Professor Amos Guiora and Public Religion

 

 

Thanks to Rob for bringing to our attention Professor Amos Guiora’s interesting essay entitled Religious Extremism: A Fundamental Danger. I have not been successful in downloading the entire essay as I have had problems in working with the SSRN website since moving to Chicago. However, I have been able to read Professor Guiora’s abstract which Rob has kindly posted.

As one interested in Catholic Legal Theory and in religious liberty and libertas ecclesiae, I find some of the professor’s claims troubling. As Rob notes (and I concur looking at Professor Guiora’s areas of proficiency), the author does not appear to claim expertise in religious liberty. Nonetheless he makes some remarkable points about religious liberty that need to be challenged and to which reasoned response must be given.

First of all, Professor Guiora does not seem to make the distinction between religious teachings and individuals who claim to be followers of religious teaching. My point here is that it is quite easy to blame a particular faith rather than the followers of a faith who misinterpret and misapply its teachings. I think that the author makes a legitimate point in being concerned about terrorism and terrorist acts that claim to rely on religious views. However, clarity is needed in the argument distinguishing between the tenets of a faith versus followers of a faith who decide on their own that belief in God entitles them to pursue harsh, uncalled for, and unacceptable acts against their neighbors.

Second, it appears that at best Professor Guiora wishes to privatize religion and strip it of any public role whatsoever. In my estimation, this is unwarranted. Professor Guiora asserts that “Private religion [which he defines elsewhere] is the ideal articulated by the American Founding Fathers.” Like Rob, I disagree with this conclusion. But let us assume for the moment that the Guiorian thesis has support within some segments of the American Republic. Is this a good and correct position to advance?

I for one do not think so. I am now reading a fascinating book published in 1939 by Nathaniel Micklem who was the Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford entitled National Socialism and the Roman Catholic Church. I do not want to be mistaken by anyone that I think Professor Guiora adheres to the beliefs of National Socialism—for that would be a strange position to advance if one takes stock of the fact that Professor Guiora dedicated nineteen years of his life to serving in the Israeli Defense Forces. However, as Christopher Dawson has reminded us, even persons who hold high democratic ideals can reflect views that are synonymous with those advanced by totalitarian systems, especially when it comes to religious perspectives and the proper role of religion and religious believers in public life. Professor Micklem draws our attention to a speech delivered by Adolph Hitler in 1935 in which Hitler was doing all within his power to privatize religion and silence the believer in any public manifestation of faith. Micklem quotes Hitler saying:

Neither in earlier times nor today [1935] has the Party the intention of waging any kind of war against Christianity. But under no circumstances will the National Socialist State tolerate the continuance or fresh beginning of the politicizing of the denominations by roundabout ways. Here let there be no mistake about the determination of the Movement and the State. We have already fought political clericalism once and driven it out of Parliament, and that, too, after a long struggle, in which we had no power of the State behind us, and the other side had all the power. Today it is we who have this power; and we shall never wage the war as a war against Christianity or even against one of the two denominations; but we shall wage it in order to keep our public life free from those priests who have fallen short of their calling, and who think they have to be politicians, not pastors of the flock.

I do not believe that the Founding Fathers were intent on doing away with public religion, nor do I think that the religious person is engaged in erroneous activity by engaging roles in public life which some may conclude is the exclusive preserve of “politicians.” To conclude that the Establishment Clause requires this, as Professor Guiora seems to imply, is a grave misstep. To further conclude, as Professor Guiora does, that the “vulnerable non-believer” can be protected only by removal of religion from the public square is to borrow from the tactic of the totalitarian. It would be mistaken to conclude that the supporter of democracy would also adhere to and advance the same view.

 

RJA sj