Over at the First Things blog, Richard John Neuhaus recounts* a debate sponsored by The Economist last week in New York. The discussion concerned a proposed resolution (surprise) that politics and religion should always be separate. Neuhaus presents his quite admirable opening statement in his post (all bias aside). Much of his argument aligns with my thoughts on the matter, and while I highly recommend reading through the entire statement, I will relay some quotes:
"It is not true that our society is divided between a moral majority of the religious, on the one hand, and an immoral or amoral minority of the nonreligious, on the other. Atheists can have moral convictions that are every bit as strong as the moral convictions of the devout Christian or observant Jew. What we have in the political arena is not a division between the moral and the immoral but an ongoing contention between different moral visions addressing the political question—how ought we to order our life together...
...[t]he idea that some citizens should be excluded from addressing that question because their arguments are religious, or that others should be excluded because their arguments are nonreligious or antireligious, is an idea deeply alien to the representative democracy that this constitutional order is designed to protect. A foundational principle of that order is that all citizens have equal standing in the public square."
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Source: [*] First Things [Richard John Neuhaus].
"It is not true that our society is divided between a moral majority of the religious, on the one hand, and an immoral or amoral minority of the nonreligious, on the other. Atheists can have moral convictions that are every bit as strong as the moral convictions of the devout Christian or observant Jew. What we have in the political arena is not a division between the moral and the immoral but an ongoing contention between different moral visions addressing the political question—how ought we to order our life together...
...[t]he idea that some citizens should be excluded from addressing that question because their arguments are religious, or that others should be excluded because their arguments are nonreligious or antireligious, is an idea deeply alien to the representative democracy that this constitutional order is designed to protect. A foundational principle of that order is that all citizens have equal standing in the public square."
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Source: [*] First Things [Richard John Neuhaus].
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1 comment:
Hey thanks for catching this Jeremy, this was a great post by Neuhaus and I'm definitely in agreement with him on this matter.
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