Audacity of Hope's Audacity of Faith: Obama's "ground rules of collaboration"

The following excerpt will be particularly relevant when/if Mr. Obama becomes President.  Maybe we'll revisit it when the time comes.  The passage is excerpted from his book The Audacity of Hope it clearly articulates his agenda which will be to discount any discussion that can't be seen, heard or quantified because it must be argued in a way that can be agreed  upon by "...people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all..." (Mr. Obama says "accessible" but implies "agreed upon"... since religion, by definition, IS accessible to all)  

"To do this the tensions and suspicions on either side of the religious divide will have to be squarely addressed. And each side will need to accept some ground rules for collaboration. The first and most difficult step for some evangelical Christians is to acknowlege the critical role that the establishment clause has played in not only the development of our democracy, but also in the robustness of religious practice. Contrary the claims of many on the Christian right who rail against the separation of church and state their argument is not with a handful of 60's judges but with the drafters of the bill of rights and the forebearers of todays evangelical church. Many of the leading lights of the revolution, most notably, Franklin and Jeffereson, were deists, who while believing in an almighty God, questioned not only the dogma of the Christian church, but also the central tenents of Christianity itself. Including Christ's divinity. Jefferson and Madison in particular argued for what Jefferson called a "wall of seperation" between church and state. As not only the means of protecting individual liberty, and religious belief in practice, protecting the state from sectarian strife, and protecting organized religion from the state's encroachment or undue influence. Of course, not all founding Father's agreed. Men like Patrick Henry and John Adams forwarded a variety of proposals to use the arm of the state to promote religion. But while it was Jefferson and Madison who pushed through the Virginia statute of religious freedom, that would become the model for the first amendments religion clauses, it wasn't these students of the enlightenment who proved to be the most effective champions of a separation between church and state. Rather it was baptists like reverend John Leland and other evangelicals who provided the popular support needed to get these providsions ratified. They did so because they were outsiders, because their style of exuberant worship appealed to the lower classes, because their evangelization of all comers including slaves, threatened the established order. Because they were no respector of rank and privilige and because they were consistently persecuted and distained by the dominant anglican church in the south and the congregationalist orders of the north."

"What our deliberative, pluralistic democracy does demand is that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal rather than religious specific values. It requires that their proposals must be subject to arguement and amenable to reason. If I am opposed to abortion for religious reasons and seek to pass a law banning the practice I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or invoke God's will and expect that argument to carry the day. If I want others to listen to me then I have to explain why abortion violates some principal that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all. For those that believe in the inerrancy of the bible, as many evangelicals do, such rules of engagement may seem just one more example of the tyranny of the secular and material world over the sacred and eternal. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Almost by definition, Faith and Reason operate in different domains. And involve different paths to discerning truth. Reason and Science involves the accumulation of knowlege based on realities that we can all apprehend. Religion by contrast are based on truths that are not provable through ordinary human understanding. The belief in things not seen. When science teachers insist on keeping creationism or intelligent design out of their classrooms, they are not aserting that scientific knowlege is superior to religious insight. They are simply insisting that each path to knowlege involves different rules and that those rules are not interchangeable."

"In a pluralistic democracy, the same distinctions apply. Politics, like science, depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. Moreover, politics, unlike science, involves compromise the art of the possible. At some fundemental level religion does not allow for compromise. It insists on the impossible. If God is spoken, then listeners are expected to live up to God's edicts regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing. The story of Abraham and Isaac offer a simple, but powerful example. According to the worlds three great monotheistic religions Abraham is ordered by God to offer up his only son Isaac, "whom you love" , as a burnt offering. Without argument Abraham takes Isaac to the mountaintop, binds him to an alter, raises his knife prepared to act as God has commanded. Of course we know the happy ending. God sends down an angel to intercede at the very last minute, Abraham has past God's test of devotion. He becomes a model of fidelity to God. And his great faith is rewarded through future generations. And yet it is fair to say that if any of us saw a 21st century Abraham raising the knife on the roof of his apartment building we would call the police. We would wrestle him down, even if we saw him lower the knife at the last moment, we would expect the department of CFS to take Isaac away and charge Abraham with child abuse. We would do that because God does not reveal himself or his angels to all of us in a single moment. We do not hear what Abraham hears, we do not see what Abraham sees. True as those experiences may be the best we can do is act in accordance with the things that are possible for all of us to know. Understanding that a part of what we know to be true as individuals or communities of faith will be true for us alone."

"Finally, any reconciliation between faith and democratic pluralism require some sense of proportion. ..this is not entirely foreign to religious doctrine. Even those who claim the bibles inerrancy make distinctions between scriptural edicts based on a sense that some passages, the ten commandments say, or a belief in Christ's divinity are central to Christian faith. While others are more culturally specific and may be modified to accomodate modern life. The American people intuitively understand this which is why the majority of Catholics practice birth control and some of those who oppose gay marriage nevertheless are opposed to a constitutional amendment banning it. Religious leadership need not accept such wisdom in counseling their flocks, but they should recognize this wisdom in their politics. If a sense of proportion should guide christian activism, then it should also guide those who police the boundaries between church and state. Not every mention of God in public is a breach of the wall of separation. As the supreme court has properly recognized, context matters. It is doubtful that children siting the plege of allegiance feel oppressed or brainwashed as a consequence of muttering the phrase 'under God'. I didn't.   Allowing the use of school property for voluntary students prayer groups shouldn't be a threat any more than it is used by the high school republicans should threaten democrats."

"I thought of Sasha asking me once what happens when we die. 'I don't wanna die, Daddy.' And I hugged her a said you've got a long, long way to go before you have to worry about that which had seemed to satisfy her. I wondered whether I should have told her the truth, that I wasn't sure what happens when we die any more than I was sure of where the soul resides, or what existed before the big bang. Walking up the stairs though, I knew what I hoped for, that my mother was somewhere. Together in some way with those four little girls capable in some fashion of embracing them and of finding Joy in their spirits. I know that tucking in my daughters that night I grasped a little bit of heaven."