As students and scholars of the First Amendment know, the perceived threat of "political divisiveness along religious lines", and the idea that religious claims and arguments are particularly, even uniquely divisive, have, over the last 35 years, played a regrettably influential role in shaping constitutional doctrine. Also, a new strand of liberal political theory contends that liberalism need not be "thin," and artificially neutral, but should instead embrace the need to employ the tools of government so as to strengthen and spread liberal values and shape citizens' thinking.
These articles (here, here, and here) suggest that the debate in the United Kingdom is proceeding along similar lines:
David Bell, head of the schools inspection service Ofsted, said he feared Islamic education gave Muslim children "little appreciation" of their obligations to British society.
In a speech to the Hansard Society in central London, Mr Bell called on the Government to monitor Muslim schools carefully to ensure children were learning about Britain.
The comments were supported by Coun Les Lawrence, Birmingham City Council's Cabinet member responsible for schools. But they were described as "unfortunate" by Mohammed Naseem, the chairman of Birmingham's Central Mosque.
Birmingham became the first education authority in the country to fund a Muslim coeducational secondary school four years ago, when the council agreed to support Al-Hijrah school, in Bordesley Green. The authority also runs Al-Furqan Primary School, in Tyseley.
Mr Bell said: "Faith should not be blind. I worry that many young people are being educated in faith-based schools, with little appreciation of their wider responsibilities and obligations to British society.
"Britain's diversity has the potential to be one of its greatest strengths. But diverse does not need to mean completely different and it certainly must not mean segregated or separate.
"Religious segregation in schools, for example, must not put our coherence at risk."
Mr Bell said his next annual report will urge Muslim schools to reform their lessons to give children "a broad general knowledge of public institutions and services in England".
These schools must help their pupils "to acquire an appreciation of and respect for other cultures in a way that promotes tolerance and harmony", he said.
The country now has about 300 independent faith schools, including more than 50 Jewish schools, about 100 Muslim schools and over 100 Evangelical Christian schools, he said.
Mr Bell said the Government must monitor these new faith schools to make sure pupils are taught about "other faiths and the wider tenets of British society".
Mr Bell went on to say that there should be no tolerance of "attitudes and values that demean the place of certain sections of our community, be they women or people living in non-traditional relationships".
Here's something for the "they say they value pluralism and liberal values, but don't understand either" file: At Arizona State University, the Christian Legal Society has filed a lawsuit challenging the University's "non-discrimination" policy, under which student organizations cannot "engage in discriminatory activities ... on the basis of age, ethnicity, gender, disability, color, national origin, race, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status." The CLS claims that the University's non-discrimination rule, in fact, discriminates against the CLS. (The CLS asks all members to sign a statement of faith before they can join.).
Here and here are links to stories in the University's student paper. One writer states:
While we've never been shy to oppose the administration, this time we got their backs.
We hope this strong performance by President Michael Crow and his legal team will set a precedent against discrimination of all types, not just against non-Christians and homosexuals.
The CLS claims it can be comprised of whomever it wants, and if you don't mesh with its beliefs, why even bother showing up?
Simply put -- we want the option to show up where we're not wanted, and the CLS doesn't believe we deserve that right.
I'm sure these very eager and self-confident student-writers would be crushed to learn that they are championing an illiberal, intolerant, and homogenizing rule, but if the shoe fits . . .
One crusading op-ed concludes: "Not since 'Independence Day' have we been united like this against a common enemy. We, too, will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight. And we don't even need Will Smith on our side." So, the CLS is playing the role of earth-destroying invading aliens in this scenario?
This is a serious problem: Our best and brightest, well-meaning and talented students seem increasingly unable to distinguish between invidious state-sponsored discrimination and the self-determination of voluntary associations that are essential to any meaningful vision of freedom.
Here's a link to a helpful-looking new law-prof blog, "Opinio Juris." I'm counting on a review from Paolo Carozza, and my other fellow bloggers who know more about international law than I do!
The very useful blog "Get Religion" has a long post with interesting commentary and worth-while links relating to the decision by (what has in some quarters been presented as) the decision by the Archbishop of Canterbury to endorse assisted suicide. According to "Canon Professor Robin Gill", one of Williams's chief advisors, "There is a very strong compassionate case for voluntary euthanasia . . . . In certain cases, such as that which involved Diane Pretty [the woman who was terminally ill with motor neurone disease and who campaigned for the right to be helped to die], there is an overwhelming case for it." Notwithstanding Gill's views, though, "a spokesman for the Church of England last night distanced it from Prof Gill's views. They did not reflect those of anyone else in the church, he said." Indeed,
In a document he released in September with Cormac Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, Williams was clear:
It is deeply misguided to propose a law by which it would be legal for terminally ill people to be killed or assisted in suicide by those caring for them, even if there are safeguards to ensure it is only the terminally ill who would qualify. To take this step would fundamentally undermine the basis of law and medicine and undermine the duty of the state to care for vulnerable people. It would risk a gradual erosion of values in which over time the cold calculation of costs of caring properly for the ill and the old would loom large. As a result many who are ill or dying would feel a burden to others. The right to die would become the duty to die.
The Bill is unnecessary. When death is imminent or inevitable there is at present no legal or moral obligation to give medical treatment that is futile or burdensome. It is both moral and legal now for necessary pain relief to be given even if it is likely that death will be hastened as a result. But that is not murder or assisted suicide. What terminally ill people need is to be cared for, not to be killed. They need excellent palliative care including proper and effective regimes for pain relief. They need to be treated with the compassion and respect that this bill would put gravely at risk.
"Get Religion"'s point -- and it is a good one -- is this: Shouldn't we worry that the ideological position (in favor of assisted suicide) held by many of those who write news stories about religion and religious people so affects their work that they get the story so wrong, on such an important matter?
For any of us tempted to take subsidiarity for granted, perhaps a visit to Scotland is in order, as this newspaper report suggests (courtesy CT):
Labour ministers are preparing to cave in to the Catholic Church by exempting faith schools from parts of the Scottish Executive’s sexual health strategy, the Sunday Herald can reveal. . . . Critics say the measure will result in a two-tier system that bases access to contraception, abortion and information on relationships on the religious ethos of schools rather than on the needs of the child.
The move is being resisted by Jack McConnell’s LibDem coalition partners, and is delaying the publication of a policy that has been promised for five years.
The latest row was caused when a new draft of the strategy was circulated among ministers, watering down a commitment to provide the same level of sexual health services to pupils in all of Scotland’s schools.
Liberal Democrats, who had been satisfied with an earlier draft , said the change was unacceptable.
. . . .
[The former health minister] said she hopes the Executive wouldn’t be swayed by arguments most Scots rejected. She added: “The cardinal’s interventions have been very ill-judged and intemperate. It is vital that policy in this area is based on the interests of the population, rather than the narrow fundamentalism of those who shout the loudest.”
Green MSP Patrick Harvie said it would be “irresponsible” if the strategy only applied to some of Scotland’s schools. “There should be no vetoes or exemptions. If there are exemptions, then children in Catholic schools will have been failed,” he said.
Thanks to Larry Solum for this post about MOJ-er Susan Stabile's latest work, "Using Religion to Promote Corporate Responsibility":
Prevailing notions of corporate responsibility and of the role of law in regulating corporations are based on an underlying, but unarticulated, view of the person and the relation between the person and the world. The unarticulated vision is that of an individual independent and separate from others, motivated by self-interest, and possessing an entitlement to all that is in the world. This author proposes here an alternative vision of the person, one rooted in religion, that sees the communion and interrelatedness of all beings and that sees the things of the world not as entitlement, but as gift. This religious view of the person generates a very different notion of an ideal political and economic order and of corporation responsibility and the role of law in regulating corporations. Whether or not one is persuaded by the religious view of the person articulated herein, the discussion serves to illuminate the need to broaden the terms of the debate over the appropriate role of the law in regulating corporations by looking at the unexpressed underpinnings of the political and legal systems within which we operate.
One of my favorite magazines (The New Republic) features an article about the visions of death and religion offered by two of my favorite entertainers (Mel Gibson and Clint Eastwood). After discussing films like "The Passion," "Braveheart," "Mystic River," "The Unforgiven," and "Million Dollar Baby" (which I have not seen, and will not see), the author concludes:
While Eastwood's films have increasingly focused on the process of dying and its physical and psychological ramifications, Gibson's concern is the intensely solitary moment of death and its potential for spiritual rebirth. Unlike Dirty Harry and Martin Riggs, who saw the same evil killers through the viewfinders of their guns, Eastwood and Gibson see irreconcilable opposites through their movie cameras, one finding life's essence where the other sees only death.
Amy Welborn has an interesting discussion of the essay, and comments, "the [author] doesn't get Christian soteriology or anthropology, that's for darn sure." Given our persistent interest in questions of moral anthropology, I thought the essay would be of interest.
Let me take a stab at a partial answer to the first part of Rick's query, that is, the question whether Christianity should be taken seriously by outsiders if it appears to make no difference in the lives of those who call themselves Christians.
Our human frailty means we will never completely live up to our call as Christians to live as Christ and to reveal Christ in all that we say and do. I don't think our failure to be perfect disciples disqualifies us from preaching the Gospel to others or suggests a failing of Christianity.
However, it is one thing to devote one's life to God and fail to live up to a standard of perfection we can never meet. It is another to fail to commit oneself to the effort and merely to talk about Christianity as though Christian thought were somehow divorced from how we live our own lives. If an "outsider" can not see Christians who are at least trying to walk the walk as well as talk the talk - if it appears that this is just a lot of words that don't affect behavior, why should they take Christianity seriously?
The fact that some Christians (or even a lot of them) kill, steal, engage in self-centered and sexually immoral behavior, etc. does not mean that Christ made no difference. But I think it does have to be apparent to an outsider that Christianity affects how at least some number of people live their lives for them to be persuaded that it makes a difference.
In the latest issue of the (always worthwhile) magazine, Books & Culture, Ronald Sider identifies and laments what he calls the "Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience" (link). The essay's claim (and complaint), in a nutshell, is that -- for all their talk -- Evangelical Christians seem to behave and believe just like everyone else:
Scandalous behavior is rapidly destroying American Christianity. By their daily activity, most "Christians" regularly commit treason. With their mouths they claim that Jesus is Lord, but with their actions they demonstrate allegiance to money, sex, and self-fulfillment.
The findings in numerous national polls conducted by highly respected pollsters like The Gallup Organization and The Barna Group are simply shocking. "Gallup and Barna," laments evangelical theologian Michael Horton, "hand us survey after survey demonstrating that evangelical Christians are as likely to embrace lifestyles every bit as hedonistic, materialistic, self-centered, and sexually immoral as the world in general."Divorce is more common among "born-again" Christians than in the general American population. Only 6 percent of evangelicals tithe. White evangelicals are the most likely people to object to neighbors of another race. Josh McDowell has pointed out that the sexual promiscuity of evangelical youth is only a little less outrageous than that of their nonevangelical peers.
I read this essay while reflecting on the recent conference in San Francisco, "Taking Christian Legal Thought Seriously." Assuming, as I do, that Sider's compaints about the practices and inconsistencies of American Evangelicals could easily be lodged, with no less force, concerning Catholics in America, I suppose I have to wonder (a) should Christianity be "taken seriously" by outsiders if (it appears to outsiders) to make no difference (obviously, we Christians would want to claim that Christ has "made a difference", even if Christians continue to behave badly); and, more particularly, (b) whether "Catholic Legal Theory" should be taken seriously, given the difficulties many of us experience in explaining exactly how, if at all, it would make a difference. Thoughts?
The passage Michael S. reproduces in his post today (immediately below) troubles me. Why? Let me answer with the following two quotes:
The two types of authority that concern us here (authority to govern and authority to teach) are, of course, distinct and can be discussed separately. In the Roman Catholic Church, however, we find that they are often intermingled, and sometimes even confused with each other. Over the centuries governing power has often been used (and misused) to bolster teaching authority. Such an approach can easily amount to little more than "we are right because we are in charge" or "we give orders, not explanations." --Bernard Hoose, "Authority in the Church," 63 Theological Studies 107 (2002).
Some Catholics concede that the church admits of the principle of doctrinal development, but they accuse [John] Noonan, in Richard John Neuhaus's words, of too often equating development with "a change, even a reversal, of doctrine." At a recent meeting of the Catholic Common Ground initiative, Noonan and theologian Avery Dulles had a polite, but sharp, exchange on the subject, with Noonan again insisting that "the record is replete with mistakes--the faithful just can't accept everything that comes from Rome as though God had authorized it." --John T. McGreevy, "A Case of Doctrinal Development: John T. Noonan -- Jurist, Historian, Author, Sage," Commonweal, Nov. 12, 2000, at 12, 17.
