[Dean's World] Dean: The Holy Vote: A Review

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Posted by Dean:
The Holy Vote: A Review
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1165781180.shtml


   I've been reading Ray Suarez's [1]The Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith
   in America. I think it's important, when writing about religious
   matters, to declare up front what you believe and what your prejudices
   are--and since this is a book about faith and religion in America, I
   think that sort of up-front honesty is doubly important.

   I've had deep and abiding struggle with evangelical, Bible-centric
   Christianity--the most powerful religious and political movement in
   America--ever since I was a kid. I am deeply ambivalent about this
   peculiarly American variant of the Christian faith. I've had many
   friends and relatives who are part of it, and I see that it produces
   some good in them. Yet I also see a great deal of negativity in what
   they believe and what it causes them to do and say, and the
   destructive effect it obviously has on some of their families and
   friendships.

   Furthermore, I am a secularist, but not a rabid one. Secularism is a
   tool and not an end. Secularism allows people of varying faiths to
   find ways to get along, but it is no more than that; it is certainly
   not an answer to every need people have. Indeed, even when I was an
   atheist (I now consider myself a deist) I recognized that the vast
   majority of human beings--well over 95%, quite possibly 100%--have a
   deep need for spirituality. I think it's a need that goes to their
   very bones, their very genetic structure, and you can't take it out of
   them. Nor can you offer things like science or other intellectual
   pursuits as an alternative; those are pale substitutes at best.

   Still, I've long viewed America as great because we have a certain
   implied social contract: we don't care what your religious views are,
   so long as you're tolerant of others and respect our laws. Tolerance
   doesn't even imply approval, but it does imply a willingness to live
   and let live, and to allow people of different faiths to simply agree
   to disagree.

   Suarez feels that something has gone terribly awry with the
   involvement of religion and politics in America. He doesn't entirely
   blame either the right-wing evangelicals or anyone else. Indeed, in
   his opening chapters he says it quite well:

     Along with all the other changes in American political life came a
     change in the way we see each other. We Americans do not go into
     battle crediting the other side of the argument with operating out
     of goodwill. Increasingly, your opponent is not merely wrong, or
     mistaken, but bad. In the eyes of many fighting to insert more
     religion into the public sphere, their opponents hate America, hate
     religion, and will not stop until all signs of religion are chased
     from the public realm. In the eyes of many fighting for strict
     separation, the religious will not stop until there is a theocracy
     in America, until it becomes a conservative Christian state.

     The stereotyping is nonstop. The allegations are often laughable.
     But the visions of American from the two poles are mutually
     exclusive and--at first glance--irreconcilable. The large and
     growing number of Americans who profess no faith at all may make
     tough and unsentimental critiques of American political life and
     the national culture, and yet find displays of American religiosity
     damaging affronts to their liberty.

   Suarez devotes 12 chapters to trying to look at these issues from both
   sides and, while he's obviously more sympathetic to secularist
   viewpoints than to politically active evangelicals, he makes his
   points thoughtfully and well, and does his best to be fair to those he
   disagrees with.

   On the one hand, contrary to popular myth, America was not founded as
   a Christian nation. On the other hand, it was founded by people who
   were overwhelmingly Christian, and their Christian views influenced a
   lot of things, including much of how our government was constructed. I
   don't think any of that should be denied.

   On the third hand, Christians who rejected America were also a big
   part of our founding story; many, many Christians, citing [2]Romans
   13, viewed the entire Revolution as an offense against God and a
   Christian king. They joined the fight against the revolutionaries, and
   when the revolutionaries won, some either gave up politics, or moved
   to other nations, assuming the new Republic to be a work of Satan.

   We also tend to forget that deists and Jews and people who were not
   particularly religious were also part of the revolution and the
   construction of the new Republic. Many of the founders were deeply
   religious people who fled due to religious persecution; many others
   weren't all that religious but fled here because religious people
   persecuted them.

   None of this means, as some rabid secularists have suggested, that you
   should "keep your religion to yourself." Balderdash. There should be a
   certain mannerliness about it--you don't proselytize constantly--but
   there's nothing wrong with identifying yourself proudly with your
   faith and being willing to discuss it openly if the subject comes up.

   Furthermore, I think Suarez gets some things wrong. For example, he
   tends to assume that the irreligious feel oppressed by open
   professions of faith, or invocations of God, at government functions.
   But I don't feel that way and I profess no religion. Indeed, I have no
   problem whatsoever with the words "Under God" in the Pledge or "In God
   We Trust" on the money or any of that. I view proposals to eliminate
   such things as not just politically stupid, but also Constitutionally
   and historically without merit. These things do not constitute
   "establishment of religion" nor do they interfere with anyone's free
   exercise of religion.

   I even think that court decisions banning things like led
   non-sectarian prayers and graduation ceremonies at public schools. You
   might argue that we'd be better off without such things, and I might
   agree. But I do not believe they constitute "establishment of a
   religion," and ultimately, I believe that banning them--particularly
   with the blunt instrument of the courts--does far, far more harm than
   good.

   Suarez seems to forget that there are a considerable chunk of
   not-particularly-religious people who feel the same way. Suarez also
   seems at times to think that the injection of faith into politics is
   something new, but it's not. Open professions of faith have been an
   indelible part of American politics from the beginning, and these
   things are not new even though Suarez sometimes writes as if they are.

   It's also pretty obvious from reading it who Suarez voted for in the
   2004 Presidential election.

   All that said, this is a challenging, interesting book that often
   gives great insight into the current state of our politics in America,
   circa 2006. I was at times irritated, at times inspired, at times
   challenged, and often engrossed by Suarez's point of view. Anyone with
   an interest in the intersection of politics and faith in today's
   America might want to pick up [3]The Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith
   in America. It should make great holiday reading.

References

   1. http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Vote-Politics-Faith-America/dp/0060829974/sr=1-1/qid=1165776892/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-5709475-8079310?ie=UTF8&s=books/deansworld01-20
   2. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans%2013&version=31
   3. http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Vote-Politics-Faith-America/dp/0060829974/sr=1-1/qid=1165776892/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-5709475-8079310?ie=UTF8&s=books/deansworld01-20