Religion Essential to U.S. Democracy, Study Says

A study by the Brookings Institution has concluded that the stability and future strength of American democracy depend on the underpinnings of religion.

Without it, “democracy lacks essential moral support” to sustain it, the report said.

After three years of analysis of the basic ingredients holding society together, the report concluded that secular value systems fail to do the job.

Representative government “depends for its health on values that over the not-so-long run must come from religion,” the report said.

‘Transcendent Moral Law’

Through religion, “human rights are rooted in the moral worth with which a loving Creator has endowed each human soul, and social authority is legitimized by making it answerable to a transcendent moral law,” it said.

The Washington institution, one of the country’s largest and most prestigious independent organizations for scholarly research, generally has been regarded over the years as liberal in its appraisals.

The 389-page report, entitled “Religion in American Public Life,” takes several positions regarded as conservative, suggesting civil policies more accommodating to religion.

It advocates allowing a “moment of silence” that could be used for voluntary prayer in public schools, making school facilities available for student religious meetings and giving tax credits for tuition paid to religious schools.

Arguments for Separation

In rejecting arguments of advocates of strict church-state separation that government neutrality toward religion requires barring all expressions or symbols of religion from public life, the report says:

“A society that excludes religion totally from its public life, that seems to regard religion as something against which public life must be protected, is bound to foster the impression that religion is either irrelevant or harmful.

“In a highly mobile and heterogeneous society like the United States, the values based on religion are even more essential to democracy than they may be in more traditional societies, where respect for freedom, order and justice may be maintained for some time through social inertia or custom.”

However, the study points out that “religious fanaticism may easily lead to social tragedy,” citing the turmoil in Northern Ireland.