Friday, September 23, 2011
The President calls for more politics from (some) pulpits?
To paraphrase Glenn Reynolds, "they told me that if I voted for John McCain we'd see the Administration using sympathetic clergy to push its agenda . . . and they were right!"
(Hee Hee.) I do not believe, of course, that there should or could be a clear line excluding "politics" from the "pulpit:
. . . [T]he First Amendment does not constrain — in fact, it protects — "political" preaching and faith-filled activism. Yes, our Constitution preserves a healthy separation between the institutions of religion and government. This wise arrangement protects individual freedom and civil society by preventing the state from directing, co-opting or controlling the church. It imposes no limits, though, on conversations among religious believers — whether on Sunday morning, around the water cooler, or at the dinner table — about the implications of their faith for the controversies of the day. Our First Amendment protects religious freedom, individual conscience and church independence from government interference; it requires neither a faith-free public square nor politics-free sermons. . . .
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2011/09/the-president-calls-for-more-politics-from-some-pulpits.html
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Hi Professor Garnett,
I don't find anything to disagree with in your writing on this post. However, I had to write after Governor Perry's claim last week that he supports Israel because he's a "Christian". In other words, his religious doctrine, and the doctrine of those who push it, will be the official word of foreign policy in his administration. Never mind the conditions on the ground or how this blinding support for anything that Israel might affect American relations with the rest of the Middle East. This is what happens when religious doctrine becomes policy and it must be contested as vigorulsy as attempts to exclude religion from the public square.
This use of religion was also perverted by many in justifying our invasion of Iraq and the use of torture by our forces during that time (the USCCB being a notable exception).