While Bill O'Reilly celebrates and defends the secular American Christmas holiday from imagined attack, he and the evangelicals we see on Meet the Press, you know the ones, they are the folks Barack Obama is courting, NEVER actually discuss what it is they supposedly have faith in. It is relatively insignificant politically, but illuminating intellectually. The reality is the intersection of religion and the State never REALLY happens - radical social conservatives are NOT acting based on any true religious beliefs - on abortion, sexual orientation or anything else. It is a conceit that we grant extremists for no good reason frankly. But there it is. Indeed, let us consider the fundamental religious belief of Christianity - the nature of Jesus, on the flip.
Who and what is Jesus according to Christian teachings? Well, in the Catholic tradition, the nature of Christ was decided in 325 AD, at the Council of Nicea, convened by the Emperor Constantine:
When Constantine defeated Emperor Licinius in 323 AD he ended the persecutions against the Christian church. Shortly afterwards Christians faced a trouble from within: the Arian controversy began and threatened to divide the church. The problem began in Alexandria, it started as a debate between the bishop Alexander and the presbyter (pastor, or priest) Arius. Arius proposed that if the Father begat the Son, the latter must have had a beginning, that there was a time when he was not, and that his substance was from nothing like the rest of creation. The Council of Nicea, a gathering similar to the one described in Acts 15:4-22, condemned the beliefs of Arius and wrote the first version of the now famous creed proclaiming that the Son was "one in being with the Father" by use of the Greek word "homoousius."
Indeed, the concept of the Trinity becomes the universal teaching of the nature of God for the Catholic Church:
Christians believe that God is three persons in one nature - God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit. We do not believe that there are three Gods, but one God in three persons. The divine persons are distinct from each other, but relative to each other and share one divine nature.
Now, as a matter of faith and theology, I do not have an opinion on this issue, but I do have an opinion on whether this type of thinking has a place in the formulation of public policy. The answer is decidedly NO.
Yesterday Jon Meacham, the obtuse Newsweek editor and regular Media bloviator, declared in assured accents on Meet The Press that no one can seriously doubt that the Nation was founded on religious principles. This is simply false.
As any true student of our Nation knows, the United States was founded upon the principles of the Enlightenment, rejecting such religious concepts as the divine right of Kings. Indeed, this is the commonly understood underpinnings of our governent:
Locke, Montesqueiu, and Rousseau were three of the great thinkers during Europe's Age of Enlightenment. Though these enlightened thinkers were around one hundred years before the forming of the union of the United States of America, they seem to have been the main inspiration for our Constitution and society.
In the Enlightenment the idea was brought about that all people are born not only equal but with certain natural rights. These three thinkers were advocates of this. So were the people that wrote then Declaration of Independence. They wrote "..., that they [people] are endowed by their creator with the certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." The Declaration of Independence says that all humans have the Natural Right to these three things. This is exactly what these 15th [sic] century philosophers wrote.
John Locke and Montesquieu made two of the biggest impacts on our government then anybody else of their time; John Locke in his book The Second Treatise of Civil Government, in 1690 he states one of the most important things in our government and society: that the people have the right to govern themselves. "...First and Fundamental natural law, which is to govern even the legislative itself, is the preservation of the society, and of every person in it. This legislative is not only the supreme power of the commonwealth, but sacred and unalterable in the hands where the community have once placed it; nor can any edict of anybody else..."(Chapter XI, Section 134)
Also in The Second Treatise of Civil Government Locke states the idea that there should be an executive branch of government so that the legislature does not have all the power of making the laws. "But because the laws that are at once, and in a short time made, have a constant and lasting force, and need a perpetual execution, or an attendance thereunto; therefore it is necessary there should be a power always being, which should see to the execution of the laws that are made, and remain in force. And thus the legislative and executive power come often to be separated." (Chapter XII, Section 144)
Montesquieu took Locke's theory one step further in saying that the government should be separated into sections and each section should keep checks on the others so there is a balance of power and one branch of government does not over power the others.
These three Philosophers not only shaped the way our government looks today, but they helped inspire the theory on which this whole country is based; That all Men are created equal and are born with the same rights.
Now some are thrown by the phrases "Natural Rights" and "endowed by their Creator." But truly there is nothing of religious philosphy in these phrases. One need not even accept the idea that there was a Creator to accept the fundamental principles. One could just as easily ascribe these views to a Theory of Social Contract, to name just one.
The point is there is nothing RELIGIOUS in the view - it springs from no religion or theology. Indeed, it was contrary to most at the time. And of course, the Founders of our Nation took great pains to insure the separation of Church and State.
Why do I go to this trouble to prove what we all know? Because it is clear that what we all know is NOT common knowledge and the discourse surrounding faith and the State does not even acknowledge these obvious truths. Indeed, the whole discourse about faith, including that of one Barack Obama, ignores these obvious points.
Is it politically expedient for Democrats to ignore the truth? I do not think so but ignore it most do. But, once in a while, it is nice to deal in truth, is it not?