Religious Common Ground

One of the mistakes Christians have often made in recent decades when addressing abortion, homosexuality, and other controversial issues is to take an overly secular approach. In a previous post, I discussed a tendency among Christian apologists, which exists in other circles as well, to overestimate the significance of atheism. Much the same can be said of agnosticism. Only a small minority of people are atheists or agnostics, but non-religious belief systems, like atheism and agnosticism, receive a disproportionate amount of attention in some contexts. Christians often develop highly secular arguments in an attempt to reason with or counter the efforts of atheists, agnostics, and other people with similar beliefs.

Another factor leading people in the same direction is an overly secular notion of separation of church and state. Supposedly, Christian arguments on an issue like abortion or same-sex marriage need to be entirely secular. Allegedly, only secular arguments will have any influence over the legislature, in courtrooms, in political campaigns, and in other such contexts.

Because of factors like the ones I've just outlined, we're supposed to think that most people in our culture won't be persuaded by religious argumentation in some contexts or in any context. I sometimes see Christian organizations or individuals refer to how their arguments against abortion or against same-sex marriage, for example, are strictly secular. That's supposed to be an advantage.

I don't deny that there's some merit to such an approach. The use of what are commonly called secular arguments makes sense, and it should be part of the approach Christians take.

But are such arguments actually secular? I don't think so. Without acknowledging God's existence, how would you justify concepts like logic and the objective moral standards government policies are often said to be based upon? Even if we accept the common notion of secular argumentation, however, it still doesn't make sense to limit ourselves to secular arguments when discussing governmental matters or in other contexts.

A good illustration of my point is the recent Supreme Court decision on prayers before sessions of government. If such prayers are going to be categorized as secular in some sense, then almost any activity can be classified that way. The government could condemn homosexuality in an attempt to avoid the wrath of God, then classify that action as secular on the basis that the relief people experience by thinking they've avoided God's wrath has a secular benefit to society. Actually, prayers before sessions of government, like a governmental condemnation of homosexuality to avoid God's wrath, isn't secular. It's also not secular to print "In God We Trust" on our currency, for presidents (like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson) to issue religious presidential proclamations, etc. Our system of government is founded on the religious principle that we're endowed with rights by our Creator. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution also appeal to other religious concepts.

Given that the large majority of people in a nation like the United States are supernaturalists who affirm the existence of God and support practices like opening sessions of government with prayer, and given that such views are even held by a large percentage of government officials, why are we supposed to be limiting ourselves to secular argumentation? Yes, people often appeal to secularism selectively in an attempt to defeat religious efforts they're opposed to. But since they're doing it selectively, you can point to their inconsistency and the contexts in which they accept religious arguments as a counter to their selective secularism.

Keep in mind that we're operating at more than one level here. Even if a religious argument is rejected in a courtroom, for example, it could still be more influential with the general public. Often, judges, legislators, and other public officials will only do what they think they can get away with in the social context of their day. Even if a legislator gives secular reasons for supporting a particular law, the voters who influence his decision to support that legislation may have religious motivations. Given that so many Americans are religious to some degree, how would somebody go about denying that our current laws against murder, against theft, defining marriage as an opposite-sex institution, etc. have been supported by voters and other citizens largely for religious reasons? A piece of legislation or a legislator passing that legislation doesn't have to be explicitly religious in order for the motivation behind that law to be religious.

Even many liberals haven't yet gotten to the point of denying God's existence or wanting to remove all religious activity from the public sector. Liberal politicians often use religious arguments in political speeches, campaign in churches in some manner, refer approvingly to the religious argumentation of figures like Martin Luther King, etc. If people attending liberal churches can support state recognition of same-sex marriage for religious reasons, why can't people attending conservative churches oppose state recognition of same-sex marriage for religious reasons? As long as so many people, even a lot of liberals, are leaving the door so wide open to religious argumentation, why not make better use of that opportunity? If you're going to argue against same-sex marriage, for example, maybe start out with what would commonly be considered a secular argument (e.g., how opposite-sex marriage promotes the unity of the sexes in a way that same-sex marriage doesn't), but then move on to a religious argument. Do both. And notice that I referred to religious arguments, not religious assertions.

I suspect that one reason why religious arguments are often left out is because so many professing Christians don't know how to make an objective case for their religious beliefs. They're afraid of being embarrassed, dishonoring God, or whatever the case might be, since they don't know how to respond to challenges to a religious argument. And since Christians have gone along with the secularizing trends of society for so long now, the use of religious argumentation has become increasingly unusual and unfamiliar. The problem keeps snowballing. Most people accept some religious concepts and some religious arguments, but they don't think about those things much and aren't consistent. One way to break out of that pattern is to educate ourselves about how to make good religious arguments and go out and make them.

And expect a lot of pushback. If somebody as moderate as Anthony Kennedy is accused of furthering theocracy because of his recent Supreme Court decision, you can expect even worse if you're somewhere to Kennedy's right.

One way to respond to such charges is to ask those people if they're trying to accomplish something on the other end of the spectrum, such as establishing an atheistic tyranny. If they think it's an inaccurate poisoning of the well to frame their position along the lines of an atheistic tyranny, point out that it's a similar inaccurate poisoning of the well to frame your position along the lines of a theocracy, given the negative connotations a term like "theocracy" has in our modern context. Or ask them if they think the Declaration of Independence established a theocracy, given its appeals to God and other religious concepts.

If the argument is that religious concepts like those we find in the Declaration are acceptable, since they're so religiously pluralistic, then ask whether religious pluralism is the same thing as secularism. It isn't. And how pluralistic is the Declaration (and the religious proclamations of United States presidents, the prayers we've had before sessions of government, etc.)? Not all religions are theistic. And not all theistic belief systems involve a God who answers prayer and is active in human affairs in other ways, for example. The United States government has not only been religious, but also has in some ways been religiously exclusivistic. I've been focusing on the federal government, but we see these tendencies even more at the state and local levels.

Christians need to stop disarming themselves so much. We have good religious arguments. We ought to make more use of them. That's especially true given how much the religious left has been willing to use religious arguments to further its interests.