| American Conservatism and Christianity Abraham Lincoln said that "Government should only do for the people what the people cannot do for themselves." This has become the basis for modern Conservatism: a people with the freedom to become to their fullest potential by the work of their own hands; a people without the overbearance of an Orwellian government dictating how they spend their incomes, how they raise their children, how they use their property; a people who enjoy the protection of the rule of law, but are not repressed by a brutal police state. In modern America, political conservatism is commonly linked with Christian conservatism; phrases like "the radical religious right" have been attached pejoratively with members of the Conservative movement. Many therefore see the party of less government as seeking to use the very government it wishes to disempower to impose its own religious mores on the American people. It is my hope to elucidate the historical and philosophical reasons behind the link between political conservatism and Christian conservatives and to explore whether this indeed poses a threat to personal freedom as supposed by members of the American liberal establishment, Libertarians and certain other political groups. In this first essay, my focus shall be on the influence of moral absolutes on government, and whether this violates the Establishment Clause. I. Toward Morally Neutral Government? A major point of disagreement between conservatives and liberal and many civil libertarian groups is in the understanding of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. This clause states, "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion..." A corollary to this is the statement by Thomas Jefferson regarding "a Wall of Separation" between the church and state. It is commonly accepted that this amendment was passed in order to prevent the forming of any official state church. Many of the original settlers of the Colonies had come to North America to escape from persecution by the government in England resulting from their opposition to the Church of England. The Framers wished to prevent this type of state religious persecution from occurring in the new nation.In pursuit of this end, however, some in modern times have extended this prohibition not only to state religion, but to personal religious practice. In a climate of what is generally referred to as "political correctness", personal expression of religious faith in a public arena is often frowned upon and occasionally prohibited. Examples of this are the banning of invocations at high school sporting events, the controversy surrounding prayers at county council meetings, discrimination against student-led religious activities in public schools (although the environment has improved somewhat in this area). The fallacy behind these problems is that political correctness favors the Establishment Clause, but ignores the remainder of the sentence, "...or the free exercise thereof." Probably the greatest indicator of where the Framers would stand on some of these issues is found in the fact that it was the same Congress who wrote the First Amendment in 1789 that, in the same year, began the practice of opening each legislative day with an invocation delivered by a Congressionally-appointed chaplain. In addition, interdenominational church services and crusades were routinely held in the U.S. Capitol up until the 1860's, a regular attendee being none other than Thomas Jefferson, who coined the phrase "wall of separation between church and state".1 The central issue we shall address in this paper, however, is the concept of the "separation of church and state" envisioned by Jefferson being interpreted as a "morally neutral" government. This leads to two questions: First, does the Establishment Clause require a morally neutral government; that is, is the establishment of religion and the observance and endorsement of morality the same thing? Second is an even more essential question, and that is whether moral neutrality is desirable, or for that matter, even possible. First, let us examine the issue of religious doctrine as relating to the Establishment Clause. This is a valid issue, given the religious diversity seen in America today, as well as when the First Amendment was drafted, even among those of the Christian faith. Suppose a teacher should rise in a public school classroom and begin teaching his interpretation of the Bible. If that teacher is Catholic, then there will be Protestant members of the class that will be offended. If the teacher is a Buddhist, then likely all of the members of his class will be offended. The problem is not in that people are offended; there is no Constitutional guarantee against being offended; in fact, freedom of speech guarantees that each of us will be offended from time to time. The problem here is in the perceived government endorsement of one particular interpretation of Scripture. The problem, to generalize further, is that religious practice is a highly personal matter.People choose which churches they will attend based on the extent to which they agree with the churches’ stated doctrines, methods of worship, et cetera. This is a dynamic of a personal relationship, as it were. It is not to say that truth is relative, but only that the manner in which each person chooses to carry out his relationship with God is dependent on his personal convictions. If an individual representing the entity of government, in an authoritative environment (this is a crucial point), should present a specific doctrine as the standard for the governed to follow, this is a clear violation of the Establishment Clause. If this same individual, even as a part of the government, should express his personal religious convictions in a non-authoritative environment, that is, where his views are not imposed upon his listeners in the form of a mandate, then he is simply exercising his right to "the free exercise thereof." We cannot separate the individual from his rights simply because he is speaking in a public forum; it is only when he is using the power of government to impose his particular doctrine -- his theological views, his position regarding religious rituals, and such -- that he is acting beyond the scope of his Constitutional rights. This said, however, regarding religious doctrine, which primarily concerns how we relate to God, what of morality, which concerns how we relate to one another? Even though we take pains to prevent government endorsement of religious doctrine, if we take a step back we can see that members of government use its power to impose their moral views upon the populace as a matter of course. Every law that is passed, for instance, reflects the prevailing view of the lawmaking body on what the role of government should be, of what policies should be pursued, about what type of behavior should be allowed under law, and so forth. When pressed, many of these policy makers will admit that their positions are based upon some type of moral code. Even the Libertarian Party, whose platform calls most loudly for morally-neutral government, states openly that this call is based upon moral principle. This moves us to the next question: How do we separate religious morality from secular morality? There are many religions, including atheism, active in America, and the free exercise of each is protected by the First Amendment. But are there many sets of morals? The answer based upon society in its current state would likely be yes, but one must look at historical precedence to determine the true definition of "morality". By comparing the moral code across civilizations throughout history, one would find that there is a moral constant that has endured from the very beginnings of civilization. Concepts such as temperance, fair treatment of others, marital fidelity, private property rights (in varying degrees), familial obligation and personal honor are quite universal. 2Throughout history, any society that fails to hold to these basics of moral behavior has been ultimately doomed. Therefore, mass departures from the universal moral code are relatively short-lived in successful civilizations. We can therefore say that, in general, the goals of all moralists are ultimately the same -- beneficence to mankind. This is true regardless of the origin of the moral code -- religious or secular. Therefore, for the purpose of governance, we cannot discriminate based on whether one candidate’s morals spring from his religious upbringing or if they are based upon some other influence. (As Christians, we know that, ultimately, all morals come from the same Source.) Therefore, for example, it would be ludicrous for a politician to be chastised because his position on the criminality of murder is based upon the Ten Commandments, while his opponent is praised for taking the same position, because his position is based upon the work of a secular philosopher. The ends are the same -- government is prohibited by the First Amendment from discriminating between the two. (It is important to note that no such restriction exists for voters, and it is also important that we are for the moment ignoring the vital issue of the means advocated by each to reach their stated end.) It is the habit, however, of liberals and some civil libertarians to attempt to draw a line of discrimination between religiously-derived morals and secular morals. The recent trend, however, has been to attempt to remove all moral standards from the public arena. But is this even possible? The philosophy which provides the impetus for this trend is what is generally referred to as "moral relativism", that is, the philosophy that no moral code is superior to any other, therefore no moral code should be presented as dominant. But the ironic twist is that moral relativism is itself a moral code, and in imposing moral relativism on society, relativists are setting moral relativism up as the dominant moral code! Therefore what we wind up with are individuals, driven by their own sense of morality (albeit a deviant one) seeking to establish their own moral principle -- which states that there are no moral absolutes -- as the moral absolute. I have earlier stated that it is (legally) problematic to distinguish between morality derived from religious conviction and that from secular influence, but there often is a difference between religious and secular morality, and it primarily lies in the recognition of the existence of moral absolutes. The secular moralist may well hold to the universal moral code instinctively, but, since he does not recognize the underlying Authority that is its source, he is under the impression that his morality is based strictly upon his own principles and is not a part of any absolute moral code. As such, he may tend to be more given to submit to moral relativism and may even be compelled to sacrifice his own perceptions of right and wrong for the "greater good", whereas the religious moralist recognizes that right is right and wrong is wrong, and that no greater good is served by such a sacrifice. Of course, this is a generalization, because there are certainly those who at least claim to derive their moral convictions from their faith, yet in the public arena subscribe to relativism. Likewise, there are some who may, while outwardly denying Deity as the source of morality, hold to their convictions in the face of opposition nonetheless. However, I believe this to be the discerning point between religiously derived morality and many others. The final question awaiting us, then, is whether non-morally-neutral government violates individual freedom. This is essentially a moot point, since we have already established, I hope, that morally neutral government is not possible, therefore people under the governance of a moral government are not necessarily any less free than it is possible for them to be. However, I won’t take the easy way out by ending it there. Consider life under a government that truly had no moral compass to guide its actions and its laws. What, in such a state, would preserve individual freedom? Justice, fairness and integrity are all derived from moral influence. What therefore would prevent the government from discarding its own laws, including its constitution, at whim? To the extent that we see flagrant violations by immoral people under the current system, how much greater would such transgressions be if, as a requirement of service, members of the government were required to abandon their morals at the door? One possible answer to this would be fear of revolution; however, fear more often has the effect of driving one to increase their ability to protect against perceived threats rather than invoking reason. Therefore the fear motive alone would only serve to increase repression rather than liberty. Another possible answer would be a system of checks and balances as was set up in our Constitution; however, again in the absence of moral restraint, this would more likely have the effect of creating a power struggle between branches of government which would eventually result in a dominant branch who would repress all others. Perhaps this is the reason that so many of the Framers warned of the dangers of a moral lapse among the American people. Clearly, there are moral absolutes -- precepts that underlie all civilizations and even all of the major religions. Further, to attempt to establish a morally-neutral government is entirely impossible, so long as human beings are involved -- by their very nature, moral convictions must influence the behavior of those who hold them. We must view with wariness any who ask "if you wish the government to operate under a moral code, then to whose moral code should it subscribe?" Those who ask this are only putting up a smokescreen to disguise the fact that they wish to elevate their own moral position to dominance; attempts to create morally-neutral government merely substitute one moral code for another. Even if it were possible to achieve moral neutrality, this end would be wholly undesirable, as such things as fairness, justice and integrity -- the very things that a free people require from their government -- are all symptoms of morality. The First Amendment does not require this end -- it simply means that doctrinal canon cannot be imposed upon the people by the force of government. However, we can see that the influence of moral absolutes on government not only does not violate the notion of personal liberty, it establishes it.
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