What is the role of faith in American life?

It's socially unacceptable to be an agnostic, or a deist these days, so many claim to be Christian when they aren't, so the figures are a bit misleading. Church attendance is pretty low, historically, percentage wise and that might be a better indication than polls. Seems to me WalMart is a lot busier on a Sunday morning than the churches, in my town, anyway.

I don't remember how the subject came up, but on an on-line political forum I posted that I believed I was the only atheist that regularly posted there. What followed was at least half of the posters saying that they too were atheists. Sometimes, you just never know.

Ron is being ridiculous. I never attend church, don't consider myself religious, and don't care what people think of me. Where I come from the religious fanatics are made fun of. I realise it is different from state to state.

When Ron said..... """ It's socially unacceptable to be an agnostic, or a deist these days, so many claim to be Christian when they aren't, so the figures are a bit misleading."""""

That is very true among democrat politicians. It is widely known that when President Clinton came back to the White House on Sundays he walk back into the house with a bible in his hand for the cameras. The saps who gushed over his God fearing faith didn't realize that he was returning from the golf course. But that's what democrats do. Just like Ron said. They lie.

As far as claiming "these days" are more intolerant that years past? Where the hell has he been?

Jeff always believes I'm being ridiculous, nothing new. As for not caring what people think of him, I can attest to the truth of that statement, as does the stupidity of the rest of his comment, lol.

Faith plays an important role in every society. Our founders were secure enough in this notion that, even while some of them were athiests and agnostics, they saw fit to pay hombrage to a Deist entity in the penning of our founding documents.



"It is widely known that when President Clinton came back to the White House on Sundays he walk back into the house with a bible in his hand for the cameras."

Where is this widely known? I've never heard it.

Why would we want to go somewhere else to read and comment? I'm sorry I even clicked on this article.

To answer your question, religion plays a disgusting role in my society. I'm tired of hearing about it, reading about it, talking about it, having others tell me about it and ask me about it, and I'm really really really tired of it being injected into politics.

(p.s., you might want to ask your editor to add the missing space after the author's name in this little blurb designed to entice us to visit your other site.)

"religion plays a disgusting role in my society."

Faith. Not religion. Religion is absolutely disgusting, without any question. Faith, not necessarily so. I don't have any problem at all with faith, personally. I have grown to detest religion.

"this little blurb designed to entice us to visit your other site"

(Psst...Sandy--the links entice us to visit other, related Gather articles)

Thank you, Janna. Is there a good reason for publishing this article, asking me to go to another article, and then return here?

(I apologize if I missed the whole point and spoke too soon.)

"Is there a good reason for publishing this article, asking me to go to another article, and then return here?"

I think what is going on is that the link to the first "master" article "What ideas make us American?" is an introductory article of sorts, and raises these key questions:

# Who is an American?
# What is the role of faith in public life?
# What can we know and say?
# What is the nature and limits of presidential power?
# What role should America play in the larger world?
# What does it mean to create a "more perfect union?"

Each of the above questions is being addressed in their own articles (like this one) and are linked in the master article as they are published and addressed. We appear to be on the 2nd question. Actually, not a bad way to structure it, although I was a little confused at first myself.

Beats me. A lot of people talk about faith a lot. I don't see a lot of evidence of it outside of that.

Thank you, Janna.

How have I missed this?! I know what I'm going to read next. I hope Fineman's book is available as an e-reader.

people had to have faith in themselves, in the possibility of a brighter future, hope for change, a good life for their children and grandchildren, to come here in the first place, both the early colonists from Europe and immigrants who have come later. there are also those who were already here and those who came involuntarily. the interactions of all three of those streams has had effect on American history, and on American life.

Faith is the understanding of how a person or group fits within the context of all being. In this sense, everyone has faith; atheism and agnosticism can be very active faiths, but the passive "who cares?" is a faith as well. There is individual faith (how do I fit?) and collective faith (how do we fit? where the definition of "we" is part of the faith).

America from the first has been very much about groups and individuals being able to choose their own faith. Conflict arises because the needs of different faith groups and different individuals may be incompatible. The idea of mutual tolerance as a solution to faith conflicts is a powerful idea tested in the history of America.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

"Faith" plays a part in every life. If defined as "theism" 'gnosticism" or simply "Religion" that depends entirely upon the individual. However, once a religious group, or bloc, begins to involve itself in politics in America, there is no longer a "role." There is simply a "position." Once that position becomes wed to the idea of "making our government religious," a prime fundamental of American government is violated.

Believe and worship as you will, but if you think you're going to force your 'religion' (whichever one of the hundred or so variations you espouse) down the citizens' throats, you're in for a very rude awakening. Once we ALLOW any religious bloc to get away with doing this, WE'RE in for a very rude slap in the face - and a loss of democracy.

It is clear that a significant number of religious 'leaders' (front-men) would be pleased to preach about the success of their efforts (under God's will). This, however, is merely a self-justification for gathering power and influence - an actvity which we've allowed business interests to get away with for too long.

Just as Free Enterprise is not free when the results and outcomes are pre-determined, Freedom of Religion becomes irrelevant when the religion is predtermined - go ahead. pick any one of the myriad examples in history.

Faith is not exclusionary by nature. Religion is.

Two things strike me after reading Fineman's chapter, one minor and one major:

(1) I find it odd that he cites the 1965 overturning of Connecticut's anti-birth control law as one of the court decisions leading to the rise of the Moral Majority. David J. Garrow's exhaustive history of the abortion debate, points out that the Catholic Church seemed relatively fine with the Court's decision:

"The Roman Catholic hierarchy's reaction was relatively subdued. ... Father John Knott of the National Catholic Welfare Conference's Family Life Bureau noted that the Connecticut law 'was a bad one because it was unenforceable,' and, echoing Cardinal Cushing's statement a year earlier, added that 'the church does not seek to use the power of the state to compel compliance with its moral views.'" (p. 256)

I find this interesting because it is precisely the view that Protestants had taken earlier in this nation's history. The government should not be involved in religion, not because religion isn't important, but because we don't want religion to be tainted by government influence. Better government stay out so that we can do, in our churches, what we want.

Still, clearly some of the other cases Fineman cites had the effect he claims. I just found this one interesting because of my own interest in the history.

(2) So often we are told that it's freedom OF religion, rather than freedom FROM religion. But as Fineman's chapter makes implicitly obvious, it seems we only have freedom OF various Christian denominations. (And even Catholicism wasn't given that freedom until the last several decades, in reality.) The debate over the 10 Commandments makes this abundantly clear. The 10 Commandments are principles, it is argued, are principles everyone agrees with. But these are clearly Judeo-Christian principles. The first principle makes it clear that only the God of the Hebrew Bible is intended. The flack Keith Ellison (D., Minn.) has taken for being a Muslim and taking his oath of office on Koran (despite the fact that Allah is the same God as the God of Jews and Christians) further illsutrates the point. Faith playing a role in public life is not the problem. But in practice, it seems many will only be satisfied if only the Christian faith plays a role. That goes too far.

The apostle Paul once wrote to the shame of his disciples, 'The name of Christ is shamed among the Gentiles because of you.' It comes back to haunt sinners such as myself in many ways. That genius, Graham Nash, sings about how wars should not be waged in the name of God when it's really the selfish motives of men who claim to believe in God that cause modern wars.

As an American, I would like to believe that my leaders are firmly committed to protecting that First Ammendment right. So, in politics I believe religion has no place... none. In daily life? We should be able to believe as we see fit. Of course, the underlying problem is that few religions believe that they are 'a way' as opposed to 'THE way'. In a conflict between the beliefs of my religion and my country's belief in religious freedom... I guess I believe more strongly in my country :-)

Faith has been crucial to American life. From the first days when the Pilgrims and Puritans arrived faith was used to provide the permission, justification and operation of slavery. Converting the heathen to Christianity was one of the early excuses used as permission for slavery. It was fine to capture Africans and ship them to the Colonies as slaves as long as they received Christian instruction. It was such good permission that it was not long before there had to be a clarification. Slaves converting to Christianity and being baptized were demanding their freedom. It was such a problem that that in 1667, Virginia passed a law that said specifically that baptism did not provide a path to freedom. It was decided that that particular truth would not set you free. No need to worry, for by that time slave holders had established the biblical justification for slavery. Racial bigotry and the association between God's will and wealth and power have served some well for more than 300 years.

It may be useful to remember that it has not been all that long since physical human labor provided the machinery for what got done. Horses and Oxen have been used to provide some physical effort. They can pull the plow but they will not plow a straight row without a person and they will not pick the crop. So people have been the machine of production. Faith has provided the method to view the human machine as nothing more than a machine.

Over two centuries the biblical justification for slavery became very sophisticated. While some people came to oppose slavery it was the exception not the rule. There is the example of the Quakers. They did not start out opposing slavery. John Wollman was important in turning the Quakers away from slavery. I heard a guest on MPR, I am sorry I do not remember who, telling the story of how John Wollman spent twenty years convincing his fellow Quakers to reject slavery. It was a wonderful story. The reality is that it took him twenty years to embarrass his fellow Quakers into this moral position. The unique thing about Quakers is that they are willing to be convinced and to accept a new moral position without necessarily having to read it into the Bible. That is why the Presbyterians and Congregationalists called them atheists. It is a much more common situation for people of faith to find justification for their beliefs and actions in the Bible. This is the long standing method of the justification of slavery. Near the time of the Civil War these justifications were published to try to maintain the status quo.

The Reverend Fred A. Ross published such a book in 1857 in which he makes an interesting observation. His observation is that those people opposing slavery were taking their morality from the Declaration of Independence and not from the Bible as they should. It is available in many State Historical Societies and University Libraries. The title is: 'Slavery: Ordained of God'. It was published a few years before the Civil War and holds most of the reasoning created to justify slavery for the previous 200 years and used for the next hundred years of segregation.

But that was then and this is now. Right? Well, the 2008 presidential campaign provides excellent examples. I remember Senator Fred Thompson saying that people's rights come not from the government but from God. Well, if those are the only two options I might agree, but I wonder if he understands the Constitution or has read the Declaration of Independence. Perhaps I just misunderstood. The second candidate is Governor Mike Hukabee. He came out and said that he wanted to abrogate the constitution in favor of God's law. As elected officials both of these men have taken an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. Should I just understand that people of faith can take an oath that means nothing to them? After all, faith trumps the Constitution doesn't it? We can disagree about what is or is not in the Constitution or what it says but if at the end your faith says that it doesn't matter where are we left? An interesting and very current example is the question of torture of detainees at Guantanamo. I would propose that it is his faith that makes it impossible for George W. Bush to torture anyone. Not because he has rewritten the rules to redefine torture, although he certainly has done that. No, he cannot torture because he is doing God's work. Making his enemies also His enemies. There is no act that cannot be justified. It is simply not possible for George W. Bush to torture anyone -- because of his faith. And justice is gone, along with the Constitution.

I will propose here that at least some of the founding fathers intended that the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence be our shared faith. Everyone should be free to practice their personal faith and free to organize communities around faith or around any principles. The idea is that people make up the government for the benefit of people.

We have never quite gotten there.

What does faith mean for MPR? I remember the day an Evangelical Christian as a guest on one of the talk programs declared that "Christians abolished Slavery in America". The comment went without response. Perhaps because it was outside the subject being discussed or perhaps because it is assumed that it must be true. After all, religion is responsible for all moral behavior, we all know that. Well, let me rotate the record a little bit. Christians did not abolish slavery in America, except perhaps as an act of embarrassment in 1865, after a Civil War, when half of the Christians couldn't vote because they had not yet been returned to the Union. Segregation was well established in the North and the South when all the states were reunited.

But telling the good story is always more important. The story about how the religious believe in diversity is the one that winds me up the most. Krista Tippett found a religious writer who declared the importance in the belief in religious diversity in the history of America. It must be true, because we want it to be so. It couldn't be that religious people come to diversity in a hurry when they are told that they might be worshiping in someone else's church using someone else's rules. It could not be that belief in diversity comes very quickly to people who think they might be a minority in a situation where a single church is being selected? No, for we would prefer to believe. Prefer to believe than to understand.

Words are very important. Our only method of communication. MPR has a program about religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas. What if MPR had a program about ideas, ethics, meaning and religion? How would it be different? Other than the first two obvious questions -- would Krista Tippett have a place there and would Bill George pay for it?

Let me be careful and clear that I am not suggesting the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution as a religion. No, they are so much more. To relegate them to the status of religion would be a failure. They are some of the things that remind us that we are all in this together. Religion is the belief that we are all in this separately. What a lonely and isolating thing to rely on.

Faith should hold no place in social relations, least of all in politics. The strength of a nation is defined by its ability to discern opportunities and advanates by a process of trial and error. The religionist (i.e any adherent of faith) embraces an ethic of belief which rejects testing. Whatever he or she declares, as a believer, cannot be questioned; their god cannot be put to the test. The faithful quotes his god in proclaiming: "More blessed art thou who believe and has not seen."

Whatever we might say of the communist or fascist programs of the 20th century, their economic and political models were not so opaque. They revealed themselves to us. We tested them. They've been rejected as inconsistent with our needs as a species. And we have moved on to a new stage of development. Let us do the same with Faith.