyone's goal today, here and now, and I agree that making an issue of "repealing the establishment clause" would be counterproductive. We can do a lot of good without repealing the establishment clause.

But it's absolutely critical to affirm, in this age of deception, man's obligation to religious truth at all times. Because the state is made of men, it follows that the state has the same obligation to religious truth. That the state cannot be neutral towards religion strikes me as one of those obvious, common-sense realities that most Americans have closed their minds to because it violates a blinding political ideology. Whenever this happens, for any reason, it's time to be afraid.

Ultimately our goal should be pleasing God in everything, not in maintaining political coalitions. If you deny that someday, yes, pleasing God might include working toward a confessional state with the establishment of God's true religion, I think you are making a profound theological mistake.

the very concept of no establishment of religion that is the _actual_ meaning of the first amendment

But, I thought that the First Amendment no-establishment clause provides EXACTLY the needed room for a state to have an established religion. It's the FEDERAL government that is prohibited from no-establishment.

Jeff, would you be OK with having a situation where the Bronx has Catholicism established, and Protestants have to (for example) take an oath to uphold Catholic standards in order to be on the city council, and then in Brooklyn the Baptists have an established religion, and Catholics have to take the analogous oath to be on the city council? And on Staten Island the Lutherans are established, and in Manhattan it's the Episcopalians, in Yonkers it's the Methodists, in Newark it's the Hindus, and in Westchester it's the Agnostic Consumerists? Where generally any town has established one religion or another. And higher level governments are all designed to respect the fact that lower governments all establish one religion or another, so the higher level learns to keep its nose out of established religion issues?

In the ideal all people come to recognize that Truth is one, find the Truth in the one religion that God wants everyone to recognize, and the governments at ALL levels promote that. Short of that situation, I think (correctly) that Jeff is saying we STILL need some government reflection of the religion of its people because government is how we regulate life and life includes religion in a lot of different ways. What I am suggesting is that in principle this can be accomplished by having government explicitly promote one religion, at the LOWEST level of government, and higher level governments by design allow for that by keeping their hands off those issues. And if you don't like living under Catholics in the Bronx, move to Westchester or Newark. Or start your own place. Or convince a bunch of people to convert. Or learn to live with it.

The principle change we would need is to re-write how we understand the 14th Amendment applies.

The fact that the First Amendment did not prevent state religions is not part of the _meaning_ of the First Amendment but is rather just a function of the fact that the First Amendment didn't apply to the states. I think there's often a lot of confusion about this, and it came up in another thread. It's not as though the First Amendment actually contains a clause or any implicit meaning that says, "Hey, established churches are just fine and are allowed under the meaning of this amendment." Rather, it's simply that there was no incorporation doctrine. The states, in having established churches, were _not_ "following" the First Amendment. In fact, they were doing something that *at the level to which the First Amendment applied* was forbidden. It was just that the First Amendment wasn't applied to their level of government.

I think that's a pretty important distinction to understand in con-law. Otherwise when someone says, "Look, all of this is clearly contrary to the original meaning of the First Amendment," someone else says, "But there were state established churches at the time of the Founding," which they _think_ means that the First Amendment doesn't actually prohibit the establishment of and established church, which is of course exactly what it does prohibit! (A couple of commentators and I went around about this briefly on the thread about Pastor Youcef.)

Now, as a good originalist, I'm quite prepared to agree that the incorporation doctrine is on dubious ground. The idea that it follows from anything in the fourteenth amendment is....mmm...questionable.

The reversal of the incorporation doctine would have _profound_ effects in numerous areas, not simply religion law. Again, as an originalist, I would favor its reversal simply because I think we should tell the truth about the meaning of the Constitution.

However, I would not do it in order to have specific states become once more confessional states. And indeed by this time most if not all states have mirror clauses in their state constitutions banning an establishment of a particular state religion. That is something I do favor.

Again, this doesn't mean "no prayer in schools." That's all ACLU balderdash. But not an actual established church of that state.

Sometimes in these discussions the phrase "the state" is used ambiguously or unclearly as between "a government entity, possibly at the level of the entire country" and "a specific American state." I apologize if I've been unclear in that usage anywhere in this thread. I don't _think_ I have, but it might have crept in.

In general, Tony, I'm wary of the rather strong promotion of a particular religion that you envisage at the city level. I've seen how it works in Dearborn, and it ain't pretty. Christian missionaries arrested on the streets for having a peaceful convo. about religion with a group of Muslim lads and the like. I don't really want this encouraged and repeated in all cities with different religions. Indeed, nowadays such things would _certainly_ favor the Muslims, as the most aggressive and unassimilated religious group around, a group that dislikes freedom of religion and has no trouble pushing the envelope. Even if sharia were established in a relatively mild and orderly form (so the police merely arrest and fine women who don't wear the hijab, but they don't actually beat or rape them), I'm not happy about the idea.

Nor is it just because the Muslims would take advantage of it, though they surely would. I have no desire for that kind of power. Actually, the Baptists are the group I've had a lot in common with in this area, and they were usually the group _not_ looking to ban proselytizing to other religions, _not_ looking to fine people for not going to their church services, or anything like that. It's just not a power that I see a good purpose for.

Baptists have often been teetotallers, and probably many supported Prohibition, but I think the Prohibition types generally believed there was also a good secular case to be made for their position, much as people now think who support anti-drug laws.

Again, some ceremonial recognition of Christianity, a la the civic religion of America circa 1950, seems to me quite robust enough.

Naturally, putting stronger religious power at the local level makes it less of a problem, because it's easier to vote with one's feet. But I still don't see it as desirable.

Jeff, would you be OK with having a situation where the Bronx has Catholicism established, and Protestants have to (for example) take an oath to uphold Catholic standards in order to be on the city council, and then in Brooklyn the Baptists have an established religion, and Catholics have to take the analogous oath to be on the city council? And on Staten Island the Lutherans are established, and in Manhattan it's the Episcopalians, in Yonkers it's the Methodists, in Newark it's the Hindus, and in Westchester it's the Agnostic Consumerists? Where generally any town has established one religion or another. And higher level governments are all designed to respect the fact that lower governments all establish one religion or another, so the higher level learns to keep its nose out of established religion issues?

That sounds a bit chaotic to me, but it would be an improvement over our present situation. I'd favor greater consolidation. Also, I would oppose the "umbrella" government allowing Hinduism or Agnostic Consumerism to be "established". Tolerated, sure, but established? I'm ag'in' it.

And let me just repeat: establishment is not what I'm after. Preference, favor, and advantage will do just fine - no need to establish a church.

And let me just repeat: establishment is not what I'm after. Preference, favor, and advantage will do just fine - no need to establish a church.

I am sure that I too would not favor the sort of full-on religious establishment that was (for example) Britain in 1600, even if it was Catholicism that was established.

Again, some ceremonial recognition of Christianity, a la the civic religion of America circa 1950, seems to me quite robust enough.

First of all, you will get an awful lot of grief from atheists on that point: they will consider that even that modest "some ceremonial recognition" in fact precisely constitutes establishment, maybe a very thin form of establishment, but that's how they will characterize it to themselves at least. I would say that there is probably a way to distinguish, but I am not positive that it matters. To the extent that the state's (even very modest) recognition imposes a command or a prohibition on a non-conformer, it is an establishment condition to that extent. You can have a state with lots of such conditions, or only a few, but the only way you can have a state which partakes not at all of establishment is to have a state where it commands or prohibits NOTHING on behalf of a religion.

But I am not sure that "some ceremonial recognition" can be anywhere near what we need. In a robust, healthy society where everyone is active in their religion, their customs and practices that are directly part of religion or indirectly attached thereto will (probably) cover at least 1/6 of their customs. You simply can't have law be totally silent about 1/6 of life, it has to be able to interact with all of that, and at the least accommodate it all, but better to support much of that with cooperative measures that make it easier to engage all those customs, easier to pass them on to your children, etc. That will certainly be more than ceremonial.

Let's take an example that I think is a good one. In many old Catholic countries, there was a custom of having a solemn Corpus Christi procession. Suppose that the state designates this a state holiday (i.e. holy day), "recognizes" the procession as a state event, and enjoins a couple of items on the populace: no competing celebrations (you can't have a Martin Luther King Jr. march the same day), and non-essential businesses are to be closed. These two requirements are imposed to ease the possibility of people making the procession part of their day. If their business is closed, they don't have to work, and they don't have to compete with other activities for parking space and driving to and from the procession,. Nothing is mandated about people attending the procession, so the Protestants can stay home if they want. Oh, and school kids are taught what the holiday is and why we celebrate it.

Certainly the mere designation "Corpus Christi is a state holiday" is a ceremonial one. Nothing is required of anyone, including non-Catholics, merely by the designation. But the other laws in support of the holiday and procession actually impose constraints on them. Rather mild constraints, and (importantly) mostly negative ones rather than positive ones - they are prevented (for one day) from doing something that is normally optional, they are not prevented from doing something that is morally (or religiously) obligatory, nor required to do something that is morally or religiously offensive. But those who are not Catholic (in today's environment) would heartily object to having the state spend ANY of their tax money on such a procession, and many devout Protestants would rather strenuously object to having the schools teach about the event as if it were in the "positively approved" category instead of as "isn't it quaint what these superstitious Catholics do."

Now, I tend to think that laws like this are actually rather low down on the list of "supports religion" laws, and are a loooong ways away from approaching any gray area where the state might be overstepping in its preferring one religion to another. But I suspect that a fair number of Protestants consider this exactly the sort of thing that begins to fall in the category of "establishment of Catholicism", and would insist that this is a bad idea even on general principles in addition to feeling put upon for merely having Catholics be supported in their practice in this way.

First of all, you will get an awful lot of grief from atheists on that point: they will consider that even that modest "some ceremonial recognition" in fact precisely constitutes establishment, maybe a very thin form of establishment, but that's how they will characterize it to themselves at least

Hurrah. I'm always happy to get grief from atheists. :-) Their constitutional interpretation and mine rarely coincide anyway.

I would say that there is probably a way to distinguish, but I am not positive that it matters.

It matters to a con-law geek, even an amateur like me. Was the United States or was it not unconsciously violating the First Amendment until, voila!, the radical jurisprudence of the 1960's? I say no.

To the extent that the state's (even very modest) recognition imposes a command or a prohibition on a non-conformer, it is an establishment condition to that extent.

I have trouble seeing a command in anything such as I have in mind. That's probably because, to use your categories, I see a big difference between accomodating and putting restrictions on other things so as to limit competition. I think your distinction between recognizing Corpus Christi as a holiday, on the one hand, and prohibiting competing processions and the opening of business, on the other, is a pretty good one.

I'm not going to say the world is going to come to an end if what you outline there is done. I agree with you it's pretty mild and moderate as such things go. But, yeah, I would have a mild and moderate objection to telling all businesses they have to close because it's Corpus Christi and requiring that there be no competing processions.

Jeff C:

Yet despite the disenfranchisement and disabilities of Catholics, they were mostly well tolerated,

Tony:

Chucky, if I were so foolish as to have my kids in school, I would far, far rather they be led in the Lord's Prayer by a Mormon, a Jehovah's Witness, or an agnostic each day than be led to treat religion as "something we don't address for 8 hours a day, including not allowing you to write a paper that touches on religion". Religion has been suppressed from the public square as being inappropriate to discuss in public concerns. That's wrong.

Well the latter wasn't one of the two choices I gave but I do understand that our current state of affairs is dismal. I just don't see the answer as more government involvement. I'd prefer the other option I mentioned - that our kids would be free to pray to their own God, in their own way, whenever they so choose (even in school). To me - that's religious liberty.

I'm not going to say the world is going to come to an end if what you outline there is done. I agree with you it's pretty mild and moderate as such things go. But, yeah, I would have a mild and moderate objection to telling all businesses they have to close because it's Corpus Christi and requiring that there be no competing processions.

Likewise, I am not going to say (pace Chucky) that Catholicism is going to come to an end in this hypothetical confessional state if they cannot close down businesses for Corpus Christi. All in all, there is certainly room for give and take on this.

But, (and this is a very big "but" in my mind) this is EXACTLY the sort of "supports a religion" type of program that I think has to be available to at least the lowest level of government for the smallest political communities, in order for men and society to flourish as fully as possible. If not this one custom, then others like it. Just as nobody can decide what symbols shall have what meanings throughout society, so also nobody can decide on their own that X shall be a custom and Y shall not. Part of what it means to be fully flourishing as a person in a society is to be participating regularly in the life of society as that life is lived in common, in cooperation. If there isn't anything lived in common because everyone ignores or makes up "customs" as they see fit, then that leaves man - the social animal - the poorer for it. Given the fractionalizing pressures that we have, there needs to be recognized a force, i.e. an authority, to speak to and promote the customs that form the essential core identity of the community, that make it really one society and not merely strangers that live next to each other. And, secondarily, to influence and help along other customs that are tangential to the core but make the society more integrated. In any healthy people religious customs will form a part of the core practices and identity. Law needs to be able to protect and promote those practices, in non-trivial ways.

Here is one of the practical consequences: society exists as a successful integrated community because they choose to make laws that (almost) everyone can live with, and that (almost) everyone accepts as binding and authoritative. It pertains to the government of this community, as such, to protect and promote in these people the special understanding that they have about the WHYs and WHEREFOREs of this political authority, of this willingness to make laws people can live with, of this willingness to abide by such laws, of the bindingness of law even when uncomfortable. And within a given community the special understanding it has of this may be tied very closely indeed to a specific set of religious teachings - it certainly has been so in many cultures. Unless, within that community, the government has the capacity to cooperate with and promote the specific religious understanding of the roots of this community's political coherence, the state will perforce have to either (a) hope that the entire panoply of the message will be maintained without any government assistance - the state's basic coherence is left as something foreign to the state's operation, or (b) change society's understanding of the source and basis of the political coherence to something non-religious. No state has the inherent authority to simply revise the notional foundations of its own being at will, so (b) is unacceptable. And I think that (a) is unacceptable and irrational as well.

We all have seen this: you haven't a clue where 1/3 of your neighbors go to church, if at all. You dare not speak to half of them about politics, because you doubt that you can even make yourself understood respecting a goodly portion of what you hold as axioms and self-evident principles of politics. What, then, makes you a community? If you cannot communicate important common principles, common standards, common practices, then your commonality is poverty stricken. And that's what we have today.

I think your distinction between recognizing Corpus Christi as a holiday, on the one hand, and prohibiting competing processions and the opening of business, on the other, is a pretty good one.

Lydia, even aside from the pragmatic perspective of prohibiting competing events on that day (interference with excess traffic, parking, etc), I tend to feel that there is a perfectly valid basis for this prohibiting competing events, a basis that rests not explicitly on preferring one religion over another. I see this every year at the March for Life in DC: there are pro-death protesters at certain places alongside the march route that insist on spewing out filth, vitriol, hatred, obscenities, etc. at the marchers. It makes it so that I cannot be comfortable taking my young children to the March for Life. These people have 364 OTHER days of the year to make their message known, let them choose some other day to proclaim it. Doing what they do on the one day of the year I have to join a public demonstration for my point of view, is trying to prevent me from making that statement freely with (and to) my children. Their activity is exactly analogous to hucksters at a public speech who shout to drown out the speaker: they are themselves violating a person's right to free speech.

I would say, if someone wants to have a competing event, LET them - some other day. You can have an "anti-Corpus Christi" parade the next day if you want. What legitimate objectives rest in the "freedom" to have your event precisely opposite Corpus Christi events? See, if the public square is open to religion, then religion has to get its innings just like other events do. And we freely accept that for some venues and some events, they take up the whole square on their day. That's ok, as long as they let other people have the public square other days.

Let's be clear about something. Liberals are only religiously neutral toward religions that embrace liberal pieties. They don't want followers of Santeria to sacrifice animals, Muslims to engage in polygamy and other violations of liberal values on marriage and a host of other things. About the only one they support is the ability of some Indian tribes to use peyote because most liberals are fine with drug use.

I suspect that if a bunch of Mexican immigrants wanted to revive the religion of the Aztecs and modify it with mass animal sacrifice instead of human sacrifice, you'd see the liberals go nuts there as well.

Tony, I think that if there are really so many Catholics in this town, the kind of cohesion you're talking about can arise pretty naturally without any special law about it. For example, procession space can go on a first-come-first-serve basis, and of course the Catholics will get their bid in first. The practical aspects will play out from there. Obviously, you can't have two groups marching down Main Street at the same time, and the Atheists of Podunk Hollow aren't going to want to take second place and march down some less important street on the other side of town instead. If the city is big enough, parking considerations, etc., might well accommodate two (orderly, well-behaved) processions on the same day, but in well-separated locations, and probably the atheists aren't going to want that.

Businesses, on the other hand, might do their best business that day from people coming into town for the procession. That doesn't seem to me such a terrible thing for cohesion anyway. Think of all that human interaction. "In town for the festival, sir?" "Yep, with my wife and eight kids." "Well, have a great time!"

Where my mild and moderate protest comes in is not to this sort of natural arising of one holiday rather than the other but to some sort of ordinance that says, "Corpus Christi shall be a holiday. All businesses must close. And there can only be Corpus Christi processions and public celebrations on that day."

I have a watered-down but still actual view of the Real Presence, so the _content_ of this particular suggestion is kind of cool to me. But I have rampaging Protestant friends who are definitely going to be bothered by the forcible closing of their businesses in honor of the Blessed Sacrament. Not that "this is going to bother people" is a knock-down argument in itself. But as you say, there is a difference between accommodating and forcing recognition. To tell you the truth, I feel somewhat the same way already about MLK day, because I don't honor the guy. And so far that's "only" ceremonial, though it's a ceremony everybody gets all googly over and joins in on. I'd be _really_ creeped out if my town actually passed a law that you had to close your business on that "saint's" day!

Existing disorderly conduct laws, if enforced, are supposed to stop people from screaming obscenities on public streets. I support this. Obviously such laws aren't being enforced against the pro-death people at the pro-life rally. I doubt that a "no competing procession" law would do much better if the existing laws aren't doing it. Nor need obscenity screaming be restricted to competing processions. Individuals could be salted along the route to do it if there were a "no competing procession" law.

Pro-lifers themselves have quite rightly taken advantage of the opportunity to bring competing signs to display across from pro-abortion rallies. Obscenities and threatening behavior are a problem. There being competing messages isn't really the problem per se, as far as I'm concerned.

But I have rampaging Protestant friends who are definitely going to be bothered by the forcible closing of their businesses in honor of the Blessed Sacrament.

It's funny, but I think of the closing of businesses as the easiest part to justify, right off the bat. See, we used to expect everything to close for Sunday, right? Because we are Christians, and Christians set Sunday aside the Lord's Day. And that custom was incorporated into law for a reason, right? I don't see why, in a town with 95% Catholics for whom Corpus Christi procession is a similar "we always observe our religion this way" kind of deal, it somehow fails to have the same basis for being promoted by laws that protect it from crass business. Holidays are holy days.

Do you really not accept that setting Sunday aside by law is something that promotes the common good by protecting customs?

See, we used to expect everything to close for Sunday, right? Because we are Christians, and Christians set Sunday aside the Lord's Day. And that custom was incorporated into law for a reason, right?

Do you really not accept that setting Sunday aside by law is something that promotes the common good by protecting customs?

Why have the law at all? If the town is 95% Catholic, 95% of the businesses will be closed anyway and the other 5% would be boycotted by the 95% so it would be suicide to stay open - no law required.

This gets to the point I raised above that has yet to be addressed:

What troubles me most about this conversation is the implication that Christianity will somehow "die" unless its standards are codified into law by the government.

Do we now assume that the only way the Church can thrive is with state backing?

What are we afraid of - that a 95% Catholic town will become less than 95% Catholic if businesses are not forced to stay closed on Sundays?

This conversation still scares the hell out of me!

Do you really not accept that setting Sunday aside by law is something that promotes the common good by protecting customs?

I'll definitely say, Tony, that I don't find that clearly true. To me, blue laws are kind of a "shrug" thing. It's not like I'm going to go out and go on a rampage against them. Maybe they could be justified. But by the same token it's not really clear to me that they're such a wonderful idea.

By the way, notice how despite the war on Christmas and everything most business still close for Christmas. And I don't know when there have _ever_ been laws requiring that. I'm certain there aren't now. Yet it's still a very widespread custom.

The thing is, what I'd like to see is a lot of the principles you articulate, Tony, for towns and laws taken down one level to the private sphere and applied to businesses. Let's let there be Hindu businesses and Muslim businesses and Baptist businesses and Catholic businesses. And let's let the businesses even refuse to serve people on religious ground and refuse to hire people on religious grounds and promote religion to the hilt with none of this nonsense about a "hostile work environment."

Now, since non-discrimination laws and public accommodation laws have come along and very deliberately _destroyed_ much accepted culture (which they have), I think it's not only legitimate but even important for Christians to try to use those laws to the extent that they can when they themselves are fired for their religious beliefs and so forth. Because what we have now is the worst of both worlds: God forbid you should promote Christianity in your business; that's "discrimination." But the secularists can fire you at will for "tweeting" that you support marriage between one man and one woman! So the heck with that: By all means, where non-discrimination law supports you, sue or file a complaint or whatever.

But backing up a bit, both in time and in perspective, what would have been better in the first place would be allowing us in our economic and interpersonal activities--our associations, our clubs, our businesses--to retain our culture. It's the assault on _that_ that has really torn things down, in my opinion, not the repeal of blue laws.

Would that it were still possible to fire someone for "tweeting" that he supports homosexual "marriage" or that he's "gay" or whatever. Would that Christian employers could refuse to hire atheists and, yes, that Catholic employers could insist on sticking with Catholic employees for the sake of morale, cohesion, and business atmosphere. Instead of forcing everybody by law to go to Mass once a year (or whatever), let the employer hire only people from his own church and have company planning breakfasts that meet outside after 8 a.m. Mass and go to a restaurant (of course, everybody's been fasting before that, right?), if that's what he wants to do. Would that stores could enforce decency requirements for the dress of their customers. Would that you could still have male-only clubs of all kinds.

If those kinds of "little platoons" at the level of businesses and private associations had been left in place and in peace, the laws could go whither they will. We'd still have a far different society with more character to it, and, I would say, better character.

Tony, I think that if there are really so many Catholics in this town, the kind of cohesion you're talking about can arise pretty naturally without any special law about it.

Why have the law at all? If the town is 95% Catholic, 95% of the businesses will be closed anyway and the other 5% would be boycotted by the 95% so it would be suicide to stay open - no law required.

Lydia and Chucky, you would be absolutely right - if humans were angels. Look at the reality, look at the data, the actual results. Christians DON'T all go to church on Sunday, much less keep the rest of the day as set aside for the Lord. Maybe there never was a time when all the Christians in a Christian society did, but it was surely the case that there were times when most people did it most of the time. Do we have that now? No, of course not. The data is proof positive that more is needed to call us to our duty than the mere fact of the duty. People will, for example, be much more willing to go to church if there are donuts and coffee afterwards. Is it RIGHT that this is the case? Certainly not. But the reality is there anyway.

For most religious duties, naturally the Church and the members will look after their own compliance. Generally, that's their look out, not the state's. But some things are customs that do affect the state, and the state rightly takes an interest. Customs that that heavily impinge on the manner in which we regulate business is one area: if an employer is completely free to say "work on Sunday or you're fired," then this obviously imposes a constraint on a Christian's compliance with keeping holy the Lord's Day. We have seen fit (in the past, not so as much any more though the dregs remain) to legally mandate that people get Sunday's off, or (to accommodate businesses where that is highly inappropriate) that they get time-and-a-half or double-time for work on Sundays. Are you both going to tell me that these rules are just plain out of bounds for legitimate civil ordering of society, that they inappropriately promote one religion over another?

What are we afraid of - that a 95% Catholic town will become less than 95% Catholic if businesses are not forced to stay closed on Sundays?

What we are afraid of is people who are totally tone-deaf to the common good and the manner in which custom orders society for the good, and who feel that breaking customary practices is simply a personal matter of "what gives me the most benefit". People who ignore the way in which their repudiating custom damages the common good, damages the degree to which other people can even HAVE the custom as, well, customary.

Some customs are trivial and touch on the common good only insignificantly. If a person decides "I don't feel like following the custom" he damages the common good only trivially. Other customs are central to common society. Some of THOSE customs make particular general natural law. (Like the general natural law to worship the creator.) A person who refuses to follow such customs thinking "I don't get much out of that" is damaging the common good more than insignificantly. Are you seriously saying that these are matters outside the purview of the government because they spring out of a particular religion? Doesn't that mean that the state doesn't really have care of the civil common good, only of a part of it? Who then has care of the rest of it?

Gotta say, I'm torn between Tony's and Lydia's visions, at least as I'm absorbing them.

Lydia's reasoning appeals to me because I see it as focusing on the communities and cultures, rather than the government, as the most important part of an ideal to strive for first and foremost.

Tony's reasoning appeals to me because I think those 'blue laws' reflect community standards... and, in the theme of the OP, I question whether it's possible for a state to be 'religiously neutral'. Especially since modern "secularism" just seems to be (contra Valicella) just another religion, complete with taboos, sins, beliefs and more.

Why have the law at all? If the town is 95% Catholic, 95% of the businesses will be closed anyway and the other 5% would be boycotted by the 95% so it would be suicide to stay open - no law required.

Instead of relying on theory here, why not look at what has actually happened? Namely, not what you think would happen.

Right, Mike. Why have the law at all? Because people AREN'T good the way they think they ought to be.

The same arguments were made for laws against fornication and adultery: everyone who believes that stuff will comply with it anyway, and everyone who doesn't believe, well you can't hold them to a standard that they don't believe in. Except that (a) people form their beliefs and standards in a social setting, (b) young people can be swayed by custom+morals+law better than they can by just one or two of them; (3) these customs (supported by laws) were sitting there protecting the family as an institution, though we didn't realize it perfectly, and now that the customs of treating fornication and adultery as civil crimes is long gone, now the family is going too. You know, the family, the basic unit of society. Who knows how much of culture and society will be lost because the family goes?

Law alone isn't enough to formulate a deep-seated respect for a practice, an idea, a standard of behavior, a moral sense. Customs can do it just fine, but only does it with stability and permanence when they are universal, when they have the support of laws that buttress customary usage, that promote them, that protect the ancillary aspects of the customs, because without these supports it doesn't remain universal. Just as people generally don't remain stable in their respect and honor of law and authority without the support and buttressing of religious sentiment and customs that are ordered to that end (customs of giving honor to symbols of common authority, like the flag, for instance), so also morals and religious adherence remain stable only when supported with law.

The trick is to limit the support and promotion by the state to those things that are under the purview of civil authority: those things that pertain to the care of the common good as that good is a civil affair.

Tony, how about this trade: Allow some employers to say, "Work on Sunday or you're fired" but also allow other employers to say, "I'd better see you in church on Sunday, or you're fired."

Wouldn't that be an interesting trade?

Lydia, that would be interesting. Especially if the idea were "I don't care which church you attend, just as long as you attend some church or other." I can just see some snide atheistic employee opening up the "Church of the I don't care which church as long as it's some church" church, where they serve ham & eggs & coffee, and list Saturday's game scores.

But a law requiring businesses to close for Sunday (or pay employees double-time if it's so all-fired important / worthwhile to stay open) doesn't go nearly that far: creating space in which it is unburdensome, easy, available, to go to church if you want to, isn't telling them they have to go to church. Or, to put it more generally, a law saying you can't muck up Sunday with work isn't a law that tells you what you MUST do, it simply takes off the table one out of the 30,000 possibilities you might do.

So, are you suggesting that it would be OK for the law to support employment arrangements in which the employer says "you get Sunday's off, but only if you use Sunday to go to church"?

Well, a couple of things. As you can see from my comments above, I'm extremely ambivalent about non-discrimination law. I think we're getting it from both ends on that as it's actually applied. It's not being applied even-handedly.

However, for what it's worth, I actually doubt that an employer now under the current state of law could get away with saying, "Work on Sunday or you're fired." If that's what you're worried about, non-discrimination laws, which do require some attempt to accommodate an employee's religious practice, would very likely prohibit that, even though there is no law requiring Sunday closing.

Unfortunately, though, non-discrimination laws are wide-ranging and very intrusive in their own right.

It would be interesting to see what sort of situation we would have if we repealed non-discrimination laws but did not institute Sunday closing laws. I suppose in that case you _would_ have to worry about being fired if you didn't work on Sunday. But by the same token, employers could institute far more of a business culture in their individual businesses. That would be the trade-off I mentioned above.

So, are you suggesting that it would be OK for the law to support employment arrangements in which the employer says "you get Sunday's off, but only if you use Sunday to go to church"?

If you really repeal non-discrimination laws, the law doesn't need to do anything to _support_ such arrangements. It just says nothing about them and they are de facto permitted. The employer could be even more draconian than that, if he wanted to be.

The thing is, I'd allow employers to be _far_ more draconian than I would ever be comfortable allowing governments, even local governments, to be.

"Gotta say, I'm torn between Tony's and Lydia's visions, at least as I'm absorbing them."

Between a velvet glove and an iron fist? Beneath the whole customs and parade of saints thing is the reestablishment of the petty tyrannies and bullying associated with actual life under those "little platoons" and beneath that are the circumstances associated with a weak labor market that emboldens capital and its superstructural minions.

Tony, I was reading this,

http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651207_dignitatis-humanae_en.html

and I don't see much support for much of what you and Jeff seem to want. Tomorrow there will be parades in many places for a saint. Local governments will block off streets and the organizers will decide who marches - no problems here. If you want a CC parade, organize one and get a permit.

Seriously, and respectfully, just how far is it proper to go in compelling on others what may well be merely an internal need in oneself? I'm a very good neighbor - I'll round up your loose horses, fix your well, and set a few extra fence posts - but I don't care what your religion is and I have no desire for enforced togetherness - good fences (physical and psychological) really do make for good neighbors. If you do, you need to seek out others like you. not use the power of the state to create sham togetherness.

What we are afraid of is people who are totally tone-deaf to the common good and the manner in which custom orders society for the good, and who feel that breaking customary practices is simply a personal matter of "what gives me the most benefit". People who ignore the way in which their repudiating custom damages the common good, damages the degree to which other people can even HAVE the custom as, well, customary.

But is wanting to preserve custom justification enough for the majority to impose its custom by law on the minority. When does the common good become the tyranny of the majority?

Some customs are trivial and touch on the common good only insignificantly. If a person decides "I don't feel like following the custom" he damages the common good only trivially. Other customs are central to common society. Some of THOSE customs make particular general natural law. (Like the general natural law to worship the creator.) A person who refuses to follow such customs thinking "I don't get much out of that" is damaging the common good more than insignificantly. Are you seriously saying that these are matters outside the purview of the government because they spring out of a particular religion? Doesn't that mean that the state doesn't really have care of the civil common good, only of a part of it? Who then has care of the rest of it?

First it has to be established that preserving custom really is a common good. Who decides that? Government bureaucrats? Religious leaders? Of what sect? It gets convoluted real fast.

Forcing people not to work on Sundays, or forcing church attendance are both violations of individual rights and freedoms. There is no justification in scripture (New Testament anyway) for forcing non-believers into compliance with Christianity. This is what Muslims do. It's baby-steps toward theocracy. I know you don't like that word , but it's how these things get going.

Incidentally, I'm just as opposed to forcing secularism on people. That's NOT the alternative. The alternative is for government to be completely neutral in all of these matters, and the only way to accomplish that is to get ALL laws dealing with beliefs and harmless practices (practices that don't violate another individual's rights) off the books - both pro and con. That's the alternative I propose.

Chucky Darwin,

Incidentally, I'm just as opposed to forcing secularism on people. That's NOT the alternative. The alternative is for government to be completely neutral in all of these matters, and the only way to accomplish that is to get ALL laws dealing with beliefs and harmless practices (practices that don't violate another individual's rights) off the books - both pro and con. That's the alternative I propose.

You know, Chucky, I used to accept that. I grew up believing it, certainly being taught it, even in my Catholic school.

The problem is, I no longer believe this works out in practice. Look at what you say - "practices that don't violate another individual's rights". Where does that particular line get drawn? To ask a question you asked: who decides what violates another individual's rights? Government bureaucrats? Religious leaders? Is it a violation of someone's rights to teach that homosexuality is wrong? How about that homosexuality is right? Is it objectively disordered? Is it not?

You say "this is what muslims do". But that's wrong - it's apparently what everyone does. It's what secularists do. It's what liberals do. It's what socialists do. It's what capitalists do. It's what religious people do. The main difference is that for quite a while, religious people in America have been fed the line that it's important to keep religious beliefs and government practice separate - while the same people playing that line of seen fit to advance secularist, irreligious causes on the grounds that 'since it's secular, it's not religious, and those rules don't apply'.

First it has to be established that preserving custom really is a common good.

Well, I am sorry for your sake if that is something that you have doubts about. That is such a bedrock requirement of society that any person should be ready to say "well, duh!" when asked such a question.

Let me be perfectly clear: Yes, it is a general social (natural) law that preserving custom is a common good.

The reason for it comes simply from the fact that man is by nature a social animal, and as a direct consequence of that man needs customs to operate socially. That is why we say "man is a creature of habit."

That doesn't mean that there cannot be exceptions, (as there usually are to general laws). That doesn't mean that it falls to positive law to be the primary agent of such preserving in every case. That doesn't mean that law should use every level of force to carry out such preserving that does lie in its purview. There are hierarchies of common goods, and hierarchies of agents in pursuing them, so there are various kinds of trade-offs. But in general, for most customs, for most people and for most social organizational agents (including law) supporting and preserving custom is an essential duty.

Crude:

The problem is, I no longer believe this works out in practice. Look at what you say - "practices that don't violate another individual's rights". Where does that particular line get drawn? To ask a question you asked: who decides what violates another individual's rights? Government bureaucrats? Religious leaders?

Is it a violation of someone's rights to teach that homosexuality is wrong? How about that homosexuality is right? Is it objectively disordered? Is it not?

Both are violations if it's the government doing the teaching. That matter should be left to parents, churches and individuals to decide.

You say "this is what muslims do". But that's wrong - it's apparently what everyone does. It's what secularists do. It's what liberals do. It's what socialists do. It's what capitalists do. It's what religious people do. The main difference is that for quite a while, religious people in America have been fed the line that it's important to keep religious beliefs and government practice separate - while the same people playing that line of seen fit to advance secularist, irreligious causes on the grounds that 'since it's secular, it's not religious, and those rules don't apply'.

It's true that all groups seek government intervention on their behalf. I was talking specifically about religious governance and how the Koran actually spells out how an Islamic state should treat Christians and Jews. Their religion is set up to rule over men. Christianity is not set up that way. We are supposed to wait for Jesus to return and set up his kingdom. So there's a distinction there.

I agree though that the "separation of church and state" has been twisted into the view that the state must promote anti-religious views and suppress religious ones. That too I'm against. The state needs to let people freely promote whatever views they desire to promote. My argument is to get the government out of our schools - not to get the government to teach children my (or anyone else's) views.

Tony:

Well, I am sorry for your sake if that is something that you have doubts about. That is such a bedrock requirement of society that any person should be ready to say "well, duh!" when asked such a question.

Let me be perfectly clear: Yes, it is a general social (natural) law that preserving custom is a common good.

Well I'm a skeptic. When the crowd says "well, duh!", I say "now wait a minute".

The Mayans had a custom of human sacrifice. The Nazis had a custom of exterminating Jews. The Communists had a custom of promoting atheism and killing theists. The Taliban had a custom of destroying non-Islamic artifacts. The Saudis have a custom of extreme suppression of women. All Islamic states have a custom of active suppression toward other religions. The list of bad customs throughout human history goes on and on and may even outnumber the list of good customs.

Explain again how preserving customs - just because they are customs - promotes the common good.

Chucky, you did see the part where I said there can be exceptions to supporting customs, right? Because that's pretty important to my point.

St. Thomas makes my point in the treatise on law (for Lydia's sake: I don't pull St. Thomas on this because he is more authoritative than, say, James Madison, but because he makes the point clearly and succinctly): Whether human law should always be changed, whenever something better occurs (Prima Secundae, Question 97, article 2)?

As stated above (Article 1), human law is rightly changed, in so far as such change is conducive to the common weal. But, to a certain extent, the mere change of law is of itself prejudicial to the common good: because custom avails much for the observance of laws, seeing that what is done contrary to general custom, even in slight matters, is looked upon as grave. Consequently, when a law is changed, the binding power of the law is diminished, in so far as custom is abolished. Wherefore human law should never be changed, unless, in some way or other, the common weal be compensated according to the extent of the harm done in this respect. Such compensation may arise either from some very great and every evident benefit conferred by the new enactment; or from the extreme urgency of the case, due to the fact that either the existing law is clearly unjust, or its observance extremely harmful. Wherefore the jurist says [Pandect. Justin. lib. i, ff., tit. 4, De Constit. Princip.] that "in establishing new laws, there should be evidence of the benefit to be derived, before departing from a law which has long been considered just."

Earlier, he had made the point that human law is for the sake of human virtue (or, to say it another way, for the sake of human flourishing, since men who are flourishing are men who live by virtue), and custom also is for the sake of virtue: virtue consists of good habits with right intention, and customs are precisely habits. Finally, he also makes the point (article 95) about the way Isidore divides up law:

All the other conditions mentioned by him are reduced to these three. For it is called virtuous because it fosters religion. And when he goes on to say that it should be "just, possible to nature, according to the customs of the country, adapted to place and time," he implies that it should be helpful to discipline. For human discipline depends on first on the order of reason, to which he refers by saying "just": secondly, it depends on the ability of the agent; because discipline should be adapted to each one according to his ability, taking also into account the ability of nature (for the same burdens should be not laid on children as adults); and should be according to human customs; since man cannot live alone in society, paying no heed to others:

Fostering religion falls under law because worship of God is a natural moral duty, not just a duty under revealed truth. Given that, when a community already has an existing custom by which it reasonably, without grave defect, worships God, the law ought to cooperate with that and promote it.

But clearly customs that harbor grave injustices as such, like the Aztecs and Nazi death squads, should not be maintained and preserved.

For the above reasons, I think that having separate towns where each town promotes the preservation of internal customs of religion, even though the different towns observe different religions, is a better state of affairs than one in which all the towns fail to act in preservation of good religious customs, and gradually those customs are lost in consequence. You would have to prove that the third possibility, that the customs can be well maintained without governmental support, is a believable alternative, and the data is looking pretty bad that way.

Tony,

The problem with your distinction is that it does not take into account the Nazi, Wahhabi, Mayan, or Communist definition of 'common good'. Surely these cultures took the customs I mentioned as being "for the common good" of their respective populations - to the peril of the minority.

As for the contention that religious customs and belief are within the scope of government, I give you the words of Martin Luther:

"Furthermore, every man is responsible for his own faith, and he must see it for himself that he believes rightly. As little as another can go to hell or heaven for me, so little can he believe or disbelieve for me; and as little as he can open or shut heaven or hell for me, so little can he drive me to faith or unbelief. Since, then, belief or unbelief is a matter of every one's conscience, and since this is no lessening of the secular power, the latter should be content and attend to its own affairs and permit men to believe one thing or another, as they are able and willing, and constrain no one by force."
Martin Luther, Concerning Secular Authority, 1523.

You would have to prove that the third possibility, that the customs can be well maintained without governmental support, is a believable alternative, and the data is looking pretty bad that way.

I'd say that the onus is on you to show how government support actually increases real religious belief. It may produce an outward compliance for convenience sake, (and customary religious observances may well be part of that) but inward fervency for religion is another thing altogether. I'd contend that government mandated religious observances produce inward apathy toward religion. That's just a gut feeling I have and I don't have data to support it - other than my own observations of how people react to mandated behavior.

Chucky, if your analysis were valid, then we should actually hope for, and instigate, governmental persecution "for the common good"! I think I can look for a better approach than that.

Yes, we know that persecution has unforeseen consequences to the persecutor. Sometimes that includes backfiring. But not always. A much more realistic conclusion is that when you have widespread governmental persecution, many, maybe even most fall away, but those who remain are more fervent. Now, are you really ready to write off all those who might have remained religious without persecution, might have remained moderately involved in their faith but not heroic, and just say they were "not really religious" anyway? That kind of puts all humans into an "either you are heroic or you might as well just go to hell right now" division.

Furthermore, the increased fervor of those who remain steadfast under persecution can be traced, at least to some extent, directly to a visible, hostile opponent in which they can place their antipathy. If you have instead a government that is not openly hostile, not openly an opponent, not openly targeting their religion, but is rather just somewhat interfering, and softly opposed to cooperating with religion, and just unkind to customs that involve support of the state, it is not in the least clear that this will tend to increase the fervor of anyone. Certainly not compared to the alternative.

I'd contend that government mandated religious observances produce inward apathy toward religion.

Wow. I present a picture of a local government presenting minor civil restrictions on what ELSE you can do during one day of the year if you DON'T participate in a religious observance (you can't hold a competing event, and you can't run a non-essential business), and all of a sudden this becomes government-mandated religious observance? Did I say anything about government requiring everyone to GO to the procession? Not.

But in any case, if you want to get statistics on how forced observance affects people, you are going to have to take into account how parental rules and demands of forcing kids to follow rules, follow moral demands, go to church with the family, and so on, impacts their eventual development as willing or not-willing observers of rules. My (admittedly ad hoc) experience is that kids who are not required to toe the line, to obey rules, end up as adults who are INCREDIBLY self-centered, and who are highly unable to even perceive the possible perspective of rules from outside themselves being binding on them authoritatively. They just don't GET that customs are not wholly arbitrary, and that their observing customs solely at personal preference destroys society bit by bit.

Tony,

You didn't answer my objection about the definition of the common good. That point - that every culture can have a different definition (and that some are truly repulsive) - is central to my argument against using 'the common good' to favor one religion over another. To my mind, the common good would entail the rule of law, individual liberties and equal rights for everyone - not one group favored over another (hence the word 'common').

To the points you raised: there is some truth to the fact that, since hostility towards Christianity produces more fervency in believers, such hostility could be seen in a positive light. I'm not advocating for hostility however. I was answering your contention that religions need government support in order to survive (or at least that's the implication - for if the custom dies, the religion fades away - or so you say.) I showed that government hostility towards religion does not produce a less-religious people, in fact it has the opposite affect. As for your "heroic or hell" argument - Jesus said it first - not me.

On your second point: I agree that children who are not disciplined tend to be selfish. I don't think that applies here - unless you're advocating for government discipline of children(?). The issue for me is liberty, freedom, and individual rights - including the freedom to discipline your own children as you see fit (aside from abuse), and the freedom of adults to make their own decisions regarding religious observances and customs.

The truth is, we can nibble around the edges with scenarios all day long but the heart of the matter is whether you are OK with any government mandates in the area of religion. I'm not. I think government mandated religiosity is just as bad as government mandated secularism. I think also that the only effective way not to end up with the latter is to fight all forms of government mandates in this area - including the former. So I'm not advocating for doing away with religious customs, in fact I'm advocating for the opposite - the freedom for all religious people to keep their customs, and not just for whichever sect happens to be in the majority.

You didn't answer my objection about the definition of the common good. That point - that every culture can have a different definition (and that some are truly repulsive) - is central to my argument against using 'the common good' to favor one religion over another.

Chucky, I didn't answer it because it is a different problem and a different discussion than this one. If you are worried about defining the common good even in principle, then you have MUCH LARGER worries than whether government should be cooperating with religious customs. You have to worry about even having government to begin with, and how to establish it's legitimacy and its authority. Because without a pre-existing or "accepted" sense of what we mean by the common good, you cannot even uphold that government (a) is supposed to be for the common good; or (b) that it actually is beneficial in pursuing the common good; or (c) that it binds authoritatively even if it would be effective for the common good. Your worry is really to be discussed with the philosophers who propose that man cannot know anything objectively true, that there is no such thing as truth that is true for all men, that man is a kind of being, that there are such things as natural kinds of beings that exist as such without subjective man to impose a view on them. That discussion is to be had elsewhere. For this topic, it is a given that there is such a thing as the natural law, which automatically defines a common good, and that it can be recognized by and large in most of its facets by most people across most cultures, even if there is debate about a few features of it.

but the heart of the matter is whether you are OK with any government mandates in the area of religion. I'm not.

You present it as a matter of preference. Which is how a lot of people think of the way custom falls on them: it is a matter of personal preference whether I will go along with this custom, it does not in any sense obligate me. But that point of view has some logical problems. Just to point out a simple and easy one to grasp: it is a matter of custom in this country to go along with majority rule. (The Constitution puts limits on that, but the Constitution can be amended by a supermajority rule, so even with respect to the limits one could say we have a custom of going along with supermajority rule.) But there is no necessity that this condition continue in place, if people decide they don't want to continue to "go along" with that custom. If custom has no binding authority, then that's just what will happen...and is happening.

But other points of view about custom and about law exist. Try to wrap your perspective around the possibility that your sense of "how far government ought to go" might be biased or colored by your living in a particular democratic culture that thinks "government hands off" is the only way to go. If the government's purpose is the common good, and if the common good is to be found in human flourishing, and human flourishing consists essentially in humans acting in virtue, and if virtues are essentially habits regulated by right reason and right intention, and if wholesome customs inculcate habits pre-disposing to virtues, then it is PER SE necessary that government has at least an interest in promoting sound customs. St. Thomas puts it this way: even though government ought not prescribe ALL of the good acts required by all of the virtues (because it ought to be limited to the acts that nearly all men can achieve, and not all kinds of virtuous acts are within reach of all men due to their defects), still government has an interest in prescribing some acts of all the virtues. That is, none of the virtues that bear on the common good are outside the scope of government prescription. One such of the virtues under the natural law is that of religion. Government cannot escape having an interest in promoting such acts of the virtue of religion that are within the reach of nearly all the men in the community. If men are of so many different religions (and some of no religion at all) then no acts will be prescribable because of their condition. But if nearly all men are of one religion, then the government perforce has an interest in promoting virtues and customs under the natural moral law with respect to that religion. That's why I limited my scenario to a community that was nearly all one religion.

By the way, Tony, I'm much more sympathetic to your position about promotion of religion when it comes to schools. This may, in fact, be an argument that there simply should be no public schools funded by tax dollars at all, but that's a pretty radical position and one to which I'm not wedded. I've written elsewhere, I think even in a couple of posts here at W4 (which I'm too lazy to look up the links to tonight) that it's entirely impossible to educate the young while being neutral toward religion. Even when it comes to teaching history, one is going to need to be able to offer evaluations, and while I entirely agree that evaluations about good guys and bad guys are objectively true or false (or partially true or partially false, as the case may be), they will certainly often be _controversial_ and will have many connections to the ideas of the teacher or textbook author about religion. And you can't have children in the same place for seven hours a day or more five days a week, not simply teaching them some single abstract technical subject but teaching them their entire academic corpus and also being mentors to them and partially raising them, even helping to manage their social interactions with their own peers and the like, while being neutral about this extremely important area of life. It's just not possible and not even desirable to try. So there it seems to me there _has_ to be some actual concrete perspective on religion and on specific religions, though I can imagine that it could be a somewhat inclusive one (e.g., I think one might be able to swing a combined Protestant-Catholic Christian school).

I think one theme that's being built up here is that, contra the assertions of our idiot president and his company, 'religion' is not something that one does an hour every week on Sundays, or something that exists only in the privacy of our own minds. It is a lens that many use to look through history, science, law, culture and more.

I doubt that resolves anything here, but hey, just wanted to state the obvious.

Lydia, I agree with that completely. From it naturally flows the conclusion that either there should be no publicly operated school, or that publicly operated schools should promote religion. It is possible to say (for example) that this conclusion allows for state-run vouchers that apply to private school tuition, or that the state permits different public schools to be organized to support different religions, or simply that the state gets the heck out of education. Personally, I am fine with the latter option, and still have government-operated schools, just maintained completely at the local level (small equivocation on "state" there), so that the neighborhood / small town - served school is totally controlled by local influences, and at THAT decision level having each small community decide which religion to promote in its school. People who live in the community who don't like the choice are free to found their own school and could get public vouchers for that.

Crude, it's not always bad to state the obvious. I though I was stating the obvious in saying that the state necessarily has an interest in preserving custom.

Tony:

If men are of so many different religions (and some of no religion at all) then no acts will be prescribable because of their condition. But if nearly all men are of one religion, then the government perforce has an interest in promoting virtues and customs under the natural moral law with respect to that religion. That's why I limited my scenario to a community that was nearly all one religion.

This may seem an oversimplification (or a stating of the obvious) but some of the basic individual rights this country was founded on are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What you are talking about is taking away the second one - the religious liberty of the minority - in favor of the 'common good' of the majority (or super-majority). This seems flat out un-American to me! I can't help but think of how the same justifications are used to suppress Christianity and Judaism in Islamic theocracies. Now I know that you will object to that characterization and that what you're advocating is not tyranny per se, but it's definitely one step down the road to tyranny.

Now, before you make the argument that all laws (say against rape, murder, theft, etc.) take away some liberty, let me counter by saying that those liberties (the freedom to rape, murder or steal) are forfeited under the justification that they infringe upon the rights and liberties of others (the right to be safe in our own person, the right to life and the right to our own property). If you want people to forfeit their religious freedom you have to make a much stronger case than the one you are making - one that shows that the minority's religious views will somehow infringe upon the rights of others. I don't see that level of justification here.

I'll leave you with the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom – Written by Thomas Jefferson:

I. Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishment or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was his Almighty power to do . . .
II. Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.
III. And though we well know that this assembly elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the act of succeeding assemblies, constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act to be irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present, or to narrow its operation, such as would be an infringement of natural right.

Lydia:

And you can't have children in the same place for seven hours a day or more five days a week, not simply teaching them some single abstract technical subject but teaching them their entire academic corpus and also being mentors to them and partially raising them, even helping to manage their social interactions with their own peers and the like, while being neutral about this extremely important area of life. It's just not possible and not even desirable to try.

In my view - under the first amendment teachers are not prohibited from speaking about their own religious convictions in school. What is restricted is a government mandated religious curriculum. So, if we just went back to a constitutional form of government, kids would be exposed to as many different religious philosophies as they had teachers and they could then discuss all these things with their parents. Of course this is not what others are advocated here. I'm seeing arguments more in line with government mandated curriculum in favor of one religious view. I'd argue against that but, if that's what people really want, they should go to all private schools.

I. Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishment or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was his Almighty power to do . . .

Chucky, and what if it is found by demonstrated results that it is impossible to maintain precisely that view of God, God-given rights, and God-oriented restrictions on state authority, without the state speaking to those principles? If these principles are essential to the state, then it may be essential to the state to promote them.

It belongs to he (they) who has (have) care of the common good to take thought for all those things that are necessary or valuable for improving the common good. And by common good, I mean "common good". By definition, everyone participates in it, not just the majority. You phrase "common good of the majority" is either sheer ignorance, or highly biased and highly irritating obfuscation, and I should like you to re-consider it. Furthermore, my example was NOT taking away anyone's religious rights, it was taking away commercial rights. Yes, the proposed law would restrict commerce...which we do all the time for all sorts of minor purposes.

Tom Jefferson was a pretty extreme individualist for his day, lots of others (including other Founders) found his approach to how rights are founded to be out of line. It is possible to produce a theory of personal rights that don't annihilate community at the same time.

Seriously, and respectfully, just how far is it proper to go in compelling on others what may well be merely an internal need in oneself? I'm a very good neighbor - I'll round up your loose horses, fix your well, and set a few extra fence posts - but I don't care what your religion is and I have no desire for enforced togetherness - good fences (physical and psychological) really do make for good neighbors. If you do, you need to seek out others like you. not use the power of the state to create sham togetherness.

Al, this is a reasonable question, which I will re-phrase just a little: when does your need for others to go along with practices that you observe become an obligation on them?

I am going to reverse the perspective to answer: when does a custom that pertains to the common good cease to hold any sort of obligatory force?

See, what I am pointing to is looking at the whole question from a new perspective in addition to the perspective of a person's rights to flourish in his individual private needs and capacities. That perspective is that of the common good as expressed in customary practice. It is ALWAYS the case that individual needs have a degree of variation in them, and what one strong, self-reliant type needs to flourish is not the same as what a weak, empathetic type needs. But in general, "man cannot live alone in society, paying no heed to others". Man cannot function in community, as member of society, without customs to regulate many matters. Fundamentally, an individual submitting a modest degree of his personal private needs and desires to "go along with" custom is as necessary to society as governance is, maybe more. Then, if the nature of human flourishing in respect of individual, private needs doesn't somehow accommodate or take into account social flourishing for the community, then there could never be such a thing as society that has customs, and neither customs nor even law would actually bind morally. At most you would get law (and not custom) that people obey if they think they might be caught out, and won't obey otherwise, and that's not a stable picture of society.

The natural law (and Christian) answer is that man is by nature a social animal, and that therefore there is in his nature a foundational integrity: his needs for society make it that his foregoing some modest degree of personal, private needs is ultimately even more valuable for the totality of his flourishing as a whole person than always getting the full complement of those individual private needs met, alone. We see this especially in friendship, where a man happily gives up his personal preference for X (event, activity, meal, etc) to give his friend added enjoyment - and finds it rewarding to do so. The man who always insists on getting his own private needs met and having the full range of his own private liberties with no accommodation to others is a man with no friends. Society consists of this this kind of 'interplay of self-giving of friends,' writ large (and lesser in intensity), but it CANNOT do so without customs to speak to common interactions. And thus, each custom is itself a kind of imposition on some to accommodate in some measure their individual preferences for the common good.

The art of governance constitutes a manner of doing this formally rather than informally, it is (in a sense) a system of 'customs' made by conscious choice and in written word, rather than by an inchoate process of accretion of many individual acts over time. At times, for a good and wholesome custom, it is necessary for government to support it actively rather than merely by passively leaving it alone. For example, I think that it is perfectly legitimate to make a law that it is illegal to publicly disrespect the flag by certain actions (like burning it, or by stamping on it). It was originally just a custom to show respect for the country by respecting the flag, but now that it is such a custom, and given that disrespect for country has been on the rise, it makes sense to take steps to counter that trend, and removing from individual 'rights' the formerly existing right to disrespect the flag (in opposition to the custom) is a reasonable protection of the custom and a protection of the state itself. It may not be PRUDENT, given the coordinate good of free speech, (as if stamping on the flag were speech, which it isn't) but that's where the art of governance comes in, weighing the competing goods.

So, "just how far" is answered by the whole common good, which takes into account both individual persons flourishing in their private goods (like wealth, developing craftmanship, etc) and the 'body social' flourishing in the common goods (like knowledge, justice, peace). That's what governing is supposed to judge.