One Cheer for Postmodernism

People define our era as post-Christian and postmodern because it’s characterised by the loss of truths we once took for granted. If this is what postmodernism means, perhaps that’s a good thing.

Take, for example, the principle of “separation of church and state.” This principle is believed to have arrived in the US aboard the Mayflower. The fact is, as historian Phillip Hamburger points out in a new book, Separation of Church and State (2002), there is no such requirement for it in the US Constitution—and never has been. Not even in the Jeffersonian formulation of the American republic (whence this phrase originates). The idea is a myth, an ideological slogan used by secularists—and some Christians—predominantly through legal precedents and critical court decisions in an effort to keep Christians out of politics or to keep politicians who happen to be Christians from engaging in political activism.

In the US, Hamburger shows, the intent of separating church and state didn’t have its origins in the Puritan settlements, the Constitution or with its writers, as commonly supposed. Their intentions were simply to protect the principle of religious liberty—which, incidentally, is not synonymous with opposition to a union of church and state. Rather, the American republic was borne by ideologues committed to keeping any single church from dominating the state. That’s a long way from keeping religion out of politics and vice versa. What the American founders actually wanted, at most, was to keep the Roman Catholic Church, in the wake of the Reformation and Counter Reformation, from influencing what they saw as the right to legitimate the Protestant state.

The broad idea of a total “separation” of all religions from the state was shaped much later, in the 19th century, by various American nationalists and anti-Christian secularists, who all shared an anti-Catholic agenda. In fact, by that time, the most ardent advocates for the idea of “separation of church and state,” Hamburger shows, were secular atheists, Baptists, Freemasons, Jews and the Ku Klux Klan. Seventh-day Adventists (publishers of Signs of the Times) also joined under the shield of religious liberty and under the leadership of preachers such as Alonzo T Jones. Hamburger points out, it was only then that the myth of an earlier separation began.

So in what sense is the Australian church separate from the state? And on what basis should a state be quarantined from churchly values? The Australian Prime Minister is (in theory at least) a nominal Christian, but not one who cares for fusing religion and state. His likely successor Peter Costello is a practising Christian—one we’ve seen in church, at least on television. What will his position be on the separation of church and state?

As the biblical Daniel and his friends recognised, there’s good to be gained by the practical integration of one’s religious beliefs with political office. And we are concerned when a particular church seeks to put its values and doctrines into state legislation. But are these the only expressions of a legitimate relationship between church and state?

My right hand is distinct from my left, but that doesn’t mean they can’t or shouldn’t work together. The original American idea of keeping one church from dominating politics is still a good idea, but perhaps the idea of separating Christian values from the state has proven to be a bad thing: no moral system now determines legislation and anything goes when it comes to rights.

We need to revisit our ideas and find a more biblical stance for our political ideals before we are swept away by atheistic-secular-moralism. The trend is running against it, but as Hamburger shows, the two distinct and separate spheres of Christianity and government can run together toward a common destination for a common social purpose with common objectives without running over the top of the freedom of religious minorities that characterises global multiculturalism.

Extract from Signs of the Times, August 2005.

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