Sacred (but political) texts
The day before the Fourth of July, Tara Rowe from The Political Game offered her readers a guest post on relationship between one’s faith and one’s interpretation of political issues and of the US Constitution. In the end, it is a screed against America’s religious right and people like Glenn Beck, full of generalizations and frustration—but it raises some interesting questions despite all of the arguably unfair assumptions it makes.
Leonard Hitchcock, the guest poster, criticizes many conservatives for concluding “that political issues are really religious ones” and focuses on the religious reverence for the Constitution as sacred, God-given, and therefore immutable Scripture. Hitchcock, then, is working under the assumptions that political issues are not (and cannot be) religious issues and that one’s handling of the Constitution should show no sign of faith.
Are these conjectures correct?
America has had a history of idolization and myth-making when it comes to things like the Founders and founding documents ever since Lincoln’s time, so it might be incorrect of Hitchcock to portray the religious right’s behavior as new or unique.
And if we define one’s political view as part of one’s general worldview, and faith is a part of one’s worldview, then surely politics and faith will talk to each other at least on occasion.
But to what extent should one be allowed to claim the high ground on a political question by pointing to faith—something that does not lend itself to debate in the way politics does?
What happens to political discourse when religion is used as a sort of ‘Win’ button in political arguments?
-Jonathan
Photo by Flickr user kc7fys used under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
Related posts:
- Religion and foreign aid
- The (im)possibility of secular judgment
- Is political science relevant?
- What the Framers intended
- More on Minarets
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