2.3.2 Addressing Moderate Sceptics
For a variety of reasons, a growing number of Americans--those who are moderate in their faith and/or politics--have come to doubt that there can be any such thing as a “healthy” interrelationship between religion and politics and that the only way for either to be healthy is to keep them absolutely separate from each other. Metaphorically, it’s like doubting that the intersection between “Religion street” and “Politics Street” (in the picture to the right) should exist. For either street to fulfill its purpose they have to run parallel to each other with a significant distance in between.
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If this is your view, this section is my shot at raising enough “doubts about your doubt” to entice you to check out some of the many excellent resources found on this website that take just the opposite position. In fact, it may be surprising to you that many go so far as to take the position (as I do) that both individual persons of faith and communities of faith (religious or secular) cannot fully answer their own faith calling unless part of their mission is healthy political activism and that political individuals nor organizations can be healthy if their politics isn’t grounded in the transcendent meaning and purpose embodied in a healthy faith (religious or secular), as well as arguing that in the present crisis, the very survival of our democracy, as we know it, depends on renewing healthier relationships between faith and politics.
It’s important to distinguish between two different kind of moderate sceptics:
(1) Some who are non-religious or secular came to this doubt primarily due to their lack of experience with and knowledge about the great varieties of religion in the U.S. The fact that Conservative Christians so dominated the public media for many decades led them to the mistaken view that these Christians represented all, or the vast majority, of religious Americans. (For reasons that I’ll come to in a moment, moderate and liberal Christians unfortunately let this public perception go largely unchecked.) So, it’s understandable that these secular Americans came to identify the unhealthy merger of the extremist political and religious conservatives of the Religious Right with all forms of interrelationship between religion and politics.
(1) Some who are non-religious or secular came to this doubt primarily due to their lack of experience with and knowledge about the great varieties of religion in the U.S. The fact that Conservative Christians so dominated the public media for many decades led them to the mistaken view that these Christians represented all, or the vast majority, of religious Americans. (For reasons that I’ll come to in a moment, moderate and liberal Christians unfortunately let this public perception go largely unchecked.) So, it’s understandable that these secular Americans came to identify the unhealthy merger of the extremist political and religious conservatives of the Religious Right with all forms of interrelationship between religion and politics.
With respect to these sceptics, I agree with the standpoints of many of the resources on this website that this view is a dangerous reductionist mistake. Metaphorically again (as in the picture to the left), it’s one thing to warn against the dangers of the “right turn” of religion and politics, but quite another to see no alternative ways for them to interrelate in healthy ways. (Of course, the promotion of centrist positions on this website offers a different and more nuanced approach to alternatives than the suggestion in this picture that a simple “left turn” might do the trick.)
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For those who are sceptical for this reason, being better informed about the great many other ways of relating faith and politics and seeing that many of them do so in healthy ways for our democracy will often be enough to overcome their doubts. I recommend you quickly look at the pages 4.7, 6.6 and 6.7 for some of the best challenges to this moderate sceptical misunderstanding. In the first one you’ll find an excellent description of the most prominent of the many “center-left to left” American individuals and groups of all major religious faiths that are working for the Common Good. In the second, you’ll learn about the newly formed centrist Evangelical Christian positions which are very different from both the Christian right and left. And, in the third, you’ll see one of the best new books on secular humanist faith by the humanist Chaplain at Harvard University.
(2) However, there’s another group of moderate sceptics from throughout the faith and politics spectrums who, even though they are very much aware of the many different ways of relating religion and politics, still have doubts. The primary reason is that many hold the “modern” idea that only religious individuals (never religious institutions or groups) should enter into public debate on controversial issues (especially politics); and when they do so, they must leave their specifically religious languages and identities behind. (This is one of the main reasons religious moderates and liberals were not able to respond effectively in public to the dangers of the Religious Right. This has changed somewhat since 2004, yet there is still much work to do--a primary goal of this website.)
It’s much more complicated to address this kind of moderate doubt. I recommend you take a quick look at the first two books reviewed in Section 6, which are two of the best scholarly resources challenging this common viewpoint. I think everyone will benefit from knowing more about them and, hopefully, will want to explore in more depth these and the other highly credible positions taken by respected scholars and practitioners across the entire spectrum of the relevant fields found in this website.
Now, even if you personally aren’t sceptical about the possibility of healthy relationships between religion and politics, you probably know many moderates who are. I believe it’s vitally important they are aware of the different points of view found here. So I hope you will feel comfortable referring your sceptical family, friends, and colleagues to this website.
Believe me, I know this is not easy, especially if you’re a person of religious faith, because many are still operating out of the modern paradigm and immediately assume your goal is to convert them to your religion. It’s natural for you to want to avoid their anger, and you don’t want to be seen as a religious zealot.
Operating out of different paradigms can make conversation, even among friends, like two ships passing in the night. So let me address this one as bluntly as I can: the goal of this website is not to convert anyone to my (or any) religion. It’s to get them to see that, in this postmodern age, people of both secular faiths and religious faiths with common centrist values need to work closely together with people of centrist politics for the health of our democracy.
My advice to you is to try to get a sceptical person or group to at least be curious about there being a wholly different, postmodern way of looking at the issue. They may not end up agreeing with you, but you’ll be dealing with “apples and apples.”
Believe me, I know this is not easy, especially if you’re a person of religious faith, because many are still operating out of the modern paradigm and immediately assume your goal is to convert them to your religion. It’s natural for you to want to avoid their anger, and you don’t want to be seen as a religious zealot.
Operating out of different paradigms can make conversation, even among friends, like two ships passing in the night. So let me address this one as bluntly as I can: the goal of this website is not to convert anyone to my (or any) religion. It’s to get them to see that, in this postmodern age, people of both secular faiths and religious faiths with common centrist values need to work closely together with people of centrist politics for the health of our democracy.
My advice to you is to try to get a sceptical person or group to at least be curious about there being a wholly different, postmodern way of looking at the issue. They may not end up agreeing with you, but you’ll be dealing with “apples and apples.”
(But what about those who are sceptical extremists?)
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