tothesource: Your book is called The End of Secularism—a provocative title! What do you mean by that? Is there a double meaning there? Or is the secular view of things winding down historically?
Hunter Baker: Yes, there is definitely a double meaning. I am referring to the end of secularism as a political philosophy that people readily accept as a solution to religious pluralism. I am also writing about the "end" or purpose of secularism, which is, in my view, to redecorate the public square in a fashion that suits secularists.
I am not predicting the end of secularism or of the dwindling of secularists. But secularism as the public philosophy to take us into the future is dying because the deceptions are becoming more obvious all the time. We now understand that it is not and could never be the neutral position. Secularism, as Robert George once said, is a player on the field simultaneously attempting to call balls and strikes.
tothesource: You spend a fair amount of time talking about the beginning of secularism, rather than the end. You make a very interesting and important claim that the “spring of secularism,” its beginning, was actually in the “wars of religion” in the 17thcentury. Why is it important to understand the origin?
Baker: You have to understand where secularism comes from if you want to argue against it. The Reformation happens and a lot of people are very hopeful about the future. What they don't count on is the terrible clash of powers that results. Before, you had one king, one religion, one people. Now, the pins don't all line up and people aren't sure how to handle it.
The institutional separation of church and state is a terrific development that, in my mind, really deals with the issues to the advantage of the church. But secularism goes too far. We should push back in favor of a healthy understanding of institutional separation of church and state. Neither reports to the other. Both account to God. The church should always call the state to righteousness, to do what God would have it do. As Luther said, people require order and safety just as they need air or water. The state should do the job of restraining the predations of evil. Most importantly, the church must constantly remind the state that it may never put itself in God's place. The church is a hedge against totalitarianism.
tothesource: In speaking about the Deists at the origin of secularism, one brings to mind that many of the most influential founders were Deists. Do you mean to argue that the American founding contains the seeds of the purely secular state?
Baker: No, I am arguing against two interpretations of the American founding. The first is the idea that the U.S. was established as a secular nation through the Constitution. The second is that all the founders were bent on creating Christian America. Neither is correct. There was an interesting mix of enlightenment deists and devout Christians working together in the cause of liberty. My primary argument is that you can't look to the religion clauses of the First Amendment to settle the matter. They should be read as jurisdictional: "CONGRESS shall make no law . . ."
tothesource: We assume that you read the First Amendment differently from many judges on the bench and legal scholars in academia?
Baker: Yes, my reading of the First Amendment is unorthodox, though heavily influenced by one of the finest scholars of law and religion in America, Steven D. Smith and also by the legal historian Robert Palmer. While it is unorthodox, I think it is highly explanatory of why the clauses cause so much trouble now. We do not know what the religion clauses mean because we keep trying to argue that in a few words, the founders laid out an entire philosophy of church-state separation. They did no such thing. They left it to the states because they had no choice. The states did not want interference or competition on the matter.
tothesource: That brings us back to the common notion that, historically, we are inevitably moving away from an age of religion and superstition, and into the age of reason. On this view, no matter what the founders thought, secularists’ interpretation of the Constitution will win out! Secularism is historically inevitable. But you take another view. You argue that the advance of secularism wasn’t historically inevitable, but the purposeful result of secular activism.
Baker: The idea that secularization is historically inevitable is one that was once uncritically accepted by huge swaths of the academy. Today, it is under heavy attack by scholars who properly note that secularization theory expresses a wish rather than a reality. Peter Berger criticizes the theory today, but at one time he suggested the advent of the 21st century would find small groups of believers huddled against the modern age. I applaud his integrity in revising his view many years ago.
Certainly, I do see that secularism has advanced in American life, most notably in the universities, thanks to activism from secularizers. One of the key examples is a Carnegie fund that offered professor pensions to schools which agreed to sever all church ties. At the same time, Protestants just made horrible decisions. They were more worried about Catholics than secularists and hired faculty by the gross who had little interest in the Christian faith. It doesn't matter if you keep the board Christian and the president Christian. The faculty are the ones forming young minds. If they stop caring about the mission, then the mission is dead.
tothesource: Does that mean that Christians should be anti-secular activists?
Baker: I think Christians should kindly refuse the invitation to take their religious activity and speech private. They should maintain the validity of the faith for their approach to community life and politics. They should point out that secularism provides little guidance for dealing with big political questions and that the values have to come from somewhere. Too often, secularists selectively crib Christian values without acknowledging the source. We didn't just get here by accident. We don't appreciate things like liberty, equality, and democracy by sheer accident. Christianity has been a major civilizational force.
Christians should also learn about their own faith. Religion is not a commodity. Christianity is not just another religion. Don't accept the idea that your faith is about emotion and pure mysticism and the no one else can understand it. Realize that the Christian faith makes public claims about events that happened in history. Stick close to the resurrection of Christ and you won't go far wrong in challenging the secular orthodoxy. |
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