Urging a More Civil Approach to Debate Over Church-State Separation

Thanks to President Bush and his advocacy of expanded “faith-based” welfare programs, the 200-year-old debate over the proper role of religion in American politics has never been hotter. For that reason alone, “Religion in American Public Life,” by Azizah Y. al-Hibri, Jean Bethke Elshtain and Charles C. Haynes, seems to be hot-wired to the headlines.

“This book begins with the recognition that, whatever some of the pious and more of the secular-minded might prefer, faith, spirituality and religion are not only private affairs,” Martin E. Marty says in the book’s introduction. “As America grows ever more pluralist in fact and outlook, paradoxically the sight and voice of religion is more evident.”

“Religion in American Public Life” is published by the American Assembly, an affiliate of Columbia University that was founded in 1950 to study various public policy issues. The assembly’s current project, a series of studies of race, religion, family and other topics, falls under the theme “Uniting America: Toward a Common Purpose” and is intended to promote candid but civil debate on controversies that are “some of the most difficult and divisive forces in our society.”

“Religion in American Public Life” is aimed at engendering “an atmosphere of mutual respect in public life in which . . . religious differences could be discussed in a less divisive way.”

The chapter “Faith of Our Fathers and Mothers” points out a crucial but sometimes overlooked idea: The Bill of Rights may require the separation of church and state, but religion is an unavoidable fact of American life. Ninety-five percent of Americans claim to believe in God, one learns here, and 70% say they belong to a church, synagogue or mosque. “By diminishing the official power of religion,” says Elshtain, a professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, “Americans appeared to have enhanced its social strength.”

Al-Hibri, founder of “Karamah: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights,” takes a decisive step away from strict separation of church and state by questioning its ideological underpinnings, including what she calls the “secular assumptions of modern science” and “[t]he mechanistic model of the Industrial Revolution.” For al-Hibri, the old ideal of “compartmentalizing religion” has outlived its usefulness in the American democracy.

“For people of faith in particular, it has meant a schizophrenic existence,” she says in the chapter “Standing at the Precipice: Faith in the Age of Science and Technology.” “It has legitimated a separation of faith from public life, causing an unfortunate rupture that marginalized faith as it privatized one’s deepest-held beliefs and values.”

Drawing on an example from the business world, al-Hibri writes that directors of corporations are urged to do more than just maximize profits for their shareholders--some states have enacted laws that oblige them to concern themselves with the interests of other “stakeholders,” including the employees of the company. She argues that such activism ought to inspire “people of faith” who often content themselves with “general moral pronouncements” rather than “concrete solutions.”

Al-Hibri prescribes a 10-point program that is nothing less than a rhetorical call to arms: “People of faith in law, business, medicine, education, government and other sectors need to start thinking about how they can integrate their faith in what they do,” she says. “It is all right to bring our faith to all corners of the public square and to make our voices heard in every arena.”

“From Battleground to Common Ground,” the book’s third principal chapter, concedes the danger of a “culture-war” between believers and secularists. But Haynes makes a determined effort to show how “civil dialogue might be renewed and civic consensus reached without ignoring or compromising our diverse religious and philosophical commitments.”

He holds up the so-called Williamsburg Charter, a policy statement drafted by some 200 representatives of various religions in 1988, as an agenda for public debate that shows a way to avoid the “war of words” over abortion, sex education, homosexuality and school prayer, all of which “can sometimes escalate into outbursts of hate and violence.” “How we debate, and not only what we debate,” writes Haynes, “is critical.”

“Religion in American Public Life” deserves credit for its good intentions and temperate voices. What’s missing, however, is an advocate for the point of view that strict separation of church and state--still a sacred truth in certain civil libertarian circles--is the ultimate guarantee of freedom of religion. These authors may have framed the debate, but it will take another book to provide the other side of the argument.

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Jonathan Kirsch, a contributing writer to Book Review, is the author of, most recently, “The Woman Who Laughed at God: The Untold History of the Jewish People” (Viking).