President-elect Obama has decided to have Rick Warren perform the invocation at his presidential inauguration in January. Warren, the pastor of the Saddleback megachurch in California, is well-known for his conservative views, falling sharply in line with the traditional evangelical stance on 'social issues,' but is touted as something of a centrist because he believes that global warming may actually be a problem. On pretty much everything else, he's a run-of-the-mill conservative evangelical: Right to Life, anti-gay marriage, etc.
The debate surrounding Obama's decision, though, has been interesting. People on the left are angry because of Warren's position on gay marriage and California's recent Proposition 8. On the right, Warren is being criticized for accepting the invitation at all. Obama apologists like E.J. Dionne at the Post have been hailing the move as the kind of conciliatory, centrist politics that will keep Obama afloat.
But as far as I can tell, no one in mainstream media has asked the question of why Warren is going to be there at all. In years past, no one appearss to have asked why Billy Graham was there either. Why are these men here to invoke the blessing of their (presumably, Christian) god on a presidency- a presidency of a country filled with Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and atheists? Does Warren represent all their religious views, or the lack of them?
But there's a larger issue beyond respect for pluralism or the gay rights movement. Why is a religious leader anywhere near the podium? Why does a pastor have to be around to 'invoke' the divine and legitimize a president through prayer, however symbolic? The last time I checked, the only legitimation a democratically elected government needed is the consent of the governed. People who would urge me to "lighten up, dude, it's just a prayer" miss the power that religious symbolism can have in perpetuating the insidious intermingling of Church and State.
Democratic states should invoke the blessings of their citizens, not of a parochial divine.
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A Public Space for Private Indiscretions
5 comments:
Maybe it's because America was founded as a Christian nation based on Biblical principles.
I assume that you use the term "Christian nation" advisedly. That is, I assume that you have refrained from using the term "Christian State" or "Christian country" for specific reasons. Thus, your statement asserts that Christianity forms the basis for inclusion in the national community of America, and that it forms the basis of the political legitimacy of the state.
If my assumptions are correct, then yours is an interesting, though debatable, observation.
Firstly, it is debatable on purely empirical grounds. Consider the following quotes by Thomas Jefferson, one of America's Founding Fathers:
- "Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
- "In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814
(both quotes taken from http://www.nobeliefs.com/jefferson.htm)
Jefferson is the originator of the famous term 'separation of church and state.' It would be futile to argue that Christian principles were not at the basis of much of the moral force that guided the hand of America's founders. But it would just as futile to suggest that the position of Church in relation to state was not a matter of considerable debate and dissent. Further, it could be argued that there was much MORE that animated the Founders, including a refusal to succumb to the tyranny of British rule, and the freedom to profess a religion of one's choosing. Regardless of the debate on how much of each of these elements were salient, it does cast considerable doubt upon your assertion that America is a "Christian nation."
Secondly, and more importantly, America has moved beyond being a "Christian Nation" to a civic one. That is, it holds that all citizens, regardless of their creed and colour have equal standing before the law, and equal membership in the national community. It may fall short of this goal in many instances, but there would be no one here who would defend the exclusion of a Jewish or Hindu citizen from holding office purely because of his or her religious background. That is, Christians have no special monopoly of state institutions due to their religious affiliations. Further, the state exercises power legitimately through the democratic process, not through some appeal to a 'divine right of kings' or similar reasoning. Simply put, America has moved on to a liberal, democratic, and secular vision of statehood, citizenship, and nationhood.
Having people like Warren and Graham in the Inauguration does not reflect that move. It undermines it.
My friend, I respectfully disagree. Response here:
http://atimeforchoosing.wordpress.com/2008/12/26/a-response-to-my-friend-on-prayer-and-public-discourse/
As I expected, this is a scholarly response. Here are my thoughts. I’m going to try to follow your argument as closely as possible and address your points in the order they appear.
Firstly, your knowledge of the American Constitution is better than mine, and I am happy that you brought it up, because it is, in some ways, at the heart of this debate. It is the supreme legal document in this country. Yet this is the very reason that I feel it should not be part of this debate. The Constitution’s position as the supreme legal document in this country has imbued it with a ‘sacredness’ (yes, I recognize the irony of my word choice) that assumes its infallibility as a point of argument in such debates. But by your own account, the First Amendment does not tell us anything useful at all. It was intended for a specific purpose: to tell Congress where the limits of its lawmaking lie as regards religion. It tells us nothing about the relationship of religion and religious institutions to the state. Instead, its silence on that matter is notable. I quote you:
“At the time, it is interesting to note, some individual states did have official religions. These were gradually disestablished over time, but there was nothing about the federal Constitution that disestablished them.”
Therefore, it appears to me that despite the limitations of the First Amendment’s scope, individual states did, over time, come to the conclusion that their people would be better served if religion and state were separated. The First Amendment’s silence on this did not limit the scope of the states’ wisdom. Let our debates not be limited by it either.
Secondly, your point about the nationalist lens is well-taken. And I agree with it wholeheartedly. As you may have noticed, I did not invoke nation in my initial piece. That is because the piece consisted of my normative claims about the state. However, like night follows day, it’s hard to bring up the state without having people talk about the nation. As I expected, Prem brought up the nation in his comment, and I felt it necessary to respond in like terms. Fundamentally, my point remains about the nature of democratic states. Much like the Constitution, nations tend to be self-legitimizing. That is, positive definitions of the nation are invoked as appropriate responses to normative claims about the state. The nation is thus, and thus the state ought to be. That kind of reasoning must be dispensed with, because one is then forced to respond with competing positive descriptions of the state. That gets this discussion nowhere.
Thirdly, I agree that “differing views on the transcendent make for differing views on many other things.” Also, contrary to your characterization, I do not believe that a voter should “check their faith at the door” when they vote. I expect that it is impossible for a voter to do that, and immoral for us to expect it of him/her. A voter’s understanding of the divine may influence the way they vote and they should be given full freedom to express that understanding when they enter the polls. On this, we have no disagreement. But this discussion is not about behaviour of voters, but the behaviour of states. While voters should not have to check their beliefs at the door when they enter the polling booth, states should when dealing with their citizens.
To continue, when states, and the men at their helm, see the enormity of the task at hand, they may indeed be humbled; rightly so. Running a state is an immense responsibility. If Obama, or any other president, feels compelled to call on the divine for help in the face of this task, then so be it. Let him, perhaps, go into his room, close the door and pray to his Father, who is unseen. Spare the American people, who voted for him, that spectacle. The Inauguration is a ceremony of state. For Obama, or any president, to impose religious ceremony on the people he has been elected to serve is a gesture that undermines the separation of the Church from the state. This is nowhere near as severe a travesty as the Supreme Council in Iran forcing the hand of elected representatives, but symbolism is important. The invocation prayer is a vestige of an umbilical cord between church and state that needs to be cut before their separation can be complete. (And if you extend the analogy by saying something like “and the Church is like a mother, feeding the growing state,” then -6 points to you!)
With respect to drafters of the Declaration, their words, as important as they are, do not suffice as a justification for prayer’s part in matters of the state. Consider the following experiment: remove the terms “appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions” and “with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence” from that paragraph you quoted. The document loses none of its meaning, gravity, or sense of firm determination.
My own addenda:
It is true that Obama spent much of his time convincing people that he was Christian. That’s unfortunate. As Colin Powell so eloquently put it, “The correct answer is that he’s not a Muslim. He’s a Christian…but the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no. That’s not America.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_NMZv6Vfh8
My two paise (and it's probably not worth even that really):
I agree with you in that Warren needn't have been invited to pray at all. The issue, however, is praying at such a ceremony and the religious affiliation and symbolism it represents. I do believe in the power of religious symbolism and smart leaders know how to wield it to their advantage.
Having said this, I'm not sure whether it can perpetuate 'the insidious intermingling of Church and State' to the degree that you assume. I know you haven't stated how insidious you think this might be but I think it's safe to assume that since you blogged about it.. you do believe it to be quite insidious? Let's see..
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