I’m trying to tighten the focus of some of my own ideas in the area of religion and society, religion and government, religion and any other form of human community. There are probably many things to be said about the conflict between religion and various sorts of religious societies, and some also cover conflicts involving some who hold no firm religious beliefs but do have strong moral beliefs about human life. I’ll not make most of those statements, at least not here.
I will speak generally about the various conflicts associated with so-called Obamacare, including the religious freedom problems. They seem to be partly, maybe largely, caused by confused actions and lack of actions on the part of Catholic bishops and other Christian leaders over the past century or so as the American state has drawn its citizens into a variety of dependency-relationships. We shouldn’t become dependent upon power-centers which might one day call upon us to act against our principles. In fact, I’ll claim that religious neutrality on the part of governments is possible only if religious conflicts deal with issues not really important, at least not in our public life. In that case, religious freedom has no particular value and religion itself becomes the purely private affair advocated by extreme liberals of the modern era.
If religious beliefs have any substance, if religious beliefs have any bearing on the behaviors and the other aspects of concrete lives of human beings, if they are — in the strongest example — sacramental or even Sacramental as some Christians believe, then any behaviors affected by those beliefs couldn’t be subject to compromise in the interests of `religious neutrality’ and then the public square becomes at best a gathering of mobs representing different beliefs as they shout at each other — or worse.
In fact, we think of public squares in terms not compatible with true religious faith, but I’ll put off a discussion of that issue to a future essay. I’ll give only hints about the possibilities of sharing some substantial amount of a public square with those who advocate beliefs which Catholics and some other Christians think to be morally disordered.
Let me propose a rule:
If a program involves substantial issues over which there is much principled disagreement on the part of significant groups, then we should be very modest indeed in the implementation of that program or competing programs.
This doesn’t exclude the possibility of relatively small `safety-net’ programs for something like medical care but even there we should realize there is a chasm between `us’ and `them’, however those are defined. For example, important research hospitals in the United States are trying to find cures for horrible medical conditions by experimenting upon embryos who have those conditions, at least in potential, and who are grown in the laboratory. I’m not interested here in arguing this topic, only interested in noting that many Christians, some Jews, some skeptics and atheists, believe that any being which is at least arguably human should be treated as human. How can we — I’m one of them — share a medical system with those who are developing medical technology by experimenting upon lab-grown embryos and will maybe be harvesting tissue or specific biochemicals from lab-grown human beings? How can those who think abortion is a right share a medical system with those who think it murder?
Maybe we should be so tolerant as to act as if we had no moral principles?
Our leaders would have us move forward assuming that those with greatly divergent moral beliefs can cooperate on medical systems and we can create a crazy-quilt pattern of exceptions on the basis of conscience. We negotiate treaties with men who have gone over to behavior we consider evil and then somehow that protects our noble and pure selves. And, of course, we can trust men who do what we consider evil to honor their agreements. Our leaders don’t seem to have any clear ideas how this can happen, probably because it’s a psychotic view in a strong sense, a view at odds with reality as understood through honest human perceptions and reason. Our leaders have merely asserted, without explanation, that we can have one uniform, nationwide healthcare system though it can’t be quite uniform when our beliefs are threatened. Don’t worry, as problems arise in this morally incoherent plan of action, we’ll jury-rig solutions. They even tell us that we can share everything so long as we have gimmicky accounting to make it seem we Christians don’t pay for anything God would not allow.
Again, I think we Christians can cooperate on basic safety-net services with those who would allow abortion services and even experimentation on human embryos. Somehow. If we had leaders, if they had advisers, who were morally responsible enough to learn about these issues and think about them rather than just reacting in ways that make certain sorts of shallow Christians feel good about themselves. We should worry that we’ve become a people better at organizing feel-good rallies in Washington and state capitals than at thinking hard about the world and anticipating problems.
And, if our objections to the economics and politics and morals of our neighbors involve truly fundamental principles, we should be thinking seriously about forming communities of those who share our principles. Done properly, this sort of separation would bring some peace and order to a world growing increasingly chaotic as we pass through another period in which established ways of thought and behavior are breaking down and there are mass movements of individuals and groups into regions inhabited by those with greatly differing cultures and religious beliefs and so forth.
Let me put this in terms of God’s purposes for us. We are in a narrative which is the formation of the Body of Christ in its mortal form. We have not the knowledge, not the power, not the legitimate authority, to force this Body into some sort of preconceived shape or to have some sort of preconceived functions. We are intending — in the Thomistic sense of growth — properly as individual human beings when we respond as best we can to our opportunities and problems, including discretionary opportunities for pure pleasure. We grow into the future. We develop toward a goal we can only dimly perceive — if we can see it at all. We have a duty to cooperate with God, to remain firm in our intentions, so long as we intend to obey our Maker. We explore possible paths of development. We don’t create the territory in front of us, the abstract spaces of possible developmental paths.
When we act as if we were aiming at some knowable point down the path of development, when we think there is some sort of larger entity already formed and under our control, we become rebels against the Creator who is telling this story. We try to take over the role of our Maker.
As one who has accepted the questionable task of trying to see a little further than is usually wise into the future, that is — into the unfolding narrative which is our world, I can assure those who think it easy to see some allegedly desirable goal, “universal healthcare” or “democracy in every nation”, that it is a task that will give the morally responsible thinker more than a few eerie dreams and even the occasional nightmare. To the extent that prophecy allows even the slightest bit of foresight, it can frighten those with stronger hearts than mine. The future, the world as it will be in a few generations, is no longer ours. It’s not a matter of just fun gadgets and all sorts of high-tech conveniences as if it were an episode of the cartoon show The Jetsons. Only those insensitive to the conventions and customs in our behaviors and thoughts, our very ways of seeing and hearing the world, will think they could go back to, say, the Philadelphia of Ben Franklin’s days and feel as comfortable as if they’d gone to a nearby city for a day of shopping and entertainment. It’s a indication of the reasons the United States is the most bumbling and incompetent empire in history: we are so insensitive to cultural issues, to moral and other habits, so inclined to bend the world to our will, that we feel comfortable in any and all cities of the world — so long as we can find our favorite American restaurants. We ignore all the surrounding mobs of smelly human animals speaking some sort of gibberish. We’ve even made ourselves insensitve to our own cultures, to our own moral habits and customs. We can’t smell and see the differences between the streets of Boston and those of New York City.
Let me wrap around to draw some sort of a conclusion about the topic in the title. Religious toleration in some sort of large-scale public square would be possible only if all the human beings of the surrounding communities were in agreement about the nature of their world, the moral purpose — if any — of the events of their individual and communal lives. As I’ve noted before — perhaps in weaker language, only a deluded fool could believe that communities differing on such important issues as abortion and experimentation upon lab-grown embryos can possibly share — fully — either a medical insurance system or the medical system itself.
I fear the worst is yet to come and it might involve a quiet and cowardly surrender by Christian leaders.