Os Guinness wryly observes that Americans tend to view religious faith similarly to second-hand cigarette smoke. Since cigarettes contain carcinogens; it’s fine to smoke in private, but rude in public. You can see this predisposition in a Time Magazine essay (May 24, 2004), where Andrew Sullivan wrote: “It has been—amazingly—44 years since a Catholic ran for the presidency of the U.S. under a major-party banner. And how things have changed. In 1960 John F. Kennedy had to convince Americans that he was not too Catholic to be President. In 2004 John F. Kerry has to convince the Catholic bishops that he is not too American. By “too American,” I mean in the sense that religious faith is a personal matter, that it can be sealed off from public life, that it doesn’t dictate political views on any one issue.”
And then in yesterday’s New York Times, this article: “God’s Place in Charter Is Dividing Europeans.” The European Union is haggling over a new constitution that has—as the main sticking point—whether or not to include the word God. France refuses to inject religious language into a public document, noting that the constitution should be “secular,” and “well-balanced.”
What if this “too American”—and French—view is wrong? What if a public religious faith is a catalyst for good instead of a carcinogen? That’s essentially what Rodney Stark (For The Glory of God) argues for. He says you cannot account for the rise of education (especially our universities), science, women’s rights, health and medicine, and the abolition of the Slave Trade without the public role of religious faith. I would add “conscientious capitalism” to that list. Reducing religious faith to a personal matter sealed off from public life is a mistake, according to Michael Novak: “Although we in America are lucky to live under a constitutional structure that allows freedom of conscience to all, we often feel the impulse to lift the bushel a little so that the light from our own faith may shine out from it. We should do so. And so should others. It would be a mistake if we let pluralism mean that we each hid from every other, and from the public square, what is most important to us. Our faiths—all the classic faiths—are not merely a private matter. They are intended to enrich the human spirit in its public as well as its private reaches.”
History convincingly teaches us that religion has more often proven to be a catalyst for good—like electricity. It has empowered lives and shaped societies. To be fair, there are those times when religion “burned” people. But that merely proves it’s a catalyst, not a carcinogen. I don’t believe we’ll be “well-balanced” if we lop off a significant part of what has shaped our modern world. Instead, we need to sew religious faith back into the fabric of public life. This is mission of The Clapham Institute. We help individuals and institutions (companies, churches, arts centers, etc.) advance a public religious faith as a catalyst for cultural renewal.
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