Faith in the Public Square: Obama’s Approach Is Fine By Me
December 02, 2006
With Illinois Senator Barack Obama (D) joking on The Tonight Show about running for president, it seems like a good time to revisit his June 2006 remarks before the Call to Renewal Conference, a gathering of religious progressives.
In that speech, Obama offered his perspective on the proper role of religious faith in public policy debate. On one hand, the first-term senator chided “secularists” who would “ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square.”
Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King -- indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history -- were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. To say that men and women should not inject their “personal morality” into public policy debates is a practical absurdity; our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
But then, in seeming contradiction, Obama warned religious believers about how they should present their faith-based concerns in the public square.
Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.
This may be difficult for those who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality.
This warning was not well received by some in the so-called Religious Right. Southern Baptist commentator Dr. Albert Mohler, for example, contends that Obama has invited “believers to show up,” only to limit them to “arguments that are not based in their deepest beliefs.” Dr. Mohler continues: “those who believe in the authority and inerrancy of the Bible must, of necessity, make some arguments on the basis of that revelation.”
My reaction to Obama’s speech differs greatly from Dr. Mohler’s. Consider, in particular, these two propositions by the senator:
“Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values”; and
“Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality.”
Obama’s propositions present a welcome challenge to Christians who conceive of their faith as a worldview, a system of beliefs and convictions about how the world works and how we fit in it. From this perspective, Christianity encompasses so much more than the question of personal salvation. It represents and teaches the truth about our origin, our destiny, our reason for being and how we ought to live. And by “truth” I don’t mean “what’s true for me, but perhaps not for you.” I mean what is absolutely, objectively, universally true. Using Obama’s words, the Christian who understands her faith as a worldview understands that Christian values are “universal” and reflective of “a common reality.” The claims of Christianity correspond to reality; they fit the facts.
Moreover, we know Christianity to be true not just because the Bible says so. As I have observed before, God has blessed us “through general revelation – in creation, culture and conscience” – with a “wealth of other evidence of His will and tools of persuasion . . . .”
Armed with His general revelation, as seen through the lens of special revelation, the Christian can and should make persuasive prudential arguments in the marketplace of ideas – without having to quote chapter and verse.
Using Obama’s language, these contemporary Christian thinkers, in the ordinary course of public dialogue, “translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values.” This approach seems more prudent than the one suggested by Dr. Mohler, given that it is more likely to persuade nonbelievers and result in public policies reflective of God’s truth. It also promotes among the faithful a more reflective heart and mind, sensitive to the breadth and depth of ways in which our Creator is speaking to us. For these reasons, I think that Obama is proposing a role for faith in the public square that Christians should accept.Of course, this isn’t my idea. Chuck Colson long has taken this approach in the field of criminal justice reform among others. Jennifer Roback Morse does the same in her study of families, as does Jay Richards with respect to intelligent design.
