COMMENTARY: The toxic stew of religion and politics

c. 1998 religion News Service (Tom Ehrich is the author of”On a Journey,”daily meditations available through Journey Publishing Co. If you have feedback or want to suggest a question for a future column, send e-mail to: journey(AT)interpath.com) UNDATED _”Where in the world is there such a thing as separation of church and state?”the mayor of […]

c. 1998 religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is the author of”On a Journey,”daily meditations available through Journey Publishing Co. If you have feedback or want to suggest a question for a future column, send e-mail to: journey(AT)interpath.com)

UNDATED _”Where in the world is there such a thing as separation of church and state?”the mayor of Winston-Salem, N.C., asked last week at a March for Jesus rally.


One answer, if Mayor Jack Cavanaugh’s question was anything but rhetorical, lies in the U.S. Constitution. A less theoretical answer can be seen in the escalating nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan. What makes that tinderbox so frightening isn’t the weapons themselves _ other nations have more and deadlier _ but the religious and ethnic hatreds motivating the owners.

The mayor, of course, was merely playing Saturday-in-May politics, telling 700 conservative Christians what they wanted to hear.

But the mayor’s question deserves an answer, because religion and politics make a stew that looks tempting but often proves toxic. As right-wing Christians intensify their political aspirations, we should all consider what happens when the line between religion and politics gets blurred.

So, my mayor, where are”church and state”separated? The answer is: not many places. That’s the problem.

Large sections of Eastern Europe are in chaos because religion and politics have become one. Muslim and Christian warriors are tearing apart villages in Africa and slaughtering schoolchildren. Iran’s transition from a secular to a religious state should sober us all. So should the Middle East.

This is what happens when the religious make public policy.

The outcome _ both historically and today _ is bloodshed. How else can the ultra-certain resolve their disputes, except by demolishing their foes? Religious certainty allows no room for compromise.

If Middle East tensions, for example, were just about land, leaders could bargain. It is religion that makes warfare inevitable between Israel and its Arab neighbors.


American believers who see politics as another evangelistic opportunity should study Northern Ireland. If it were left to the faithful, the streets of Belfast would still run with blood. Peace seems to be breaking out because religious leaders were ignored, church and state were separated, and Ireland’s historic tensions were made a political question, not religious.

The most frightening answer to Mayor Cavanaugh’s question lies in India and Pakistan, not because the hatred between Hindu and Muslim is unusually vicious, but because religion makes profoundly unstable the hands holding nuclear triggers.

When the United States and the Soviet Union had their arms race, it was about fear and ignorance and the politicians who exploited them. Ignorance couldn’t survive the Information Age. And fear gave way to greed. Who cares if the Russians and Chinese are”godless?”They’re the next big markets for American products.

The arms race between India and Pakistan, however, seems based in religious certainty and ethnic hatred, historic handmaidens in cheapening human life. The result is a narrow-focused agenda in which the rights of people are perceived as secondary to defeating the infidel.

A second answer to Mayor Cavanaugh’s question about separation of church and state lies in the U.S. Constitution. Intrigued by his crowd-pleasing query, I reread the Constitution. It’s a short document. You can find it on the Internet. No, I’m not a lawyer, but I can read.

Religion appears in the First Amendment:”Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The point was freedom and what might prevent freedom. Framers of the Constitution remembered the heavy-handed partnership between Crown and Church in England _ indeed in all of Europe. They remembered how religious intolerance poisoned the American colonies. The faithful, they seemed to say, should be free to worship as they choose, and the state should be free from the intolerance and oppression that religious politics usually produces.


Before politicians get too cozy with the religious right, they might read the entire Constitution and the framers’ burning desire to escape European history, including the mixing of religion and politics.

If the Constitution isn’t convincing, read today’s news. Do we really want religious warfare in America? Demolishing one’s foe isn’t evangelism, it’s hatred. Craving power isn’t faith, it’s hubris.

DEA END EHRICH

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