Vol. 1 No. 1 (March, 1991) pp. 5-7

ARTICLES OF FAITH, ARTICLES OF PEACE: The Religious Liberty Clauses and the American Public Philosophy" James Davison Hunter and Os Guinness, editors The Brookings Institution, 1990, 145 pages text (followed by notes and index)

Reviewed by Jeremy Rabkin, Associate Professor, Department of Government,Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

This is a surprisingly good book -- which largely tran- scends its unpromising origins. The book began as a collection of papers for yet another bicentennial symposium, this one "orga- nized" (as we learn in the preface) by the "Williamsburg Charter Foundation." The foundation appears to be in the business of promoting something called the "Williamsburg Charter" ("presented to the nation in Williamsburg on June 25, 1988,when the first one hundred national signers signed it publicly ...") and the "Char- ter" is indeed reprinted as an appendix to this volume. The "Charter," itself, (developed after "close consultation with political leaders, scholars from many disciplines and leaders from a wide array of faith communities") is essentially an earnest plea for religious toleration in public life, which strives so earnestly for a balanced, consensus statement that it rarely rises above platitudes. But on the whole, the essays in this book are much more incisive and thought-provoking. None presents important original research or strikingly new arguments, but taken together they offer a useful reminder of why religion generates so many awkward challenges for American constitutiona- lism. All the contributors seem to share a sense of unease over the catch phrases and verbal formulas invoked by the Supreme Court to resolve the profound dilemmas in this field. Since contemporary public law in this field largely reflects the advocacy efforts of present day "liberals," the skeptical or cautious tone of these essays makes most of them sound rather conservative.But all avoid an axe-grinding, partisan tone and at their best, these essays point beyond particular American contro- versies to basic issues faced by all modern states. William Lee Miller, a professor of public affairs who has written about the first amendment, emphasizes in his essay that the American tradition of religious liberty owes as much, in its origins, to Protestant doctrines of conscience as to the secular doctrines of the Englightenment-- a confluence which Miller depicts as a particular source of strength.Harold Berman, profes- sor of law at Emory, emphasizes the extent to which religion served as a social and political guide before the 20th Century and the extent to which it has declined in strength and impor- tance as ever wider responsibilities -- in education, social welfare, family support and many other fields -- have been assumed by government. Berman finds this troubling and urges a "public philosophy" which can "come to grips with the fact that freedom of belief -- which includes freedom of disbelief --rests, in the last analysis, on the foundation of belief, not on the foundation of skepticism." He accordingly recommends a more generous approach to the "free exercise" clause of the First Amendment to protect religious organizations from the overweening pretensions of modern government. He also urges a more

Page 6 follows:

restricted application of the "non-establishment" clause to enable government to assist or cooperate in the social undertak- ings of religious organizations, so long as government continues to act in anon-discriminatory manner.

The ambiguities of this obligation -- to act without discrimination-- are pursued in a particularly interesting essay by James Davison Hunter,a sociologist who has written several sympathetic studies of American evangelicalism. Hunter points out that modern jurisprudence has been quite prepared to extend the protections of the "free exercise" clause to secular or humanist creeds in the name of religious neutrality. The same judges and commentators generally scoff at the notion that "secular humanism"can be regarded as a "religion," however, when it comes to enforcing the"non-establishment" clause, so they quickly dismiss the complaints of religious parents against the systematic exclusion of God or religion from instruction in moral, political or historical issues in public schools.Hunter himself takes such complaints very seriously. Viewing "secular humanism" as "the latent moral ideology of the intellectual classes, of the media ... and of public education," Hunter argues that secular humanism"occupies much the same place in American public culture as nondenominational Protestantism in the nine- teenth century" and "actually enjoys the status of a quasi establishment." He is very vague about programmatic solutions but makes a serious case that the current system is far from neutral in its operation. Harvard political theorist Michael Sandel offers the most explicit and general attack on the notion of governmental neu- trality in religious affairs. He traces the appeal of neutrality -- at least in contemporary constitutional rhetoric -- to the assumption that religious freedom can be grounded in a general right of individual choice. But for the religious believer, Sandel notes, religion is not a choice but a duty and it is just in these terms that Locke and Madison depicted it. Sandel warns that assimilating religion to other "choices" is bound to leave it, in the end, with less constitutional protection than it deserves -- for why should worthy governmental objectives be constrained by mere private choices? He also suggests that the threat to religion in this version of liberalism is symptomatic of wider problems with a moral vision that exalts individual "autonomy" as the highest good. Charles Taylor of McGill University, another political theorist, also advances a skeptical view of the "liberal" solu- tion which would reduce religion to an entirely private matter of no relevance to public life. Taylor stresses the extreme limita- tions this implies for public life with consequent reduction of any meaningful sense of shared national destiny or political comunity. But

Page 7 follows:

like most of the other contributors, he does not seem optimistic about finding a balance between contending factions and worries about a"kulturkampf" between those determined to see America as a nation with a special religious provenance and those determined to exclude religion altogether from its public life. Though most of these essays offer suggestions for improv- ing constitutional law, their ultimate concerns plainly go beyond legal formulas.The contributors to this volume repeatedly empha- size the importance of religion for the continued strength of liberal democracy; a brief concluding essay by Boston Universi- ty sociologist Peter Berger makes the point most explicitly by presenting religious belief as the greatest bulwark against totalitarian government. But none of the contributors to this volume is naive enough to suggest that altered constitutional formulas can ensure the vitality of religious faith in America.

The title of this volume (as Os Guiness notes in an introductory chapter) echoes the formulations of John Courtney Murray, who sought to articulate grounds for Catholic acceptance of religious freedom that did not imply any endorsement for religious skepticism. It is not derogation of the sincerity or subtlety of the contributors to this volume to note that they all speak with a good deal less confidence than Father Murray.