c. 2007 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) For nearly half a century, Garry Wills has been one of America’s foremost surveyors of the religious and political landscape, both past and present.
In tomes dense with scholarship, and often controversial arguments, the prolific Wills, 73, has upended ideas of papal infallibility, the Founding Father’s religiosity and St. Paul’s New Testament writings.
In his latest book, “Head and Heart,” a full-length religious history of the United States, Wills sets his iconoclastic eye on everything from the Pilgrims to Karl Rove.
He sat down recently to talk about evangelical awakenings, whether abortion is a religious issue and why the state can’t love Jesus.
Q: What did you set out to do with “Head and Heart”?
A: We’ve got a lot of religion in America. We didn’t at the outset, but we do now. But that’s not as important to me as what kind of religion. And that shifts over the years _ sometimes you have the englightened religion foremost, sometimes you have the evangelical, one with an emphasis on rational faith, the other with an emphasis on private experience. I tried to trace when and how the relations between these two shifted.
There have been three main times when religiosity of the evangelical sort is very salient, and by accident they all happen at the beginning of the century. Partly I think that is because what leads to fundamentalism … is fear of change. And in all three cases, at the beginning all three centuries, there was rapid and somewhat disorienting change.
In the 19th century, it was our tremendous expansion westward into uninhabited territory (except for Native Americans of course). In the beginning of the 20th century, it was the disorientations of the Industrial Revolution. And at the beginning of the 21st century, it’s the technological revolution. Tremendous changes have come about because of the new inventions _ the Internet, the computer _ which challenge people who are distrustful of science.
The first (awakening) in the 19th century, was a self-starting religiosity, didn’t depend on government. It was entirely self-financed, self-organized, self-supporting, so it had more life in it I think than the other ones. What broke it up was slavery.
In the 20th century … the government was a bigger part of everyone’s life. So (evangelicals) tried to use the government to ban the sale of alcohol for instance, or ban the delivery of mail on Sunday or ban the teaching of evolution in school. When that happens, people get a little wary because of our tradition of separation of church and state. It’s more upsetting to a lot people, so that didn’t last as long.
The current one, I think, is running out of steam in about 10 years. You can see it running out of steam in the reaction to the Terri Schiavo case; the changed attitude towards gays; the growth of evangelical movement to protect the environment.
Q: As you mention in your book, “head” and “heart” are not mutually exclusive categories. Some of our best historical moments result from interplay between the two.
A: Neither can exclude the other. They both have deep resonances in American history and institutions. Its rather a matter of emphasis than of strict doctrinal, self-enclosed and mutually exclusive organizations. They are strongest when they are combined. They are combined in people like Dr. King, who relies on a sophisticated Niebuhrian theology but also upon the black roots in spiritual preaching. People like Cesar Chavez or the abolitionist … they’re certainly the heroes of my book.
Q: How are people living up to those standards today?
A: Almost everybody has given in to the idea _ even if they are allowing abortion _ that it’s a religious issue. They’ll say we can’t have the state ban abortion because that would be letting religion dictate. On the other hand, people say our religious faith means that we have to ban it. All of that goes against the most obvious point about abortion, which is that its not a religious issue at all.
It’s not mentioned in the 10 Commandments or the whole of Jewish Scripture, it’s not mentioned in the Sermon on the Mount or the whole of the New Testament. Not mentioned in the early (church) councils, not mentioned in the early creeds. And the popes themselves have said its a matter of natural law. Well, natural law is under the jurisdiction of natural reason not of religious authority.
Q: Does that mean ethicists and religious leaders have no role in the debate over abortion?
A: Not by virtue of their being a Jew a Christian or Catholic. It’s by virtue of their arguments.
Q: You write that many of the Founding Fathers were Deists. How would they have understood that term?
A: They believed there was one God, who created the world and oversaw the world providentially and rewarded or punished people in the afterlife. They did not believe that Jesus was divine. They thought he was an important teacher. They did not believe in prayers of imprecation, that is, that God answers prayers by giving you what you ask for. God doesn’t change his plans just because you want him to.
Q: Religion has gotten a lot of attention on the presidential campaign trail this year. Is there any issue you think has yet to be adequately explored, though?
A: Explaining the separation of church and state has not been done very well. I used to ask my students: Do you believe in separation of church and state? And they all say yes. I asked: Do you believe in separation of church and politics? And most said yes. Then I asked: Do you believe in the separation of morality and politics? And they all said no.
Morality and religion are connected in most people’s experience or background. So obviously you can’t have religion and politics separated. A Christian can have a feeling that you have to help the poor to be good to Jesus. But you can’t make that the argument for the state. The state can’t love Jesus. When you talk to your fellow citizens, you have to talk in terms of shared values, in terms of justice and equity and humanity.
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