The comments sections of
Part I: The Difference Between Religious Freedom and Religious Tolerance
Part II: Are We Hostile Toward or Encouraging Religious Belief?
Part III: Consequences of Excluding Religion from the Public Square
of this Theocrats, Moral Relativism & the Myth of Religious Tolerance series, plus Justin’s Favoring the Non-Participatory posting, offer up many statements which present a largely incoherent vision for how our society will develop, share, and sustain a set of core values necessary for it to exist in a cohesive manner.
Distilled to their essence, the comments highlighted four major issues:

1. Do moral truths (discovered via either faith or reason) exist and belong in the public square – and how should they affect our public life?
2. How do we define reason and religious freedom?
3. What does religious freedom – as defined in the 1st Amendment – mean and how has jurisprudence and societal practices changed our interpretation of religious freedom over the years?
4. What role and importance did the Founding Fathers assign to religion in our society and why?

This posting focuses on the first part of question #1 and subsequent postings in this series will address the remaining issues.
To provide a context before tackling question #1, here are some of the statements from the comments sections:

At no time do I want to interfere with your right or anyone else’s right to practice [religion] as you choose…It is impossible for the state to speak on religion without giving the impression that one has been preferred. As you increase “liberty” for one, you decrease it for others. The Founders wanted balance for all…The Government does not have the right to allow one advocacy over another even if we can’t figure out what the other is…We can never figure out what “all” advocacy is…Since the “all” universe cannot be determined, the only way to keep balance is the “no” universe…The Government cannot allow the advocacy of religion on public grounds because it limits the freedoms of others to express their religious views when they are not advocated. The non-advocated position has been de-established by the Government�How do you know with certainty that every religion has been asked to participate? You assume so because as a mainstream sect, you were. However, the guy who worships Kelly Clarkson as a demi-goddess was not…he was left out, his religion is valid, and therefore demeaned…Since everyone will not choose to participate…you cannot allow some belief system to obtain an advantage because they choose to participate. Therefore, no one gets to participate.

There are two striking features to these comments: First, they avoid any discussion of substantive issues such as freedom, justice, rights, and moral common sense. Instead, they devolve into ideas emphasizing how our government should restrict the freedom of citizens to express their beliefs in any public forum.
And when we equate the suggested religion of Kelly-Clarkson-as-a-demi-goddess with either the Jewish or Christian tradition, have not we just endorsed an unserious moral relativism which denies there are any moral truths discoverable by faith or reason? If there are no moral truths, have not then words like freedom and justice lost all meaning?
Reflections on Pope John Paul II’s role in the demise of Communism – as highlighted in an article in the extended entry below – offers some guidance about where to begin:

Language, then, and the restoration of its relationship with reality were critical to the Communist collapse. This was no small feat since, for many in the West, words had lost their meaning. A recovery of meaning was essential before a real challenge could be presented…You cannot use “evil” as an adjective until you know it as a noun…the new struggle [today] is over the meaning of freedom…In Veritatis Splendor, the pope warned of “the risk of an alliance between democracy and ethical relativism, which would remove any sure moral reference point from political and social life, and on a deeper level make the acknowledgment of truth impossible.” If truth is impossible, so are the “self-evident truths” upon which free government depends. Then, one can understand everything in terms of power and its manipulation…[John Paul II] raised the hope that moral recovery is possible by calling for it.

That loss of meaning means we – at least implicitly – deny the existence of moral truths and, by default, fail to address the societal consequences of the moral relativism now dominating the public square, as described by these words from Pope Benedict XVI:

No great, inspiring culture of the future can be built upon the moral principle of relativism. For at its bottom such a culture holds that nothing is better than anything else, and that all things are in themselves equally meaningless…
The culture of relativism invites its own destruction…by its own internal incoherence…

Yet, acknowledging the existence of moral truths is part of both our American and Western Civilization heritages. As Lee Harris writes, our heritage is a rich one:

Christian Europe, after all, was a fusion of diverse elements: the Hebrew tradition, the experience of the early Christian community, the Roman genius for law, order, and hierarchy, the Germanic barbarians’ love of freedom, among many others. In this cultural amalgam, Greek philosophy certain played a role. St. Clement argued that Greek philosophy had been given by God to mankind as a second source of truth, comparable to the Hebrew revelation. Benedict argues that the “inner rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry was an event of decisive importance not only from the standpoint of the history of religions, but also from that of world history.”

Our heritage not only acknowledges the existence of moral truths but argues that these truths can be discovered by either faith or reason – thereby confirming what has been true for centuries: This public conversation about the role of moral truths in the public square does not require everyone to hold identical religious beliefs. It does require us to be morally serious and to firmly place moral relativism in the dustbin of history.
Moral truths belong in the public square to avoid the societal consequences of moral relativism. Only with a belief in moral truths can words become meaningful again and enable us to begin a public conversation about principles such as freedom and – from there – to discuss proper ways to introduce their meaning back into the public square.
As a first step toward the recovery of meaning, let’s next ask ourselves whether we truly understand the meaning of freedom – including religious freedom – and reason as we explore how best to live our American experiment in ordered liberty.

(more…)