Mark Lilla's "The Politics of God," from yesterday's New York Times Magazine, reflects the bafflement of the liberal intelligentsia in coming to terms with the worldwide revival of religion. Lilla is a respected political scientist at Columbia University, and his essay begins with all the pomposity of the secular liberal establishment. "We in the West are disturbed and confused...We find it incomprehensible that theological ideas still stir up messianic passions...We had assumed this was no longer possible...We were wrong."
Having discovered the obvious--that God is dead only in Manhattan--our campus Sherlock gives us a potted history of the religious wars. These wars culminated in what he terms the Great Separation. Yes, Lilla is genuflecting, as all approved New York Times pundits must, to the grand scheme of separation of church and state. "We have chosen to keep our politics unilluminated by divine revelation." Apparently Lilla has forgotten about the Declaration of Independence, which traces the source of our inalienable rights to none other than "the Creator." The doctrine that "all men are created equal" is derived from the theological concept that we are all equal in the eyes of God.
Nowhere does Lilla confront the obvious problem that his Great Separation is not even close to what the American founders had in mind. Even Jefferson, the least religious of the founders who first used the "wall of separation" phrase in a letter, permitted a far more public role for religion than we have today. Although Lincoln was not a conventionally religious man, his speeches were full of ruminations about divine providence and about God's active role in shaping the destiny of America. Lilla may disagree with the founders and with Lincoln, but he pretends like they were aberrations in some grand narrative of liberal enlightenment. He neglects to point out that today's Great Separation is a product of a series of Supreme Court decisions starting in the 1940s.
Consequently when Lilla accurately diagnoses "the revival of political theology in the modern West," he is not (as he thinks) identifying a rebellion against modernity or America or any of that. He is identifying merely a revolt against the extreme secularism that has captured academia and the courts in the past few decades. This extreme secularism has given atheists and unbelievers full control of the public square on the specious grounds that unbelief is politically safer than belief. As I will show in my forthcoming book What's So Great About Christianity, the ideologies of unbelief have littered the world with more corpses in a few decades than all the religions have managed over millennia. Isn't it time to stop crying over three-hundred year old denominational conflicts that occurred on another continent, not here in America?
Lilla's article contains one worthwhile insight. He recognizes that Islam is better tamed by traditional Muslims like Tariq Ramadan than by secular liberals who have little or no influence in Islamic countries. Otherwise he can do no better than end on a note of liberal self-congratulation. "All we have is our own lucidity," he writes without a trace of irony. "We have wagered that it is wiser to beware the forces unleashed by the Bible's messianic prose than to try exploiting them for the public good." Put this way, I don't really disagree. But who is this "we" that Lilla keeps referring to? I suspect this is academia talking to academia, Manhattan liberals cheering up other Manhattan liberals. I hope the Supreme Court discovers that it is also wise to beware the revisionist doctrines of secular pundits like Lilla.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 8)
1. 6eI found real hot Britney Spears Nude video :) Enjoy..
..
http://sexy-tube-world.net/view.php?Britney_Spears_Nude
..
..
adpshdwtsb at 10:39AM on Jan 24th 2009
2. I think it's funny when Dinesh lumps all liberals into the "anti religious" camp. Believe it or not a lot of liberals trip up to church just like the conservatives.
Kris at 1:37AM on Aug 20th 2007
3. Dinesh is confused.
The Great Separation is a legal separation. It says that Congress cannot "Establish a state religiom" and require all of us to pay taxes to support that state church.
Believe it or not, that was the normal way things were done before our liberal Forefathers codified their Radical ideas.
The price that churches paid for state financial support was that they had to support current political Party Line.
Are you willing to have your church do that, or do you think, as Thomas Jefferson said, "I have sworn eternal enmity against all forms of tyranny over the thoughts of Man."
Peter Loomis at 2:00AM on Aug 20th 2007
4. It never ceases to amaze me that the supposedly intelligent liberal secularists like Mr. Lilla ignore the obvious religious fervor of practically all of our founding fathers. Most of us who were taught in U.S. public schools before they were destroyed by liberal tampering and teacher's unions understand that the founders believed we as persons have dignity and that we merit the "inalienable rights" because we were created in the image of the Deity and He "endowed" those rights. Ironically,if Jefferson was right, by failing to believe in a Creator, the secularists exempt themselves from these rights.
Rodney Sherard at 2:09AM on Aug 20th 2007
5. That's interesting considering that our "founding fathers" also knew the importance of the separation of church and state. If something is runned by the government, religion has no place in it. That includes schools. Our founders knew better then to allow religious fanatics to force their religious beliefs upon the rest of us. They wanted a nation of freedom, not of extremists who can't tolerate the idea that not everyone thinks like them.
Jane at 2:44AM on Aug 20th 2007
6. Reality Check:
Too bad 'Kris' doesn't have facts to back his notion that Liberals 'trip up to church' just like Conservatives - The respected Barna Group's research would easily dispel that false claim.
As for 'Peter Loomis', there is no phrasing of a 'Separation of Church in State' in the Bill of Rights. As Mr. D'Souza partially explained (and I will further), the phrase came about from a letter written by Jefferson to a group of Danbury Baptists, who were worried that another Christian group was going to gain status as a 'State Religion'. Jefferson assured them that the 'wall of separation' was a protection of the Danbury Baptists' church (or any denomination)from the possibility that a national denomination be declared by the US government. A far cry from the way Courts and Liberals have revised the historical intent to restrict the free worship of religion (well, other than the religions of Atheism and Secularism).
The Bill of Rights states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.." (I repeat: OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF; this is the only US Constitutional statement regarding religion)...
Throughout US history, up until the late 1940s, this was a freedom respected by the US government. The purpose for the Freedom of Religion clause of Amendment 1 (the first statement, by the way, in the Bill of Rights), was to protect the rights of individuals to worship freely - The US received its first European settlers (the Pilgrims) as a result of religious persecution by the State (England) who tried to limit their religious freedom rights.
Evangelical Christians and others would argue that such religious freedom is under attack by the Courts who have re-interpreted the Bill of Rights and Thomas Jefferson's original intent of the Separation phrase, to limit such free expression of religion; specifically, to legislate the prohibition of expressing religious values in the public arena.
Just thought I'd bring some factual/historical accuracy to the commentary.
Regards,
A believer in the truth...
Dr. Will Pantin at 3:32AM on Aug 20th 2007
7. Sorry to break the news to you,Dinesh, but the Declaration of Independence, no matter how inspiring its rhetoric, has no legal standing in the United States. The legal foundation of our nation is the Constitution and God is mentioned nowhere in that document and religion is mentioned only twice: once in the first amendment establishing separation of church and state and the other time in the provision forbidding a religious tests for holding public office. In other words, the only times religion is mentioned in the Constitution is to restrain it. The Constitution is, and was intended by the founders to be, a thoroughly secular document.
When James Madison, the father of the Constitution, was asked why God wasn't mentioned therein, he sarcastically remarked: "We forgot."
As to you folks who want to live in a theocracy, move to Iran.
emelpe at 3:39AM on Aug 20th 2007
8. D'Souza should unabashidly declare himself a conservative apologist as it is clear he has absolutely no objectivity whatsoever. Historically speaking, even as a true believer, one has to admit that "Christian leaders" throughout history, especially since the 1500s, have screwed off the interests of the faithful in favor of supporting corrupt government! Faithful religious practice has to remain independent from prostituted religion like the "Christian" Right. The real God is beyond "republican" or "democrat" and more interested in peace with love and justice!!!!
michel at 4:33AM on Aug 20th 2007
9. Dinesh, you suck... you're a prejudiced, right wing nazi. Thank God your ancestors can't read your trash.
mark at 4:47AM on Aug 20th 2007
10. you have to be one of the most prejudices hate-mongers to ever stink up the western U.S.
marco at 4:46AM on Aug 20th 2007
11. No Mark, you suck, becuase all you can do in response to Dinesh's well-reasoned missive is call him names. Crawl back under your rock. His remarks on the university-class liberal are spot on. If you're a member of that group, I wouldn't expect you to like them. But when you use the word "Nazi" casually and simply call names, you're just another fool on the internet.
subframer at 8:19AM on Aug 20th 2007
12. There's no end to the lies Dinesh will tell. The "public square" has not been given over to "atheists and unbelievers". What a load of garbage! In fact, there are a lot of believers who are sick and tired of having the doctrines of the sects of other believers being force down their craw.
Take the before-game prayer at football games in San Antonio. Remember who sued about that? Was it atheists? NO! It was a catholic and a mormon family who sued to stop baptist-only prayer from being held. Are catholics and mormons non-believers or atheists? Some baptists would say so, actually. Which is funny, considering they'll turn around and say there are about 2 billion christians, which means they include catholics and mormons!
Dinesh ignores that people are sick and tired of being marginalized by the fundies, and he confuses their attempt to be in the main with turning over everything to atheists and non-believers.
Knight_of_BAAWA at 9:10AM on Aug 20th 2007
13. Why do we see the abandonment of a Christian God and pandering to a Islamic god. We see the government and businesses (airports, schools, etc) bending over backwards to accomadate these individuals. Yet if a Christian asked for a chapel to worship in, it would never be considered.
Why must we Americans cater to a minority while ignoring the majority.
Yes, I am a Christian tired of seeing us overdo anything for a minority.
God Bless !!!
Bill G.
Bill at 9:26AM on Aug 20th 2007
14. subframer 10
Just wondered what was particularly well reasoned about D'Souza's missive regarding the rise of religious fundamentalism?
Justifying the actions of terrorists foreign and domestic on secularism sounds like histrionics to me.
Ventrue at 9:47AM on Aug 20th 2007
15. Bill,
Some airports and most hospitals have chapels for christians.
Further: the islamic god is the christian god is the jewish god. Same. One. You may not like that, but that's the way the religions are.
Knight_of_BAAWA at 10:00AM on Aug 20th 2007