Demigod79
08-28-2007, 12:25 AM
Today I was reading a book called Church, State and Public Justice which deals with the issue of separation between church and state. It examines the issue from five Christian points of views and one of them really caught my attention. It was a response written to a Catholic view that there is nothing wrong with the government directly funding religious organizations. A person by the name of Derek Davis argued that it's precisely because of the separation between state and church that religion is so strong in America. Here's a sample of what he said:
To comprehend the potential damage to American religious vitality done by government benevolence, we first must recognize that the durability of a nation's spirit is conditioned heavily by the maintenance of separation between its two dominant institutional forms--the political and the religious.
... there is vulnerability to the American system and to all church-state systems in modern pluralistic societies. That vulnerability is perhaps best illustrated in the church-state partnerships of modern Europe, where religion is given "equal treatment," yet statistics on religious belief and practice reflect a pale religiosity as compared to the United States within its tradition of church-state separation.
Do we not risk a similar decline in religiosity by adapting the same neutrality principle that has characterized much of Europe for decades, even centuries? Might it be true that the dynamism and vitality of religion in America is attributable to the separation principle? Is it not true that Americans voluntarily support their religious institutions because government declines to do it for them? Religion remains robust in America precisely because it is independent of government support and regulation. Americans possess a will to support their religious institutions because government does not do it for them. A new era of government benefits to religion could kill the voluntary spirit that sustains the vibrancy and dynamism of American religion.
If we are willing to take a lesson from our European friends, we will know that government aid and support is harmful rather than helpful to religion. Many Europeans today unfortunately look upon religion as just another government program. Attendance in most European churches is abysmal. The people have lost, to a very large degree, the will to support their own religious institutions because government does it for them. It would be a great tragedy indeed if America, where religion is alive and robust, adopted essentially the same patterns of government funding of religion that exist in many parts of Europe, where religion is experiencing a gradual death.
-- pp. 69 - 70 from said book
I remember Richard Dawkins saying how strange it was that America, with no national religion or government-endorsement of religion, has such a strong religious following compared to England, which has an official state church. Could the very thing that makes America the best model of a secular nation actually be strengthening religion within it? Could this be the crucial difference between America and the other democracies that makes it the most religious nation in the developed world?
To comprehend the potential damage to American religious vitality done by government benevolence, we first must recognize that the durability of a nation's spirit is conditioned heavily by the maintenance of separation between its two dominant institutional forms--the political and the religious.
... there is vulnerability to the American system and to all church-state systems in modern pluralistic societies. That vulnerability is perhaps best illustrated in the church-state partnerships of modern Europe, where religion is given "equal treatment," yet statistics on religious belief and practice reflect a pale religiosity as compared to the United States within its tradition of church-state separation.
Do we not risk a similar decline in religiosity by adapting the same neutrality principle that has characterized much of Europe for decades, even centuries? Might it be true that the dynamism and vitality of religion in America is attributable to the separation principle? Is it not true that Americans voluntarily support their religious institutions because government declines to do it for them? Religion remains robust in America precisely because it is independent of government support and regulation. Americans possess a will to support their religious institutions because government does not do it for them. A new era of government benefits to religion could kill the voluntary spirit that sustains the vibrancy and dynamism of American religion.
If we are willing to take a lesson from our European friends, we will know that government aid and support is harmful rather than helpful to religion. Many Europeans today unfortunately look upon religion as just another government program. Attendance in most European churches is abysmal. The people have lost, to a very large degree, the will to support their own religious institutions because government does it for them. It would be a great tragedy indeed if America, where religion is alive and robust, adopted essentially the same patterns of government funding of religion that exist in many parts of Europe, where religion is experiencing a gradual death.
-- pp. 69 - 70 from said book
I remember Richard Dawkins saying how strange it was that America, with no national religion or government-endorsement of religion, has such a strong religious following compared to England, which has an official state church. Could the very thing that makes America the best model of a secular nation actually be strengthening religion within it? Could this be the crucial difference between America and the other democracies that makes it the most religious nation in the developed world?