Pining for the Days of Honest Hypocrisy

I'm currently teaching a course entitled "One Nation Under God?" that focuses on religion and politics in U.S. history. As you would expect in today's climate, college students come to this subject with a fair amount of skepticism, if not outright cynicism. Even after a study of the sociologist of religion Robert Bellah's classic "Civil Religion in America" which chronicles the long-standing tradition in American politics of our presidents invoking the name of God and drawing on explicitly religious themes in their public pronouncements, there is still the perception, though not always a critically reflective one, that there is something fundamentally wrong about the way in which our current president either uses his religion for political gain, or allows his religion to cloud his political judgment.

While readers of this blog will obviously know that I personally share this critical judgment of Bush and the evangelical Right that helped to bring him to power, my job as a college educator is to help the students to develop their own skills at critical thought so that they might better and more responsibly navigate the terrain of today's information age. In order to do this job effectively (as naïve as it might sound), I must believe that truth will prevail. By invoking this loaded term of truth, I don't mean it in some absolute or universal sense. Rather, I mean that the more informed and critically reflective we are, the better we are able to situate things in their proper perspective, acknowledge the complexity of any given situation, and see through the knee-jerk, sound-bite logic that pervades our public discourse. Especially when it comes to understanding--and even more, critically intervening into--religion and politics in America, this capacity is sorely needed.

So it came as something of a surprise to me while we were having a discussion of The Faiths of the Founding Fathers, a recent book written by the historian of religion David Holmes, that my students were using words like "noble" and "inspiring" in respect to the approach to religion modeled by many of our nation's first politicians and public figures. One reason for my surprise is because I had (wrongly) assumed that the rationalized deism of the founding fathers would be seen by today's standards as cold, impersonal, and overly abstract. For a generation reared on Oprah, trained to emote and accustomed to affirmation, the deistic notion of clock-maker God uninvolved and really uninterested in the world of creation is at odds with the prevailing piety that conceives of Jesus as your friend.

But it is the second (wrong) assumption I had that was the real cause for my surprise. Holmes' book is very commendable by its letting the historical sources speak for themselves. His portraits of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe are each short and focused statements about what role religion might have played in their own private lives and what, if any, public statements or stances they might have made with regard to how religion ought to be understood and practiced in the young republic.

So with Franklin, for instance, he admitted to being caught under the spell of George Whitefield, the traveling evangelist who was the leading figure of what is known in American history as the First Great Awakening. And while Franklin would frequently satirize religion, but never really criticize it outright. He was critical of Thomas Paine for what he considered to be Paine's unnecessary and exaggerated antagonism towards traditional religion. That being said, Franklin broke from his own traditional religious upbringing, privately questioned orthodox Christian doctrines, had become a convinced Deist by age fifteen, and he rarely attended any church service himself. Nevertheless, he urged his daughter to "go constantly to church," and urged the broader public to do the same because he "perceived that organized religion could benefit society by encouraging public virtue as well as by promoting social order." In other words, by all accounts Franklin's private life did not match up with his public persona. Put bluntly, he was a hypocrite.

Same could be said to one degree or another of all the other founding figures portrayed from this revolutionary period in our nation's history. I fully expected my students to have serious problems and objections with this. Instead, they suggested that this hypocrisy (if we should even call it that?) demonstrated a healthy respect for the public responsibilities of a statesperson. Yes, it is something of a double-standard for Franklin to avoid church himself but still recommend it to others, but at least he was honest about his hypocrisy. And in so being, he and his contemporaries can still teach us a valuable lesson about the difference between the private and the public spheres, which is precisely the point at which the first amendment leaves us to dwell within the ambiguity of its dual and opposing guarantees with regard to religion - the guarantee of its free exercise, and at the same time its disestablishment.

In short, believe what you will, but under no circumstances should you allow that line between church and state to be crossed. Today it seems that the private religion of our leaders is paraded in public. The irony is this leaves us even more confused about what they really believe and to what extent it informs their politics. It is also an open invitation for the kind of pandering that does a great disservice to both our religion and our politics.

Comments

[mamacat]

I pray to God,
if there is a God,
That He will take me into heaven,
if there is a heaven.

[darker]

Don't imbibe the bible for you may become drunk with power fantasies enough to slap together your own church, call yourself "reverend", pretend to be a "christian" while you lie to and cheat and steal from lots of naive suckers and then become filthy rich.

Pretty nice business venture!

[gilmanc]

If you recognize that most people need the faith in and fear of God to go about their lives, to provide a moral compass for them, but recognize that you do not need that for yourself, then is it hypocritical to tell people to go to church, while you do not?

If Franklin is a hypocrite, then so am I. I don't need fear of God to act in a way that will not disrupt the culture and society in which we live. I also recognize I am in the minority.

The purpose of religious teachings from the dawn of religions is the same as now. It wasn't to explain how the earth got here, it was to get people to act in a certain way, through carrot (heaven) and stick (God will smite thee).

To realize this, and not need it to live what would be considered a "good" life, does not make you a hypocrite to realize others do need this.

[Snakeback]

If you are teaching how politicians use religious doublespeak to bait and switch on their constituents, then I think you are on the right track.

What is at issue here is not the rightness or wrongness of any particular religion. I know there's a lot of atheists here that think you should use your class to denounce all religion, but that isn't what your class is about.

The topic is a little complex because there are several layers that come into play. First is politics - and time must be spent showing how the economics of the superwealthy drives politics.

The next is doublespeak - how politicians - and priests - use language to emotionally manipulate their audiences.

The next is some historical background on the relation between religion and politics - in many past societies priests held profound political sway, and in fact, in some societies the priests and the politicians were the same - the roles were not even officially separate. So the historical preference has always been to blend them.

Then you have to show how the US Constitution outlines a particular relation between affairs of state and the church, and why it is different from what existed before.

Only then are you really ready to have an intelligent class discussion of what's happening now with religion and politics.

And there are three regions that treat this issue differently - the USA, the Arab World, and the European sphere.

You took on a big job, and it is a subject people arrive to your class already emotionally charged up about. Good luck.

[DemandTruth]

In short, believe what you will, but under no circumstances should you allow that line between church and state to be crossed.

Well, thanks to W Bush, we're about 8 years too late on that one. The line has SO already been crossed, there may not be any going back.

My one question is are these ideologues TRULY interested in making America a Christian Nation under God? Or are they just interested in Money and Power?

In short. Yes.

[itmaybetoolate]

Well said DemandTruth. The evangelico-facists christo-nazis are at war with amurica. They are the amurican equivalent of islamic extremists. I was raised in this community and I know their level of delusion. Ultimately, it is all about turning amurica into a theocracy for jesus and working to bring about the final battle of good (christian) and evil (non-christians of any kind) via nuclear conflagration in the middle east. I learned that some 43 years ago in my sunday school class. For anyone who doesn't believe me, take a few minutes to watch one of their "prophets" some sunday morning (jack and rexalla van imp come to mind). Don't discount people like this as a joke. They are deadly serious.

[cynubie]

Absolutely Mr. Robbins!
When any leader claims a moral absolute, he is essentially stating divine right; and the last time I checked, God wasn't a member of congress. Our founding fathers had witnessed, experienced, and been influenced by hundreds of years of conflict over which version of the Christian religion to accept. By placing the ability to declare war with the Senate, they attempted to take the power away from a single individual succeptable to ignorances of the human condition. No citizen should have to die over a leader's perceived personal slight ("He tried to kill my daddy"), nor be put in peril over policy. Dubya is doing both, the congress is doing nothing--and I as a registered voter am wondering if voting should be the extent of my civil disobedience to such a twisted set values the current administration represents. It is time to again take any G-d out of the equation; because until a divine representative is willing to testify in court--we should leave a country by the people and of the people to the people--so help us G-d.
Respectfully submitted,
Francis Jens Erickson

[Plowboy]

I hope that you will address one of my pet peeves in your course. That is the way "God" is used for political purposes, counting on the ignorance most have of any but their own religion. For example, in attempting to stir up anti-Islamic bias, there is that old ploy of "God" vs. "Allah," ignoring (intentionally!) the fact that "Allah" is simply the Arabic word for "God" and used by Arabic (or Maltese) speaking Christians and Jews as well as Muslim. Why leave it untranslated? We don't make a fuss about Spanniards saying "Dios." And if the word is an issue, why hide the fact that Jesus called His God "Alaha" since Her spoke Aramaic. And why hide the fact that "Allah" is derived from "Alaha"?
This has nothing to do with beliefs, and is an obvious attrempt to find a difference so that it can be exploited.
Why hide the fact that "Allah" is "God" and that Islam, Christianity and Judaism all share many of the same basic beliefs, all three coming from the same sources?
There is all too much evil stemming from religion without those who intentionally seek artificial grounds for conflict.

[Qbear]

The seperation of Church and State wasn't meant to protect the State from Religion, it was to protect Religion from the State.
Think of religion as a popcicle, and government as a pile of manure, mixing the two, .....he popcicle isn't going to harm the pile of manure, but it's going to ruin your popcicle.

[larry278]

Before you go to sleep say-
thank god, I'm an atheist.

[maddogbitesback]

Well since everyone thinks he is right and has a direct line to God then I suggest that until it is discovered just who is right, God should be left out of government. Some people believe the Bible is the inerrant truth - it is God's word. I personally don't understand why they think God would say one thing and then say the opposite but that is what I found in the Bible. Two stories of creation - different and it is interesting to think how one is selected and not the other. Then we have Jesus saying you can be saved by faith alone (Luther took that to be gospel truth) and later we note the statement that two men are in a field and one is taken and the other is not. Why would someone choose not to eat milk and meat at the same mean but have long since given up on the notion that a daughter may be sold into slavery and raped; or a son stoned if he disobeys his father.

So when some one is able to prove a) God exists and b) the Bible is the word of God and has no direction to do illegal stuff or cruel things write another blog and I'll read it.

Yours til religious people stop being weird, arrogant know it alls and vist the sick, the poor and those who are in jail and various other things. And if government became humane and honest it would be powerful evidence of the existence of God

[dadw5boys]

The only people who have ever harmed me in anyway have been Christians. So cynical is how most people are even towards other Christians.

[Spookcatcher]

Dadw5boys: "the only people who have ever harmed me in anyway have been Christians".
That is one hell of a proclamation! (and indictment) Anyone, when I can not attribute the blame or fail to admit to have made bad results through my own mistakes or in the damaging of my own life, doesn't seem to follow a particular group or pattern of behavior other than they are free willed humans using their own devises. I sure Hope Christians can be gracious enough in their zealous aimed at you soon reverses....

[Craig]

Absolutely, freedom of religion and freedom from religion--both have equal weight when considering public policy and social interaction.