This is the first of two posts on this article in The Washington Post. Yeah, I know. The Post. Whoda thunk it?
The general tenor of our public discussion concerning the relationship between an individual's religious beliefs and his or her professional obligations as a public servant usually end up being nonsensical. For far too long the complicated nature of the role of religious belief and practice in the lives of individuals has been, in our public discourse, reduced to insisting that matters of belief are "private", which usually means they have nothing to do with an individual's duty toward others, toward their occupation or avocation, or their sense of justice, the demands of the ethical life, or the relationships within and between the various communities that make up the United States.
I think it is quite telling that many of those who insist that an individual should not, or must not (it is rare that the distinction is clear), consider his or her religious beliefs and practices as part of the guiding principles of public service usually end up quoting Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, whose importance as part of the Founding generation of the United States is immense, was among many other things, a species of 18th century religious belief known as Deism. Simplifying a bit, Deists affirm the existence of God (or perhaps, better, god) but more as an assertion without content. The specifics of the traditions and rituals associated with religious faith are set to one side as an encumbrance upon the rational life. That God is, is accepted. Who God is, what that existence means for us is left up to the life and thought of each individual.
So, our public discussion of religious belief is beholden upon an antiquated, and intellectually vacuous, notion of "religion", "God", and how these ideas (as if God were an idea only) are part of the make up of an individual's life. Even as our understanding of the dynamics of religious belief, the variety of expressions of belief, the multiple communities that draw people in and nurture their faith, the marvelous swirl of various religions - not just the major branches of Christianity and Judaism, but the rise of Islam in American, non-Western and non-traditional beliefs, paganism, even atheism - our talk is trapped in categories that cannot accept the complex, subtle, and sometimes contradictory ways an individual's set of beliefs and practices impact his or her life.
While there is much to concern more thoughtful citizens when it is reported that a large plurality of Americans, and a majority of Republicans, believe our President is a Muslim, and this is considered a "negative", it does, at the very least, offer an entry to a more thoughtful discussion concerning religion and our public life. Why should it be thought a hindrance if the President, indeed, turned out to be a Muslim? What is distinctive about Islam that would make it antithetical to public service in the United States?
Now, since just two years ago, the accusation against then-Sen. Obama that he was a white-hating non-Christian who accepted the tenets of black liberation theology as practiced in his church in Chicago, it seems the current accusation that he is really a Muslim should be thought more an expression of concern by those who hold the beliefs over the fundamental strangeness of our President being a black man rather than anything particularly odd about either liberation theology or Islam. This is not an accusation of racism; it is, rather, an observation that so much of the angst and vitriol directed at the President and his Administration and policies is steeped in a vague sense that this difference is at the heart of it all.
Yet, even so, we can have a thoughtful discussion about the relationship between membership in a congregation that practices liberation theology as its mission and ministry to the community it serves and the larger public obligations of an individual in public life. Sad to say, too much of the talk about the black theology of liberation was rooted more in ignorance (remember Glenn Beck saying that it didn't have anything to do with Christianity as he understood it?) than a thoughtful consideration of its strengths and weaknesses. Why should then-candidate Obama have felt it necessary to give a speech distancing himself from the church and its pastor, Jeremiah Wright? What is it about the specific claims of liberation theology that might make it antithetical to the demands of public service?
These entry points for a more thoughtful discussion about the intersection between religious life and public duty indicate that at some level the antiquated Deism of Jefferson is no longer a tenable way of understanding. The mix of social and cultural changes, our ever-increasing understanding of the psychology, sociology, and theology of religious belief, and the demands of our Constitution forbidding a "religious test" for public office would seem to beg all sorts of questions and necessitate all sorts of productive - but certainly heated - conversations. I do not foresee any solutions or conclusions coming from such discussions, at least not once-for-all. At the very least, such discussions show that we cannot consider religion "private" in such a way that empties it of meaning. Precisely because so many are vexed over the question of the President's potentially different set of beliefs it should be clear that leaving religion "private" just doesn't cut it anymore.
