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 4 of 8)
46. Religiosity is not a pre-requisite for good virtue.
BOB JOHNSON at 4:49PM on Aug 20th 2007
47. "Darkman, you really need to back all of your claims. But, because I'm so nice, I'll destroy all of them for you.
I do not call that which always existed "god". I call it the universe. The hatred of atheists by militant christians has everything to do with fear and doubt on the part of the christians. Christians destroy the belief that the individual matters by proclaiming that the individual is unworthy of god, and that we are all held in some collective guilt. Militant atheists do not destroy the belief that the individual matters. There is no savior."-Knight_of_BAAWA
I'm not sure just what you think you've "destroyed". The mathematical proof of "god" through mathmatics stands, as it always has. As far as "collective guilt" that would require that "guilt" be by association with a group and not individual acts.
Since the Christians believe Christ forgives all sin you have no basis to even claim they are placing any "guilt" on any individual, let alone any group, since the "guilt" is forgiven by Christ. Now if you were to claim you are pure and have never commited any "sin" to be forgiven for then that would be different.
Since you don't believe there was a savior it becomes a moot point, after all even if the Christians did proclaim you "guilty" they have no interest in doing anything about it except praying for you, just as they do for the rest of us non-believers. Unless you believe that their prayers have some supernatural power there is no danger to you.
As I said before the hatred of the Christians by militant atheists is strictly political.
In contrast the Muslims will quite literally cut your head off if they get a chance.
Darkmanwp at 6:01PM on Aug 20th 2007
48. Scottfother, Correct! Jewish people still look for the Messiah
Bridget at 6:07PM on Aug 20th 2007
49. Knight of BAAWAA, Are you perhaps Jewish, Muslim,or an atheist?
Bridget at 6:12PM on Aug 20th 2007
50. Knight of Baawaa... and I forgot Islam and agnostic?
Bridget at 6:17PM on Aug 20th 2007
51. oops or perhaps an Evolutionist?
Bridget at 6:28PM on Aug 20th 2007
52. Why is it that liberals feel the compulsive need to parse language to the extreme as they do in the case of the First Ammendment. This ammendment was designed to restrain Government and not religion.
The Supreme Court's majority ruling in the Dredd Scott case, which ruled that the phrase "all men are created equal" did not apply to African slaves is a pefect example of the kind of judicial activism that is the hallmark of liberalism. The chief justice of the Supreme Court actually wrote the majority opinion in the Dredd Scott case. His sublime parsing and tortured reasoning was simply that it was obvious that the Founders did not mean to include African slaves in the term "all men"
The First Ammenedment states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." and means Congress shall not enact laws favoring one religion over another and shall not prohibit the free exercise of religion. It does does not mean, as liberals contend, that religion is to be banished from the public square nor does it mean that religious principles can have no bearing in secular society. Liberal logic is as absurd as Justice Taney's in the Dredd Scott case.
John Gleason at 7:21PM on Aug 20th 2007
53. Darkmanwp,
There is no mathematical proof of god; you've just deluded yourself into believing that there is. If there is, you could show us. No, A = A does not prove that there is a god. It only proves that something is itself.
And yes, christians believe in collective guilt. After all: it's what Paul says. Remember: we are all tainted because of what Adam and Eve did. Collective. Guilt. Deny that and you deny the foundation of original sin--you deny the sin nature of humans--you deny the need for salvation. I don't think you want to do that--DO YOU?
And I have never committed any sin at all. I cannot sin, for sin is a myth. It does not exist. No, immoral act is not the same as sin. Do not ever conflate the two.
Christians hate atheists because they fear us. They fear what we represent: people who do not accept their self-hatred.
Knight_of_BAAWA at 6:41PM on Aug 20th 2007
54. What is an "evolutionist", Bridget? Is that like a "gravity-ist"?
Knight_of_BAAWA at 6:41PM on Aug 20th 2007
55. Actually, John: Dredd Scott was "conservative" judicial activism.
And you'll be thanked to keep your strawmen to yourself.
Knight_of_BAAWA at 6:42PM on Aug 20th 2007
56. The existence of the religious people and the non-religious people has nothing to do with the existence of God or not both sides base their convictions in the evidences they respectively see according to their points of view. Religion is not a proof of God's existence or not. Religion is only a culture that is shaped according to the times and social needs. Our society needs the existence of both sides in order to balance our actions and attitude toward life. Thank goodness some atheist scientists went foward with their skeptical minds and achieved many goals and geat deeds to benefit society in general including people of faith. Many great things that were achieved in our society would not have been achieved if we only had religious people around. Religion limits peoples thoughts and drives towards many important issues in our society. Thus Mr. D'Souza even though I believe in God I find it necessary that Mark Lilla's expresses his views the way he does because only so we can debate and find a common ground to narrow our differences and make this world a better place.
Sidney DeSouza at 6:47PM on Aug 20th 2007
57. To Knight of baba: I did not say the Dredd Scott decision was "liberal judicial activism". I said it was the type of judicial activism that has become the hallmark of liberalism. The parsing and deconstruction of language to align with political expediency is dangerous. I don't care who does it. I am precise with my words, you should be as precise in your reading.
John Gleason at 7:25PM on Aug 20th 2007
58. I have two points. The first is that Republicans continue to go around saying that they're the party who has "morals and values", and they act like they're the party filled with decency and family values while the Democratic Party is filled with lesbians and satan-worshippers. And the fact that the Democrats and the media sit by, allowing it is profound. The second point I have, and it's one that the Christian Right seems to forget, is that one thing that the founding fathers believed in when coming up with the Constitution was the seperation of church and state. You have to keep church and state seperated. When you combine religion and politics, you get theocracies like Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Dave at 7:14PM on Aug 20th 2007
59. I wrote:
“According to Gregory Paul and Phil Zuckerman: ‘the nonreligious probably soared past the billion mark already’ (Why the Gods aren’t winning).”
After reading the original article again, I didn’t quote Paul and Zuckerman right. Here is what Paul and Zuckerman actually wrote:
“The [World Christian Encyclopedia] probably understates today's nonreligious. They have Christians constituting 68-94% of nations where surveys indicate that a quarter to half or more are not religious, and they may overestimate Chinese Christians by a factor of two. In that case the nonreligious probably soared past the billion mark already, and the three great faiths total 64% at most.”
Here is a link to the full article:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/paul07/paul07_index.html
On a different note, here is a link to the New York Times article on the recent poll done by East China Normal University that found the number of religious Chinese 16 years or older at 31%:
http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F50A11FB3C550C778CDDAA0894DF404482
Wes at 8:25PM on Aug 20th 2007
60. Poor Little Johnny Gleason; he thinks that I said something I didn't say. Poor little Johnny Gleason.
Knight_of_BAAWA at 8:44PM on Aug 20th 2007