John Locke drafted a constitution for the Carolinas in 1669, entitled, “The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina.” His draft was never ratified, but here are some provisions relating to “churches” which may be of some interest, in light of the resurgence of scholarship involving the liberty of the church:
Ninety-seven. But since the natives of that place, who will be concerned in our plantation, are utterly strangers to Christianity, whose idolatry, ignorance, or mistake gives us no right to expel or use them ill; and those who remove from other parts to plant there will unavoidably be of different opinions concerning matters of religion, the liberty whereof they will expect to have allowed them, and it will not be reasonable for us, on this account, to keep them out, that civil peace may be maintained amidst diversity of opinions, and our agreement and compact with all men may be duly and faithfully observed; the violation whereof, upon what presence soever, cannot be without great offence to Almighty God, and great scandal to the true religion which we profess; and also that Jews, heathens, and other dissenters from the purity of Christian religion may not be scared and kept at a distance from it, but, by having an opportunity of acquainting themselves with the truth and reasonableness of its doctrines, and the peaceableness and inoffensiveness of its professors, may, by good usage and persuasion, and all those convincing methods of gentleness and meekness, suitable to the rules and design of the gospel, be won ever to embrace and unfeignedly receive the truth; therefore, any seven or more persons agreeing in any religion, shall constitute a church or profession, to which they shall give some name, to distinguish it from others.
….
One hundred. In the terms of communion of every church or profession, these following shall be three; without which no agreement or assembly of men, upon presence of religion, shall be accounted a church or profession within these rules:
1st. “That there is a God.”
II. “That God is publicly to be worshipped.”
III. “That it is lawful and the duty of every man, being thereunto called by those that govern, to bear witness to truth; and that every church or profession shall, in their terms of communion, set down the external way whereby they witness a truth as in the presence of God, whether it be by laying hands on or kissing the bible, as in the Church of England, or by holding up the hand, or any other sensible way.”
Some thoughts on the language about “churches” and what constitutes them:
1. Locke seems to want to be generous for, among other reasons (some religious), the strategic reason of conversion. He recognizes that the many “strangers” to Christianity will expect religious liberty, and maintenance of civic peace demands that they have it, but “by good usage and persuasion” these people are hopefully to be converted. All of this is familiar from the Letter Concerning Toleration, but what really interested me was the final line of section 97: “therefore, any seven or more persons agreeing in any religion, shall constitute a church or profession, to which they shall give some name, to distinguish it from others.” Notice Locke’s emphasis on, to use a legal term, numerosity! What constitutes a “church” is in part a numerical characteristic. You cannot be a “church” under Locke’s constitution with less than seven members. This numerical feature highlights the sociality of an ecclesial structure. And we continue to struggle with it today (compare, e.g., Psychic Sophie and related controversies).
2. But there are also substantive characteristics that must be satisfied. Belief in God, of course, but notice the public quality of the other two elements! You cannot be a church unless you worship God “publicly.” And there must be official rules for that public worship–the church must promulgate rules which “set down the external way” in which church members will witness the truth as they apprehend it. The emphasis on these external, public, ritualistic functions of churches–and therefore, in part, on the public functions that they serve, the ‘civil religion’ function–is perhaps not quite so common today but it is still present.
Faith
Varieties of Progressive Civil Religion
Here’s a very interesting short piece by Professor David Fontana (GW), which responds to Professor Fred Gedicks’s (BYU) longer article, American Civil Religion: An Idea Whose Time is Past. Both papers are worth your attention. What interests me is the taxonomy of progressive American civil religion that these papers go some distance to fleshing out (Steve Shiffrin’s book about the religious left is also useful). It is sometimes assumed that all progressives are opposed to civil religion, while all conservatives support it; progressives are supposed to be for the naked public square, while conservatives prefer greater public modesty. There is a little truth in this caricature, but the picture is more complicated. Civil religion is neither the possession of the left nor the right. Instead, the fight seems to be about the variety of civil religion that the country ought to embrace. And as to that question, it seems that not only do conservatives disagree with progressives but progressives differ among themselves. Fred’s piece, for example, is largely skeptical about civil religion but in the end calls for a “thinner,” “Rawlsian,” “procedural” version that, he claims, “can function to bind us together as a people and a nation.” And though he does not believe “religion” can perform this function, the election of Obama made him “proud to be an American” and provided something like this “thinner” variety of civil religion (or civil civilianism). By contrast, Fontana writes:
The issue with the American civil religion, though, is that it had come to be seen as so ideological and exclusionary that it alienated many mainstream and liberal voters. While advocacy of an American civil religion could have motivated those true believers, typically those on the political right that Gedicks discusses, a politically conservative civil religion that had “appropriated the symbols and practices of American civil religion and infused them with sectarian meaning” turned off many voters. An American liberal civil religion held out more promise as an inspiring American nationalism, but with a tolerant edge. Enter Obama onto the national political stage, perhaps “the most theologically serious politician in modern American political history,” whose speeches have been just as full with religious imagery and rhetoric as they have been with civil imagery and rhetoric. Obama’s speeches were full of references to civil ideas, or as Gedicks defines them, Rawlsian ideas, as well as to religious ideas . . . .
In other words, then, perhaps the American civil religion is not dead, but has been brought to life by our new President. Since Bellah’s concept of the civil religion was about the idea as a political tool as much as about a sociological concept, it has come to life again because it has been used by a group—and a political phenom—better able to use it in the political sphere. Indeed, just as maybe only Nixon could go to China, maybe only Obama can reinvigorate civil religion.
The claim that Obama is “the most theologically serious politician in modern American political history” is supported by a citation to Professor Charlton Copeland’s piece, “God-Talk in the Age of Obama: Theology and Religious Political Engagement.” I’m not sure how one would measure such things; read Copeland’s paper to find out how he claims to do it.
But the interesting thing about both pieces is the durability of civil religion, the hardiness of this plant and its capacity to take root in what one might think would be the inhospitable, stony soil of the progressive heart. For Fred, the terrain is truly rough and desiccated. For Fontana, it’s a little richer, but only a little.
And that points toward another interesting feature of progressive civil religion. What binds Fred’s and Fontana’s accounts is that for both writers, civil religion is feeble. It lacks deep roots. For Fred, civil religion is “thin” while for Fontana it has a shelf-life of roughly two and a half more years. I am reminded of the following passage concerning the modern orientation toward tradition in the sociologist Edward Shils’s excellent book of the same name:
Tradition is like a plant which repeatedly puts down roots whenever it is left in one place for a short time, yet is frequently torn up and flung from one place to another, so that the nutriment of its branches and leaves is cut off and the plant becomes pale and enfeebled. Traditions may be unavoidable but they are not always very strong. Tendencies to seek and find traditions may be ubiquitous in human society and the tendencies to seek and find might always find a tradition to attach themselves to. The tendency to seek a religious tradition may be present in all societies but if they are unaided by the availability of traditions and proponents of tradition, substantive traditions may become etiolated and very weak. (315)
For progressive civil religion, that may be the point.
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Posted in Commentary, Marc O. DeGirolami
Tagged Civil Religion, Religion and Politics, Religion in America, Tradition