Many years ago I was asked to lead a colloquium at the University of Zürich on the topic “Church and State” (“Kirche und Staat”). Having been educated both in the US and in Switzerland, I found the comparison between the situations here and there quite interesting. Zürich, Switzerland was one of the three major centers of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, and the transition from Catholicism to Protestantism which began in 1519 was carried out as a joint effort of the Reformer Ulrich Zwingli and the City Council of Zürich. That is, the transition was both a political and a religious process, and as a result, the Church and the State in Zürich are to this day very closely connected. Clergy members, for instance, are required to pass exams administered by the State just as medical doctors are in the US. The Church is regulated by state law, and the remuneration of the clergy as well as all other expenses of the church are covered by state and local taxes. Church leaders are publicly elected officials with the same status as City Council members. To be sure, the trend today is toward a loosening of the ties between church and state, but the legal structure still guarantees that the Zürich Church remains a State institution.
When one speaks today about church and state in the US, one certainly has something quite different in mind from the situation that I just described. There is no state church in the US, nor would Americans of any religious persuasion want to establish one. What prevailed historically in the US was not a close connection between the Christian Church and the State, but rather a loose connection between religion in the broadest sense and the State. Whether this loose connection has been beneficial or harmful to our country is a matter about which opinions diverge greatly, but the fact is undeniable that the connection envisioned by our Founders has led to considerable confusion. Whereas the Swiss are very clear on the meaning of “church and state”, the phrase “religion and state” is so vague that Americans have had difficulty reaching any clarity.
Take, for instance, the phrase: “In God we trust”. As a child, I assumed that the word “God” in this phrase referred to the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition, but this assumption is clearly unfounded. It is of paramount importance that Thomas Jefferson appealed to “Nature’s God” and to the “Creator” in the Declaration of Independence rather than to the “God of Abraham” or to “Jesus Christ”. Furthermore, the framers of the Bill of Rights referred to “religion”, not to the “Christian Church” in the First Amendment. In both cases, our Founders were thinking about religion is a very broad sense–so broad in fact, that the word “God” in this context could just as well refer to the Muslim Allah as to the Jewish Yahweh or to the Holy Trinity of the Christians. In the Enlightenment atmosphere of the 18th century, our Founders did not value religion in the political sphere in the same way that the 16th century Swiss did nor in the same way that the 17th century Puritans of the Boston Bay Colony did. They did not want to found the country on the religious views of any particular group, but rather on the idea that a religious faith of some sort is the basis of any healthy society. On the one hand, they did not think that it is necessary to hold specifically Christian values. On the other hand, they did not think that a truly atheistic society could survive. That was their dilemma. And I think that it remains a dilemma today.
Since atheism is a modern phenomenon (unknown before the 18th century), we have no historical basis for thinking that a thoroughgoing atheistic society can survive over a long period of time. All of the moral values developed in Western Civilization have presupposed the experience of transcendence. Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics” could not have been written in an atheistic society. If we eliminate the experience of transcendence, we eliminate at the same time the possibility of distinguishing between right and wrong. In fact, our Founders went even further in their conviction that religious faith is a necessary condition for the functioning of society. On this point, they agreed with John Locke who considered a religious faith in the broadest sense to be the foundation of trust among human beings and therefore the basis for a society organized around promises, covenants and oaths. In 1956, President Eisenhower was acting in accordance with this traditional when he signed into law the national motto: In God we trust. Two years earlier, he had pushed to have the phrase “under God” inserted into the Pledge to the Flag. In his official statement, Eisenhower said: “In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future…”
So it is inaccurate to maintain that our nation was founded upon Judeo-Christian principles, but it is equally inaccurate to claim that it was founded on totally secular ideas. Religion in the broadest sense, i.e. the experience of transcendence, was considered to be a foundational element, and the phrase “In God we trust” was intended to bring this element to expression. For the modern humanist, the phrase says too much; for the evangelical Christian, the phrase says too little. It is perhaps worth considering whether the humanist and the evangelical could find some meeting ground in the original meaning of the phrase. It should be noted, however, that placing these words on our currency or on our automobile license plates does not constitute the experience of transcendence. On the contrary, one could argue that the excessive use of the phrase indicates an absence of the experience. For this reason, I am generally unimpressed when politicians bring religious language into political discourse.
And one final point: The word “God” in this phrase has received much attention, whereas the word “trust” is rarely mentioned. Why is that the case? One suspects that there is much more bickering about the phrase than there is real trust. The phrase that expresses the true feelings of most Americans would probably be something like this: Trust is good, missiles are better! In the end, atheism has affected all of us. Therein lies the depth of our dilemma.
Villager Jack Brush is a frequent contributor to Villages-News.com
