Tribespeople, Idiots or Citizens?
Evangelicals, Religious Liberty and a
Public Philosophy for the Public
Square
"Why did you use the words 'evangelical public philosophy'? They're either completely empty or a contradiction in terms. Today's evangelicals are nothing but partisan and sectarian."
That sharp retort by a Washington journalist expresses one side of public skepticism about an evangelical commitment to any public philosophy, or common vision of the common good. The other side is displayed by many evangelicals and fundamentalists themselves. On the one hand, specific initiatives in public philosophy supported by fellow Christians have been repudiated as "profane, unGodly, anti-Christian and anti-Biblical."1 On the other, a general obliviousness and suspicion of the subject has been a hallmark of evangelical public engagement in the last decade.
Thus, in an era marked by passionate, public clamor over "me/my/ours," evangelicals in America have often come across as simply one more special interest group in the (ironically non-conservative) Cuisinart mix of interest group politics. Concern for Christian justice has been made to appear as concern for justice for Christians rather than concern for justice for all.
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Of course many other groups have acted in the same way and there are powerful reasons for doing so and short term dividends from such a strategy. But this paper stands counter to such arguments. Its position is held by a significant and sizable number of evangelicals who support a more constructive solution. They argue that (1) for evangelicals the long-term costs of repudiating a public philosophy far outweigh the gains; (2) a deeper analysis of the ideals and interests of both the gospel and the nation underscore the importance of a common vision of the common good; and (3) consideration of this notion is the best way for evangelicals to forge a view of religion and American public life that will at once be faithful, constructive and responsible.
Arguably, no faith community in the United States, apart from the Jewish community, currently has a higher stake than evangelicals in a constructive outcome to recent conflicts over religion and public life. For Jews, their very survival is at stake. For evangelicals, "free exercise" of religion bears directly on their integrity as followers of Christ, their effectiveness as bearers of the gospel and agents of justice around the world, and their responsibility as citizen-participants and heirs of America's earliest faith in the ongoing experiment that is America today. At a time when questions over religion and public life have become a dangerously unresolved issue in American life, and when state repression and sectarian violence around the earth remain a dark feature of a murderous century, evangelicals who close their minds to liberty and justice for all are in danger of becoming as unprincipled as they are unwise.
Along with other American citizens, evangelicals are now directly confronted with a three-fold choice first stated by supporters
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of democracy in Greece and restated by John Courtney Murray in the early Sixties. The choice is as follows: As the issues of religion and public life continue to arise, will evangelicals respond as "tribespeople," in the sense of those who seek security in a form of tribal solidarity and are intolerant of everything alien to themselves? Or as "idiots," in the original Greek sense of the totally private person who does not subscribe to the public philosophy and is oblivious to the importance of "civility"? Or as citizens, in the sense of those who recognize their membership in a "commonwealth" and who appreciate the knowledge and skills which underlie the public life of a civilized community?2
The Achilles Heel of Public Involvement
The evangelical lack of a public philosophy is no eleventh-hour discovery. In 1976, Newsweek's "Year of the evangelical," several observers of the national scene examined the newly re-emergent evangelical movement and asked whether it was likely to exert the influence which its history, its numbers and the cultural opportunity might lead one to expect. Would it take advantage of the openings created by important recent restructurings in the worlds of American religion, politics and culture at large? Their answer was an unequivocal "No." handicapped by lack of any distinctively Christian thinking, evangelical public influence predictably would be either confined to specific, single issues or confused with a myriad of overlapping interests closer to the American flag than the Christian faith.3
Thirteen years later, the accuracy of such predictions is all too clear. Failure to articulate and abide by a common vision for the common good has been the Achilles heel of public involvement
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by evangelicals. It is also a central reason why, despite "mainline" Protestantism stumbling in national religious leadership, attention has shifted from talk of an "evangelical moment" to talk of a "Catholic moment." To focus the issue in terms of religion and politics alone: Where evangelicals have shown they have no public philosophy, Catholics — with their strong tradition of natural law and their clear Vatican II stands on religious liberty for all — have proved themselves ready and able to champion the common vision for the common good.
Unquestionably, it would take much more than observations like these to prompt most evangelicals to reconsider their position. Arguments for such a rethink would have to begin with theological principles and move through historical precedents to current political assessments — all beyond the scope of this paper. But if the last decade provides any perverse encouragement, it is that changes are more likely to result from the lessons of practical failure than from high-minded considerations of principle. Yet even there, for example in public opinion surveys, the lesson is plain enough.
How Christians stand in the public eye is obviously not a prime consideration to a community which worships a crucified Saviour. For as Luther said, the world's way of saying "thank you" for the gospel is the cross. But as the tele-evangelists have reminded us, faithfulness may at times be scandalous, but to be scandalous is not itself the mark of faithfulness. Thoughtful evangelicals would therefore do well to ponder the public standing of evangelicalism after more than a decade of high-profile political involvement.
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Recent opinion surveys reveal a crucial detail in the picture. On one hand, contrary to impressions of rising extremism and intolerance over religion and public life, the great majority of Americans are actually more tolerant than a generation ago. (A plurality of Americans — 45 to 41 percent — believe that there is "less religious tolerance today than there was twenty or thirty years ago," despite the fact that the same surveys demonstrate that there is, in fact, more tolerance than twenty to thirty years ago. This disparity is probably to be explained by the role of activists and, in particular, the impact of new technologies such as direct mail on the inflammation of the issue.4)
On the other hand, evangelicals can take no comfort from such findings because they are a striking exception to the generally expanding tolerance. (In 1958, 25 percent of Americans would not have voted for a Catholic as President and 28 percent for a Jew. Today these numbers have fallen to 8 and 10 percent. The only numbers that have risen are those who would not vote for "a born-again Baptist," which has risen from 3 percent to 13 percent.5) Worse still, a general picture emerges in which recent public involvement by evangelicals is viewed as constitutionally legitimate but intrusive and unwelcome. Among many leadership groups (business leaders, government leaders, academics, priests and rabbis, for instance) evangelicals come out highest as a perceived "threat to democracy." Thirty-four percent of academics rate the evangelicals as a menace to democracy, compared with only 14 percent who see any danger from racists, the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis.6
This last statistic is even more startling than it appears. Groups perceived as "alien" and "threatening" are usually the
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newest and most recently arrived. But evangelicals are the direct spiritual descendants of America's "first faith," and as late as the early twentieth century were thought to be as American as apple pie, almost qualifying to be "the Church of America." Thus the fact that evangelicals should now be seen as "a threat to democracy" while still holding views common to most Americans in the 1950s and still advocated opening in the 1980s by a highly popular President like Ronald Reagan, cannot be excused airily by putting the blame on prejudice and rapid social change. The strongest single explanation is the evangelical repudiation of a public philosophy. Without such a commitment to the common vision of the common good, all public engagement by evangelicals, legitimate, wise and successful or not, is liable to be viewed by others as troubling and even threatening.
Such findings, pondered along with a biblical critique and comparison of specific conflicts such as the furor over "The Last Temptation of Christ" and Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, should prompt evangelicals to question their manner of political involvement in the last decade. Above all, has it been as faithful to Christ's teaching as intended? Or in the terms of a century ago, has it done "the Lord's work in the Lord's way"? But also, has its analysis of the current situation been accurate? Has it been just, wise and realistic in its proposals? Open to the challenges and concerns of other communities? This paper argues that, too often, the answer is "No," and that nothing would make a greater difference in reversing this conclusion and beginning a constructive contribution to national life than a fresh commitment to public justice by evangelicals.
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I. A Common Vision for The Common Good
Just before his surprisingly strong showing in the Iowa caucuses in 1988, Pat Robertson ran a two-page ad in the Des Moines Register. On one page there was a photograph of John F. Kennedy with the words, "In 1960 the opposition said this man wasn't fit to be president. Why? Because of his religion." On the opposite page was a photograph of Pat Robertson with the counterpoint, "In 1988 the opposition is saying the same thing about this man." The reader was left to draw the obvious conclusion. Robertson's candidacy should no more be disqualified than Kennedy's. But something in the parallel was missing which was to prove fatal to Robertson within a few weeks. Where Kennedy had surmounted his problem by setting out a vision of religion and politics that satisfied his toughest critics (at the Houston Baptist Ministers Association in September 1960), Robertson merely cited the parallel but sidestepped the challenge. He therefore exemplified almost perfectly the wider evangelical lack of a public philosophy. In failing to address the hole in his platform, he made it impossible to expand his core constituency and doomed himself to political disappointment.
Over against such positions, this paper argues, first, that evangelicals are church people before they are a movement and that the church's ideals are best expressed and her interests best served by a principled commitment to public justice; second, that in our time this Christian commitment to public justice is a vital contribution to the much-needed reconstruction of America's public philosophy; third, that the best prospects for reforging the public philosophy today are afforded by a vision of "chartered pluralism;" and lastly, that such a commitment to chartered
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pluralism offers the evangelical community its best opportunity to prove its integrity and effectiveness in a manner that its numbers, strengths, history and (supremely) its sense of calling requires. The argument is set out in a series of steps.
A comprehensive evangelical statement on religion and public life would require adequate treatment of four main areas: theological foundations, historical review, contemporary analysis and practical policy proposals. Without minimizing the primary significance of the first pair, this paper deliberately focuses on the second, because they are the points where evangelicals are weakest — either because good theology and history never become practical or because bad practical policy lacks good theology and history.
Theology and history will therefore be mostly assumed in this paper because of lack of space, but two reminders should be borne in mind. First, assumption is not avoidance: the theology and history behind the argument are always open to question and scrutiny. Second, the focus on one aspect of policy — the public philosophy — may appear to be an unfortunate narrowing of the issue, but public philosophy is in fact a valuable master theme by which to consider the broader issues of religion and public life today. For the framers, the issue was always stated better as "religion and government" rather than church and state. And today, when it is best approached as "religion and public life in a pluralistic society," the importance of a public philosophy as a master theme quickly becomes obvious.
The first step in the argument is to clarify what is meant by public philosophy, or common vision of the common good. A defining feature of the United States is that, from the very
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beginning, it has been a nation by intention and by ideas. One of America's greatest achievements and special needs has been to create, out of the mosaic of religious and cultural differences, a common vision for the common good — in the sense of a widely shared, almost universal, agreement on what accords with the common ideals and interests of America and Americans.
Mostly unwritten, often half-conscious, never to be mistaken for unanimity, this common vision has served a vital purpose. It has offset the natural conflict of interests in a pluralistic society, and in particular that impulse toward arbitrariness which is the scourge of totalitarianism and democracy alike. In doing so it has been the binding that maintains unity to balance the richness and pressures of diversity, and transmits a living heritage to balance the dynamism of progress. Most Americans may never have been conscious of any such thing, let alone the term, "public philosophy," but America has always been a working model of one, a "public philosophy" in action. For Americans, consensus has always been a matter of compact over common ideals as well as compromise over competing interests.
Defined in this way, the notion of public philosophy needs to be distinguished from two similar but different notions. First, this use of public philosophy is different from the use of the term (quite legitimately) to refer to an individual's personal philosophy of public affairs, and thus to the place of public affairs in his or her worldview. In contrast, public philosophy in this paper refers expressly to public affirmations shared in common with other citizens. A public philosophy should not only be accessible to others in principle; it is unworthy of the name unless it is actually shared in practice — though for evangelicals, it should be added,
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the theoretical basis for this sharing will not itself be shared by all Americans. It does not rest on some purported "neutral ground," but on an understanding of common history (common, in this case, to all who share in the American experience) and "common grace" (God's gratuitous favor that is common, as the Protestant reformers understood it, to all human beings regardless of their faith or unbelief).
Second, this use of public philosophy is quite different from civil religion. Like civil religion, public philosophy as used here deals with affirmations held in common. but unlike civil religion — which in my view is neither legitimate for Christians nor feasible for anyone today — the public philosophy does not require the common affirmations to be regarded as sacred or semi-sacred in themselves. For most Americans, their commitment to the public philosophy is rooted in their own religious beliefs, but the public affirmations are not themselves religious and it is for this reason that they can be held in common with people of other faiths and no faith.
There have undoubtedly been great changes in this concept over time, most noticeably the softening between the harder-edged notion of Puritan covenant and the rather vague mid-twentieth century notion of consensus. Equally, the very strength of the notion has sometimes created problems, such as the influence of consensus-thinking on the blind eye turned to cultural diversity and on the countenancing of evils, such as the maltreatment of Blacks and Native Americans. These are therefore obvious reasons why the subject has recently fallen into disrepute, why its very mention is challenged in some circles, and why there are sometimes competing proposals among proponents of its recovery.
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What is certain, however, is that the weakening or disappearance of the public philosophy has definite consequences too, and from Walter Lippmann's critique of public opinion to the current Volcker Commission on American public service, a deepening stream of analyses have made this connection and redressed the imbalance. What is also certain is that, because people have different and changing values, the common vision for the common good is never static. It is not in the realm of a final answer. Adjustment and readjustment are an ongoing requirement of American democracy. Since no generation declares, lives and preserves this common vision in its entirety, there is a need for reaffirmation and renewal in every generation.
As George Mason wrote in the Virginia Declaration, "No free government or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles." For Americans to become, in Walter Lippmann's words, "a people who inhabit the land with their bodies without possessing it with their souls" would be a sure step toward disaster.7
Consensual agreements over the place of religious liberty in public life is only one component of the wider public philosophy — but it is a vital one. Equally, such a consensus is only one of a trio of agencies (the Constitution, the courts, and the consensus) that are all vital to sustaining religious liberty. But because of the personal importance of faiths to individual and to communities of faith in America, and the public importance of both to American national life, a common vision of religious liberty in public life is critical to both citizens and the nation. It directly
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affects personal liberty, civic vitality and social harmony. Far from lessening the need for a public philosophy today, expanding pluralism increases it. Indeed, for anyone who has reflected on the last generation of conflict over religion and public life, few questions in America are more urgent than a fresh agreement on how we are to deal with each other's deepest differences in the public sphere.
II. The Importance of Religious Liberty
The second step in the argument is to show why the notion of religious liberty remains important to the public philosophy today. For too many Americans, especially among the thought leaders, the question of religion in public life has become unimportant. It is viewed as a non-issue or a nuisance factor — something which should be purely a private issue, which inevitably becomes messy and controversial when it does not stay so, and which should therefore revert to being private as quickly as possible.
A more helpful way of seeing things would be to see that the swirling controversies that surround religion and public life create a sort of sound barrier effect: On one side, the issue appears all passions, problems, prejudices. But break through the barrier, and the issue touches on several of the deepest questions of human life in the modern world. Once these are appreciated, it clearly becomes in the highest interest of the common good to resolve the problems raised rather than ban the topic out of personal disdain or fear.
There are at least five central reasons why, for evangelicals as American citizens, religious liberty remains a vital part of the
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public philosophy. Expressed as follows, these reasons are also accessible to other Americans:
First, religious liberty, or freedom of conscience, is a precious, fundamental and inalienable human right — the freedom to reach, hold, freely exercise or change our beliefs independent of governmental control. Prior to and existing quite apart from the Bill of Rights which protects it, religious liberty is not a second-class right, a constitutional redundancy or a sub-category of free speech. Since it does not finally depend on the discoveries of science, the favors of the state and its officials, and the vagaries of tyrants or majorities, it is a right that may not be submitted to any vote nor encroached upon by the expansion of the bureaucratic state. There is no more searching test of the health of the public philosophy than this non-majoritarian standard: "A society is only as just and free as it is respectful of this right for its smallest minorities and least popular communities."8 Religious liberty has correctly been called America's "first liberty."
Along with other Americans, evangelicals affirm that unless the public philosophy respects and protects this right for all Americans, the American promise of individual freedom and justice is breached.
Second, the Religious Liberty clauses of the First Amendment are the democratic world's most distinctive answer to one of the entire world's most pressing questions: How do we live with our deepest — that is, our religiously intense — differences?
Some countries in the world exhibit a strong political civility that is directly linked to their weak religious commitments; and others a strong religious commitment directly linked to their weak political civility. Owing to the manner of the First Amendment's
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ordering of religious liberty and public life, American democracy has afforded the fullest opportunity for strong religious commitment and strong political civility to complement, rather than threaten, each other.
Along with other Americans, evangelicals affirm that unless the public philosophy respects and protects this distinctive American achievement, the American promise of democratic liberty and justice will be betrayed.
Third, the Religious Liberty clauses lie close to the genius of the American experiment. Not simply a guarantee of individual and communal liberty, the First Amendment's ordering of the relationship of religion and public life is the boldest and most successful part of the entire American experiment. Daring in its time, distinctive throughout the world both then and now, it has proved decisive in shaping key aspects of the American story. It is not too much even to say that as the Religious Liberty clauses go, so goes America.
Along with other Americans, evangelicals affirm that unless the public philosophy respects and protects this remarkable American ordering, the civic vitality of the American republic will be sapped.
Fourth, the Religious Liberty clauses are the single, strongest non-theological reason why free speech and free exercise of religion have been closely related and why religion in general has persisted more strongly in the United States than in any other comparable modern country. In most modern countries, there appears to be an almost ironclad equation: the more modernized the country, the more secularized the country. America, however,
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is a striking exception to the trend, being at once the most modernized country and most religious of modern countries.
The reason lies in the effect of the American style of disestablishment. By separating church and state, but not religion from government or public life, disestablishment does two things: it undercuts the forces of cultural antipathy built up against the church by church-state establishments — historically speaking, established churches have contributed strongly to their own rejection and to secularization in general. At the same time, disestablishment throws each faith onto reliance on its own claimed resources. The overall effect is to release a free and unfettered competition of people and beliefs similar to the free market competition of capitalism.
Along with other Americans, evangelicals affirm that unless the public philosophy respects and protects this enterprising relationship, both American religious liberty and public discourse will be handicapped.
Fifth, the interpretation and application of the First Amendment today touches on some of the deepest and most revolutionary developments in contemporary thought. A generation ago it was common to draw a deep dichotomy between science and religion, reason and revelation, objectivity and commitment and so on. Today such dichotomies are impossible. All thinking is acknowledged to be presuppositional. Value-neutrality in social affairs is impossible. To demand "neutral discourse" in public life, as some still do, should now be recognized as a way of coercing people to speak publicly in someone else's language and thus never to be true to their own.
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Along with other Americans, evangelicals affirm that unless the public philosophy respects and protects this new (or restored) understanding, the republican requirement of free democratic debate and responsible participation in democratic life will be thwarted.
It would be possible in each case to spell out the specific Christian ideals and interests behind each point, their specific Christian roots and their precise overlap with those of other faiths. In terms of philosophical roots, for example, all Christians and many Jews go beyond many other Americans by grounding religious liberty ultimately in God's creation. But they can still forge a substantial, overlapping consensus with a far larger number of fellow citizens who ground religious liberty in the Declaration of Independence and the assertion of inviolable human liberty.
But most of these specific points can be filled in readily and the immediate purpose is to demonstrate that such reasons are anything but purely sectarian and partisan. In fact, they are widely accessible to, and supported by, most Americans. One conclusion is inescapable: The place of religious liberty in American public life is not merely a religious issue but a national issue. It is not only a private issue, but a public one. Far from simply partisan or sectarian, religious liberty is in the interests of Americans of all faiths and none, and its reaffirmation should be a singular and treasured part of the American public philosophy.
III. The Conflicts and their Context
The third step in the argument is to analyze the factors behind the recurring conflicts over religion and public life, and
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assess what they mean for religious liberty and public justice in the future.
The conflicts themselves need no elaboration: school prayer and New Age meditation, creation science, secular humanism, textbook tailoring, prayer before high school sporting events, Muslim prayer mats in government offices, Gideon's Bibles in hotel rooms, the Ten Commandments on school walls, blasphemy in films and novels, the Pledge of Allegiance, Mormon polygamy, "Christian Nation" resolutions and so on. For a full generation now the issue of religion and public life has been highly contentious, with an endless series of disputes and the whole subject surrounded by needless ignorance and fruitless controversy, including at the highest levels. Too often, debates have been sharply polarized, controversies dominated by extremes, resolutions sought automatically through litigation, either of the Religious Liberty clauses set against the other one and any common view of a better way lost in the din of irreconcilable differences and insistent demands.
At some point, however, the temptation is to take a quick glance at the contestants, apportion the blame, enlist on one side or another, and treat the whole problem as largely political and capable of a political solution. From that perspective, the problem is one which has been created by an ideological clash (the fundamentalists versus the secularists) that overlaps with a Constitutional clash (the accomodationists versus the separationists) that overlaps with a psychological clash (the "bitter-enders," who insist on commitment regardless of civility, versus the "betrayers," who insist on civility regardless of commitment) which has produced, in turn, two extremist tendencies (the "removers," who
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would like to eradicate all religion from public life, versus the "re-imposers," who would like to impose their version of a past or future state of affairs on everyone else). All this, of course, is potently reinforced by technological factors such as direct mail and its shameless appeals to fear and anger.
Such analyses may be accurate as far as they go. But they stop before they take into account some of the deepest factors, which means they rule out some of the most effective solutions. Of several additional factors, two are especially important to this argument.
The first is the broader crisis of cultural authority in America. Just before he retired as Secretary of State, Dean Acheson was speaking to a prominent European. "Looking back," he said, "the gravest problem I had to deal with was how to steer in this atomic age, the foreign policy of a world power saddled with the Constitution of a small eighteenth century farmers' republic."9
Today, the awareness behind Acheson's remark could be found in many areas outside the field of foreign relations. Indeed, it raises an issue for America that recurs in countless forms: How does the United States currently stand in relation to its origins? As the ongoing bicentennial celebrations of the Constitution illustrate again, few other Western nations are so proud of their origins. Yet the question of the present's relationship to the past has been particularly urgent in the 1980s, and in ways which mean the next decade's answers may be decisive for many years to come.
The most obvious expression of this concern is the flood of recent articles, books and commentaries which claim that the United States is experiencing a transformation or restructuring. Some of the more pressing claims about a turning point stand head
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and shoulders above the rest — that America is experiencing massive social changes in shifting from an industrial to an information society, massive political changes in undergoing another of its regular cycles of party realignments, and massive national and international changes in adjusting to world realities after Vietnam and after the possible demise of the bipolar, superpower world.
Yet none of these shifts rivals the importance of the generation-long crisis of cultural authority through which American society has been going since the early 1960s. Controversies over religion and politics are therefore vital because at stake in the changes, developments and controversies of the last generation are the principles and patterns by which both personal lives and the life of the republic are to be ordered.
American politics, it has been argued, has been characterized by a succession of grand pivotal issues. Between 1775 and 1824, these issues were essentially constitutional, dealing with the institutional arrangements of the new political community. Between 1825 and 1892, they were essentially sectional, involving regional tensions between North and South and Old East and New West. Since then until the 1960s, the pivotal issues were essentially economic and social, centering on the problems of industrial growth and social welfare.
If this is so, the United States is said to be in the fourth great era, and the grand pivotal issue, around which debate and conflict are swirling and a form of culture wars is emerging, is that of cultural authority, which itself can be subdivided into two underlying questions: By what ultimate truths are Americans to shape their private and public lives? And by what understanding are these faiths to relate to each other in the public square?
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It has been by ignoring this deeper cultural crisis, the cultural wars it triggers and the two fundamental questions it generates, that many American leaders have tended to treat religion either as a non-issue, a purely private matter with no bearing on the public square, or as a nuisance factor, the bedeviling special interest of certain troublesome sectarian groups. Either way they misread the fact that many of today's deepest national issues have a critical religious component and many of the deepest religious issues have critical national consequences. The importance of religion-and-politics in America today is far more than a "religious issue" or a merely private issue. It is a national issue in the interest of all Americans.
If the impact of the first factor on religious liberty tends to be appreciated more by conservatives than liberals, the reverse is true of the second. The second factor that deepens an assessment of the religion and politics controversies is the recent expansion of pluralism. This is a worldwide phenomenon that links current American tensions to similar trends around the globe. How do we live with each other's deepest differences? That simple question has been transformed by modernity into one of the world's most pressing dilemmas. On a small planet in a pluralistic age the all-too-common response has been bigotry, fanaticism, terrorism and state repression.
Expanding pluralism is no stranger to the American experience. It has always been a major theme in our story, with tolerance generally expanding behind pluralism.
But the last generation has witnessed yet another thrust forward in religious pluralism in two significant ways.
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First, American pluralism now goes beyond the predominance of Protestant-Catholic-Jewish and includes sizeable numbers of almost all the world's great religions (Buddhist and Muslim, in particular). Second, it now goes beyond religion altogether to include a growing number of Americans with no religious preference at all (In 1962, as in 1952, secularists — or the so-called "religious nones" — were 2 percent of Americans. Today they are between 10 and 12 percent).10
The shock waves caused by this latest explosion can be observed at two different levels in American society. In the first place, the effect of exploding diversity can be seen in the demographic make-up of contemporary American society. The state of California, for example, has America's most diverse as well as its largest population. It now accepts almost one-third of the world's immigration and represents at the close of the century what New York did at the start — the point of entry for millions of new Americans.11
California's elementary schools already have a "minority majority" in the first three grades. By 1990, this situation will be reflected in all public school enrollments and soon after the year 2000 in the population as a whole. (The same situation already exists in all of the nation's 25 largest city school systems, and half of the states have public school populations which are more than 25 percent minorities.12) The result is a remarkable mix of the diverse cultures of Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America. It will also be as challenging a project in culture-blending as New York was in nation-building nine decades ago, and Boston was at the birth of the public school movement a century and a half ago.
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The effect of the exploding diversity can also be seen in what is a form of cultural breakdown — collapse of the previously accepted understandings of the relationship of religion and public life and triggering of the culture wars. As a result, a series of bitter, fruitless contentions over religion and politics has erupted, extremes have surfaced, the resort to law court has become almost reflexive, many who decry the problems are equally opposed to solutions to them, and in the ensuing din of charge and counter-charge any sense of common vision for the common good has been drowned.
As always with the trends of modernity, the consequences of increased pluralism are neither unique to America nor uniform anywhere. The disruptive effects can be seen elsewhere in the world, even in totalitarian societies (such as the challenge of the republics to the Soviet Union) and in democratic nations with long traditions of racial and linguistic homogeneity (such as the challenge of new immigrants in Britain).
Nor are the consequences simple. On the one hand, increased pluralism deepens old tensions. Under the challenge of "all those others," many are seemingly pressured to believe more weakly in their own faith, to the point of compromise: the more choice and change, the less commitment and continuity. In reaction, however, others tend to believe more strongly, to the point of contempt for the faith of others.
On the other hand, increased pluralism helps develop new trends. Today's dominant tensions are not so much between distinct religions and denominations. As often as not, they are between the more orthodox and the more contemporary within the
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same denomination (for example, the recent divisions within the Southern Baptist Convention), or between an alliance of the more orthodox in several religions who oppose the more contemporary in those same groups (for example, the pro-life coalition of conservative Protestants, Catholics, Mormons and so on).
In sum, like it or not, modern pluralism stands squarely as both the child of, and the challenger to, religious liberty — whether because of its presence (given the democratic conditions arising out of the Reformation and the Wars of Religion), its permanence (given the likely continuation of these conditions in the foreseeable future), or its premise (that a single, uniform doctrine of belief can only achieve dominance in a pluralistic society by two means: through persuasion, which is currently unlikely because unfashionable, or through coercion by the oppressive use of state power, which at anytime is both unjust and unfree).
Not surprisingly, these developments and their logic have hit hard the trio of American institutions which have been so instrumental in tempering the forces of faction and self-interest and helping transform American diversity into a source of richness and strength: the Religious Liberty clauses of the First Amendment, the Public School Movement and the American public philosophy. The upshot is that the public schools have generally become the storm center of the controversies, one or other of the twin clauses of the first Amendment have been looked to as the sole arbiter in the partisan conflicts, and (whichever prevails) the common vision for the common good becomes the loser.
Only when the full extent of this damage and the full range of the causes have been taken into account can any prospective solutions be given realistic consideration.
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IV. Chartered Pluralism and its Contributions
The fourth step in the argument is to examine the concept of chartered pluralism and its contribution to the current problems. Anyone who appreciates the factors behind the present conflicts is confronted with tough questions. Above all, can there be a resolution to the culture wars and a readjustment to the new pluralism without endangering the logic of religious liberty in public life?
At first sight, the search for a just and commonly acceptable solution to these challenges seems as futile as squaring the circle. The question of the public role of religion in an increasingly pluralistic society appears to be a minefield of controversies, with the resulting ignorance, confusion and reluctance an understandable outcome. Yet if it is correct to trace the problem to forces such as pluralism as much as to ideologies, individuals and groups, then we have more victims than villains over this issue, and the wisest approach is to search together for a solution, not for a scapegoat.
In fact, the present stage of the conflict offers a strategic opportunity. Extreme positions and unwelcome consequences are readily identifiable on many sides, and a new desire for consensus is evident. But where and on what grounds could consensus emerge?
The most constructive way forward is to reforge the public philosophy according to a vision of "chartered pluralism." Chartered pluralism is a vision of religious liberty in public life that, across the deep differences of a pluralistic society, forges a substantive agreement, or freely chosen compact, on three things which are the "3 Rs" of religious liberty in a pluralistic society: rights, responsibilities and respect. The compact affirms, first,
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that religious liberty, or freedom of conscience, is a fundamental and inalienable right for peoples of all faiths and none; second, that religious liberty is a universal right joined to a universal duty to respect that right for others; and third, that the first principles of religious liberty, combined with the lessons of 200 years of Constitutional experience, require and shape certain practical guidelines by which a robust yet civil discourse may be sustained in a free society that would remain free.
Founded on such a principled pact (spelled out, of course, in far greater depth), the notion of "chartered pluralism" can be seen to give due weight to the first of its two terms. It is therefore properly a form of chartered pluralism, and avoids the respective weaknesses of relativism, interest-group liberalism or any form of mere "process" and "proceduralism."
But at the same time the agreement is strictly limited in both substance and in scope. It does not pretend to include agreement over religious beliefs, political policies, constitutional interpretations or even the philosophical justifications of the three parts of the compact. "Chartered pluralism" is an agreement within disagreements over deep differences that make a difference. It therefore gives due weight to the second of its two terms, and it remains a form of chartered pluralism that avoids the dangers of majoritarianism, civil religion or any form of overreaching consensus that is blind or insensitive to small minorities and unpopular communities.
Three features of this compact at the heart of chartered pluralism need to be highlighted indelibly if the compact is to pass muster under the exacting conditions of expanded pluralism. First, the content of the compact does not grow from shared
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beliefs, religious or political, because the recent expansion of pluralism means that we are now beyond the point where that is possible. It grows instead from a common commitment to universal rights, rights which are shared by an overlapping consensus of commitment although grounded and justified differently by the different faiths behind them.13 Second, the achievement of this compact does not come through the process of a general dilution of beliefs, as in the case of civil religion moving from Protestantism to "Judeo-Christian" theism. It comes through the process of a particular concentration of universal rights and mutual responsibilities, within which the deep differences of belief can be negotiated. Third, the fact that religious consensus is not impossible does not mean that moral consensus (for example, "consensual" or "common core" values in public education) is neither important nor attainable. It means, however, that moral consensus must be viewed as a goal, not as a given; something to be achieved through persuasion rather than assumed on the basis of tradition.
Doubtless, further questions are raised by these three points. Do all the different faiths mean the same thing when they affirm common rights? Do all have an adequate philosophical basis for their individual affirmations? Are all such divergences and inadequacies a matter of sheer indifference to the strength and endurance of the compact? Do all Christians have a theological basis that will make them able and willing to affirm such a compact with people of other faiths? Will such a principled pact always be enough in practice, to keep self-interest from breaking out of the harness? The probable answer in each case is "No", which is a reminder of both the fragility of the historical achievement of religious liberty for all and the sobering task we face if we would
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sustain such freedom today. Indeed, the challenge might appear quixotic were it not for the alternatives.
Expressed differently, chartered pluralism owes much to John Courtney Murray's valuable insistence that the Religious Liberty clauses are "articles of peace" rather than "articles of faith."14 But Father Murray's distinction must never be widened into a divorce. For one thing, the articles of peace are principled before they are procedural. They derive from articles of faith and cannot be sustained long without them. Civility is not a rhetoric of niceness or a psychology of social adjustment, but discourse shaped by a principled respect for persons and truth. For another, articles of peace should not be understood as leading to unanimity, but to that unity within which diversity can be transformed into richness and disagreement itself into an achievement that betokens strength.
It should be stressed at once that this proposal for a chartered pluralism is not a futuristic dream or academic exercise. It has taken concrete shape in the recently drafted and published Williamsburg Charter. Significantly, the Charter may prove a litmus test of evangelical seriousness over public justice. For while the Charter has received widespread support from American leaders at large and from believers of almost all faiths, including leading evangelicals and the National Association of Evangelicals, other evangelicals have provided its strongest opposition. And repeatedly, it has been their deep-rooted suspicion of the theological rightness of any such common enterprise that has led to their repudiation of affirmations such as the following:
We readily acknowledge our continuing differences. Signing this Charter implies no pretense that we believe the same
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things or that our differences over policy proposals, legal interpretations and philosophical groundings do not ultimately matter. The truth is not even that what unites us is deeper than what divides us, for differences over belief are the deepest and least negotiated of all.
The Charter sets forth a renewed national compact, in the sense of a solemn mutual agreement between parties, on how we view the place of religion in American life and how we should contend with each other's deepest differences in the public sphere. It is a call to a vision of public life that will allow conflict to lead to consensus, religious commitment to reinforce political civility. In this way, diversity is not a point of weakness but a source of strength.15
Understood properly, the concept of chartered pluralism is critical to reforging that aspect of the public philosophy that bears on questions of religion and American public life, especially in the absence of any demonstrable alternative. If it gains acceptance in the three main arenas of conflict — public policy debates, the resort to law and public education — and if it succeeds in addressing their problems constructively, it could well serve as a public philosophy for the public square, truly a charter for America's third century of Constitutional government.
V. Questions and Challenges
The fifth step in the argument is to assess the questions and challenges raised against the concept of chartered pluralism. Such questions, of course, are to be expected. Like a beam of light refracted through glass, any proposal addressing current conflicts is bound to strike the ideals and interests of various faith communities
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differently. One has only to think of the respective "off stage" concerns of each, such as mainline Protestant concern over declining numbers, Catholic concern over the academic freedom of its Church institutions, Orthodox concern over its Presidential candidate, Jewish concern over Israeli responses to Palestinian intifada and Muslim concern over the Ayatollah Khomeini's death sentence on Salman Rushdie.
It therefore goes without saying that evangelicals have their own concerns. But it is also true that evangelical reactions to the notion of the public philosophy in general and to chartered pluralism in particular are shared by other Americans and may be taken as representative of the concerns of many who are broadly orthodox in faith and conservative in politics.
Evangelicals of one sort or another have raised five principal objections to the notion of chartered pluralism. In each case the objection has a surface plausibility. but deeper examination shows such objection to be quite unfounded. At the same time, the discussion offers a revealing testimony about the public face of evangelicalism in America today.
First, it is objected that chartered pluralism is soft on explicitly Christian statement and therefore essentially a form of secularism. As one critique expressed it, there is "pressure today on Christians to sign statements which seek 'common ground' with unbelievers, and in the process deny Christ and the Bible." Thus, despite the participation of several Christians such as William Bently Ball, Dean Kelley, Richard John Neuhaus, George Weigel and the present writer in its drafting, the Williamsburg Charter was dismissed as "profoundly anti-Christian." "Get it and read it," says the critic, "and you'll see that the faith of the secular humanists is the foundation of this document."16
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At the root of this objection is a theological deficiency. Obviously, compromise is a peril in all "cognitive bargaining," and individuals will have to decide for themselves whether the charge in this case is sustained. But what emerges plainly in the debate is that no evidence at all exists for such a charge. Instead, such critics share a theological deficiency bearing fateful political consequences. They lack a view of "common grace," or God's gratuitous mercy given, despite sin, to both just and unjust alike. Common grace is a theme which is powerful in the Bible, the Reformers and the Puritans; and evangelicals who are without it are forced theologically to repudiate any notion of a public philosophy. They have no basis for any common enterprise with those who do not share their faith. Having no common grace on which to found a common vision for the common good, their public positions are forced to be all confrontation and no consensus. Commonness, in principle, is considered compromise.
In sum, chartered pluralism is not secularism. Commonness is a gift of God to be enjoyed. Solid ground on which to work for political justice is based on what John Calvin called "seeds of justice" planted in human nature, or "universal impressions of a certain civic fair dealing and order."17
Second, it is objected that chartered pluralism is soft on theology and therefore essentially a form of syncretism. (An earlier critique of the Williamsburg Charter blasted its drafters and signers as a "hodge-podge of people" and such initiatives as "these Tower of Babel ecumenical committees."18)
This objection involves a factual error and misunderstanding. Whether or not one views ecumenism and dialogue as worthwhile enterprises, chartered pluralism is quite different. The
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unity for which it strives is not a unity based on common theological beliefs. The assumption behind chartered pluralism is that, today, expanding pluralism has rendered forlorn any such search for a theologically based unity.
Rather, the unity is based on a common commitment to the rights and responsibilities of religious liberty — across the chasm of religious differences. Of course, given the diversity of theological beliefs supporting these different rights in different ways, unity (as with any human accomplishment in a fallen world) will never be perfect or total. But grounded as it is in common grace, a common vision for the common good can help construct an overlapping consensus that will never be complete yet still deliver a substantial measure of political justice.
In sum, chartered pluralism is not syncretism. Nor need it lead to compromise in any way. It is quite compatible with the most stringent requirements of orthodoxy (whether Christian, Jewish, Mormon, or whatever) as well as those of political civility.
Third, it is objected that chartered pluralism is soft on truth and therefore essentially a form of relativism. This objection has suddenly become widespread among evangelicals, for whom pluralism is now the "P word," a dangerous evil associated automatically with relativism and eschewed as such. Small and innocuous-sounding at first, the objection has enormous consequences for religious liberty in a pluralistic society.
There is unquestionably a link between pluralism and relativism, and books like Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind have served us well in drawing attention to it. But to confuse the two is as harmful as to divorce the two, because it muddies the clear thinking necessary to combat the real problem.
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Yet pluralism is not in itself relativism. One is a social fact; the other a philosophical conclusion. "All those others" of different faiths just happen to be out there, and no amount of seeing red over relativism will wish them away. But it does not follow philosophically for a second that relativism need be true. Indeed, a stubborn feature of pluralism is the high number of those who unrepentantly believe their faith-commitments to be absolutely true. In the end this is even attested by the fact "that everything is relative has become the last absolute" — the relativist's own absolute.
Christians who confuse pluralism with relativism, and therefore oppose both, need some simple reminders. Was it not in a highly pluralistic setting that the early Church flourished without any compromise of the exclusive loyalty to Christ? And what was the earliest, strongest source of modern pluralism? The Protestant principle, freedom of conscience, which is the greatest generator of choice and dissent in history. And which community of faith was the first to show signs of relativism long before there were many other religions in America, let alone secularists? Protestant evangelicalism in the nineteenth century, though the word used then for the corrosive acid of (predominantly Protestant) pluralism was nothingarianism.
In sum, chartered pluralism is not relativism, and provides every reason to recognize and resist it. As the Williamsburg Charter declares, "Pluralism must not be confused with, and is in fact endangered by, philosophical and ethical indifference. Commitment to strong, clear philosophical and ethical ideas need not imply either intolerance or opposition to democratic pluralism. On the contrary, democratic pluralism requires an agreement to be
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locked in public argument over disagreements of consequences within the bonds of civility."19
Fourth, it is objected that chartered pluralism is soft on conflict and therefore essentially a form of pacifism. This objection, often tied in with the first and third objections, is particularly common among political activists. At its heart is the concern that achieving consensus or committing oneself to the rights of others — especially those of one's enemies — is a dangerous and defeatist form of weakness. As, say, with the nuclear freeze proposal, the fear is that recognition of any principled pact with one's opponents is a sure way of "freezing in the imbalance." Or, to change to the sporting metaphor adopted in one conservative memo, "It is comparable to calling the game at the bottom of the fourth with the score: ACLU 10; Evangelicals 1."
At the root of this objection is a misunderstanding of the purpose of chartered pluralism. Contrary to suspicions of milk-toast civility and fear of public nastiness, the goal of chartered pluralism is to strengthen debate, not to stifle it. What we have now is not debate. It is not even a shouting match between two sides. It is only different sides shouting into direct-mail megaphones about their opponents to the supporters on their own side.
Properly understood, chartered pluralism might be described as the equivalent for religion and public life of boxing's "Queensberry rules." Within the "ring and rules" of religious liberty's "3 Rs" (rights, responsibilities, and respect), the Religious Liberty clauses of the First Amendment act as "articles of peace" rather than "articles of faith" — the public setting for a civil but robust form of political engagement in which disagreement becomes an achievement and diversity remains a source of strength.
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In sum, chartered pluralism is not pacifism. It provides deep freedom for principled contention between deep differences that make a deep difference.
Fifth, it is objected that chartered pluralism is soft on realism and therefore essentially a form of idealism. Like the fourth objection, this one is well represented at both ends of the political spectrum and even in the middle. In its unreflective form it is so common that it may even be the majority opinion. Its appeal is simple. In an age of macho-style realpolitik, all that matters is political and judicial activism. Beat them at the ballot box. Sue them to their knees. First principles are fine as artillery "symbols" in the great blitzkrieg of ideas, but to be expected to follow them would be as archaic as a knight's code in the conditions of modern war.
At the root of this objection is a willful ignorance of a simple premise of political freedom: Freedom is ultimately best sustained, not by the legislation of rights, but by the cultivation of roots — those first principles, beliefs and ideals necessary to nourish an ongoing commitment to freedom and law in free societies that would remain free. That is why "We the people" must never be reduced to "We the judges and attorneys."
This point is often forgotten today by liberal and conservative activists alike. But it would have united thinkers as divergent as Edmund Burke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It is why James Madison saw that, without first principles, the Constitution is only a "parchment barrier." It is behind Alexis de Tocqueville's assertion that American freedom would depend on American mores, or "habits of the heart," rather than law. It underlies the warnings of contemporary prophets such as Walter Lippmann and
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Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. Or, as Justice Antonin Scalia put it simply, speaking of the relationship of freedom, virtue and rights, "In the last analysis, law is second best."20
In sum, chartered pluralism is not idealism. In insisting that rights derive from and are sustained only by first principles, it is actually more realistic than its critics. It thus seeks to restore the balance between Constitution, courts, and the ongoing consensus of the citizens that will be vital to the republic.
For anyone who investigates these objections and concludes that the problem is in the eye of the objectors, there is a further twist to the story. Far from proving fatal to the notion of chartered pluralism, an examination of the objections discloses defects in the current evangelical models of public discipleship. Three weaknesses in particular are involved, though only the first two are widely recognized and the third needs to be exposed before it too betrays the requirements of discipleship.
The first deficient model is that of a "privatized" faith. While not the view of earlier American evangelicals or of 18th century English evangelicals, this model was characteristic of most evangelicals just prior to the 1960s because of the influence of dispensationalism. It is perhaps still common among the majority. Weak both theologically and politically, the critical deficiency of privatized faith is its loss of the totality of faith, supremely Christ's lordship over all of life. This problem was ably protested by Carl F.H. Henry's The Uneasy Conscience of Fundamentalism (1947) even before being shown up by events in the 1960s.
The second deficient model is that of a "politicized" faith. This model has been characteristic of a smaller group of evangelicals from the 1960s onward, those who have been actively
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engaged in public life but who have compromised their faith by failing to be sufficiently critical of the dominant ideology of their times (whether Left or Right). Weak theologically and counterproductive politically, the critical deficiency of politicized faith is its loss of the tension of faith, supremely in the Christian's calling to be "in" the world, but not "of" it. This problem was ably protested by Jacques Ellul's The Political Illusion (1967) even before being shown up by events in the 1980s.
The third deficient model is that of "pillarized" faith. With the acknowledged failure of the other two models, this one represents the current temptation of evangelicals. Borrowed from the Dutch experience, the term "pillarized" refers to a special dynamic in situations where pluralism and particularism are both strong. The tendency then is to construct pillars, or concentrated networks of consistent Christian witness — not only churches, but Christian organizations of all sorts, such as Christian schools, Christian businesses, Christian recreation centers, Christian this and Christian that, Christian everything. Unfairly dismissed as "Yellow Pages Christianity," this model is actually far stronger than the others theologically and socially. But there is still a critical deficiency in this pillarized faith — in a world of publicly interpenetrating faiths, it relies solely on distinctively Christian groups and therefore lacks the transforming quality of faith in the public square. Christians become so secure in their network that even those who speak a classic Reformed language (including talk of transformation) end up in what is indistinguishable from a classic Anabaptist lifestyle — set apart from the tough centers of modern thought and power.
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Fashioning a model of public discipleship that combines the missing biblical elements of totality, tension, and transformation will be possible only if the neglected doctrine of vocation is rediscovered. But to those with such a "penetrating" model of public discipleship, chartered pluralism provides a vision of the place of religious liberty in public life that is highly conducive, if challenging, to an enterprising faith. For chartered pluralism is not only a principled pact between faiths, it is also (in terms of action) an invitation to principled participation in public life and (in terms of communication) an invitation to principled persuasion in public discourse.
Once again, constraints of space mean that these statements have to be left at the level of the general. But behind them are detailed reasons and examples. The closer the examination of the objections to chartered pluralism, the more cogent become the reasons for supporting it.
Consequences and Outcomes
The last step in the argument is to set out some of the foreseeable principles and pitfalls that ought to shape prudential judgments, as to the best way forward through the controversies.
First, there are three necessary conditions for a constructive solution such as chartered pluralism to be politically successful in achieving justice. Solid concepts and good will are not enough. What is required is intellectual foresight that will anticipate the problem before it becomes full-blown; moral courage that is willing to tackle problems not necessarily considered "problematic" on the current political agenda; and magnanimity that in the present situation will act generously, regardless of its own political
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position, with regard to the interests of others and especially those of the weaker parties.
Second, there are two unlikely outcomes. These are outcomes which are all but inconceivable and worth stating only because they form the stuff of activist propaganda and counter propaganda. They are that the conflicts should, on one hand, degenerate into Belfast-style sectarian violence or, on the other hand, result in an Albanian-style repression of religion, especially in the public square. The combined logic of America's historic commitment to religious liberty and the depth of religious diversity today makes these outcomes virtually impossible.
Third, there are two undesirable outcomes, in the sense of two broad possibilities that might occur should there be no effective resolution of the current conflicts over religion and public life. The milder, shorter-term possibility is that there could be a massive popular revulsion against religion in public life. This could take the form of "a-plague-on-both-your-houses" reaction to religious contention and therefore lead, ironically, to a sort of naked public square created, not by secularists or separationists, but by a wrongheaded overreaction to an equally wrongheaded Christian overreaction.
The more drastic, longer-term possibility is that continuing conflict could lead to the emergence of a two nation division in American life, with all conservative forces favorable to religion and all progressive forces hostile. A short time ago, such a possibility would probably have been dismissed summarily. But for anyone who appreciates the effects of two-nation divisions on European countries such as France, the implications of the 1988 presidential campaign are sobering and the cultural fissures are worth monitoring.
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Fourth, there are two unfortunate outcomes, in the sense of two broad possibilities that might occur even if chartered pluralism succeeds or if current conflicts simply fade away without apparent damage to national life. The first possibility is that, in the generally civil conditions of pluralism, the way is opened for some faith or worldview that would play the game only to win the game and end the game for others (existing candidates from the secular Left and the religious Right are equally dangerous here).
The second possibility is that, in the same civil conditions of pluralism, civility will itself become so corrupted that, in turn, pluralism is debased into a relativistic indifference to truth and principle. The result would be a slump into apathy, the logic of laissez-faire freedom gone to seed. The outcome would be that corruption of the republic from within of which the framers warned.
For some evangelicals, these dangers only confirm the risks of chartered pluralism they feared all along. But mention of the framers is a reminder that the risks are not new. They were built into the experiment from the very start. Such risks are the reason why the experiment is open-ended, and why the task of defending religious liberty is never finished.
As the Williamsburg Charter states, "The Founders knew well that the republic they established represented an audacious gamble against long historical odds. This form of government depends upon ultimate beliefs, for otherwise we have no rights to the rights by which it thrives, yet rejects any official formulation of them. The republic will therefore always remain an 'undecided experiment' that stands or falls by the dynamism of its nonestablished faiths."21
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A host of further issues requires examination (civil religion, co-belligerence, public communication, public education and so on). But when all is said and done, the final issue for evangelicals must be theological, not political. Are evangelicals going to cling to the trappings of past cultural dominance so that the heirs of the non-conformists, the independents and the separatists become the guardians of the establishment? Or, following the pattern of the incarnation, are evangelicals prepared to lay aside external symbols for a power that is strongest in weakness and clearest in disguise? If American evangelicals today can appreciate and affirm the framers' audacious gamble, and respond to it with a matching daring of faith and dedication to public justice, then their finest hours still lie ahead. Not as tribespeople nor as idiots but as citizens. But if the record of recent years is continued, evangelicals will betray their very character and purpose and bring a chapter to a close that few will long regret.
1. The Chalcedon Report, February, 1989, p. 12.
2. John Courtney Murray, "The Return to Tribalism," an address to the John A. Ryan Forum, Chicago, Illinois, April 14, 1961.
3. John Schaar, "A Nation of Behavors," The New York Review of Books, October 28, 1976, p. 6.
4. The Williamsburg Charter on Religion and Public Life (Washington, D.C.: The Williamsburg Charter Foundation, 1988).
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Walter Lippmann, "The Living Past," (Today and Tomorrow, April 13, 1943).
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8. The Williamsburg Charter, p. 9.
9. Quoted Erik von Kuenelt-Leddihin, The Intelligent American's Guide to Europe (New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House, 1979), p. 407.
10. The Williamsburg Charter Survey on Religion and Public Life.
11. Harold L. Hodgkinson, California: The State and its Educational System (Washington, D.C.: The Institute for Educational Leadership, 1986).
12. Harold L. Hodgkinson, All One System: Demographies of Education, Kindergarten Through Graduate School (Washington, D.C.: The Institute for Educational Leadership, 1985).
13. See John Rawls, "The Idea of an Overlapping Consensus," (Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 7, No. 1, 1987).
14. John Courtney Murray, We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition (Sheed and Ward, 1960).
15. The Williamsburg Charter, p. 8.
16. The Chalcedon Report, February 1989, p. 12.
17. See John Calvin, Calvin's Commentaries: The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans, D.W. and T.F. Torrance, eds. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1976), pp. 48ff; The Institutes, (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), pp. 271ff.
18. The Chalcedon Report, August 1988.
19. The Williamsburg Charter, p. 21.
20. Justice Antonin Scalia, "Teaching About the Law" (CLS Quarterly, Fall 1987, Vol.8, No.4), p.10
21. The Williamsburg Charter, p. 14.
