R: Separate Church and State

There are two questions central to this debate. First, what should be the relationship between religious institutions and institutions of state? Second, how should individuals manage their competing obligations as members of both the religious sphere and the body politic?

As Federalists, we recognize that our religious beliefs necessarily influence our politics—and certainly this is a good thing. We strive to temper our taste and correct our judgment, not only in the private sphere, but as political actors. Our political decisions are grounded in a coherent moral framework, much of which is informed by religious tradition. Even if we believe that religious institutions should be distinct from political ones, there is significant overlap between the individuals who constitute them.

The American tradition, as distinct from the European tradition, has long frowned upon the express integration of church and state. According to this framework, a culture of government-enforced religious liberty is actually the best environment for truth to flourish, and is mutually beneficial. It is good for the state because it gives equal protection to those outside a given religious tradition, and good for the church because it doesn’t subject religious leaders to the pressures and temptations of political authority. In this context, Thomas Jefferson’s argument for a barrier between church and state makes sense.

Detractors might claim that this “wall of separation,” while operating under the guise of liberalism and protecting religious freedom, is really just an excuse for anticlericalism. It is worth considering that some of the staunchest supporters of the separation of church and state, like Jefferson and Thomas Paine, were openly hostile to organized religion. In his treatise “The Age of Reason,” Paine famously disparages “the adulterous connection of church and state” for silencing discourse on the first principles of religion, not because he admires such discourse for its own sake, but because he believes it will lead to the rejection of Christianity as “human invention and priest-craft.” He only favors liberalism as it suits his own theological ends. But can we put any stock in the theology of a man who said “My own mind is my own church?”

The Bible commands that Christians “be subject to the governing authorities.” Wouldn’t this command be much easier to follow if the governing authorities were themselves Christian? After all, if the goal of both the church and the state is to promote human flourishing, and if one has a coherent idea of what human flourishing entails, then shouldn’t both institutions work harmoniously towards this end? For church and state to remain fully separate suggests that they are working toward separate outcomes. Some degree of integration could be healthy even for governments established on Enlightenment principles. A robust democracy requires a virtuous people, and churches inculcate the virtues necessary for self-government. Thus, an expansive view of the church’s role within the state appears compatible with liberalism as well as theocracy.

To be in the affirmative, one need not argue that religious convictions are irrelevant to political beliefs. Likewise, those in the negative need not be Catholic integralists. Rather, the purpose of this debate is to investigate those gray areas between absolute separation and absolute integration. What happens when both the church and the state claim authority over the same types of human action? How should we live as members of both religious institutions and the political sphere? To what extent should the church (Christian or otherwise) engage in political discourse? Should church and state be friends? Enemies? Strangers?