06/05: Religion in the Public Square
Category: Religion & Public Policy
Posted by: an okie gardener
I have written often concerning Religion and Public Policy. At greatest length in a series here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four
If the topic of Religion and Public Policy, or, how Religion can operate in the American political process, interests you, then I recommend this article from the most recent Princeton Seminary Bulletin by John R. Bowlin, the Professor of Reformed Theology and Public Life at the Seminary.
His most provocative thesis is this: our nation has had, and will have again a religious establishment. Following Thomas Aquinas, he asserts that human beings naturally link politics and religion into a self-supporting whole--religion supports the order of rule and vice versa whithin a public piety. Our nation, historically, has had unofficial religious establishment(s). Our last one was the Cold War linkage of mainline Protestantism with true Americanism that came apart in the late 20th century. We now are in what he regards as a temporary period between religious establishments. The question: what will the next religious establishment be? He doubts it will be some variety of Christianity.
For myself, some claim that our current multiculturalism/ religious&moral relativism supported with postmodernist philosophy and expressed in an ironic ethos is itself a religious establishment. One certainly can define "religion" broadly enough to encompass this milieu. But it would not surprise me to see a more explicitly religious establishment arise. And it would not surprise me if it were post-Christian.
If the topic of Religion and Public Policy, or, how Religion can operate in the American political process, interests you, then I recommend this article from the most recent Princeton Seminary Bulletin by John R. Bowlin, the Professor of Reformed Theology and Public Life at the Seminary.
His most provocative thesis is this: our nation has had, and will have again a religious establishment. Following Thomas Aquinas, he asserts that human beings naturally link politics and religion into a self-supporting whole--religion supports the order of rule and vice versa whithin a public piety. Our nation, historically, has had unofficial religious establishment(s). Our last one was the Cold War linkage of mainline Protestantism with true Americanism that came apart in the late 20th century. We now are in what he regards as a temporary period between religious establishments. The question: what will the next religious establishment be? He doubts it will be some variety of Christianity.
For myself, some claim that our current multiculturalism/ religious&moral relativism supported with postmodernist philosophy and expressed in an ironic ethos is itself a religious establishment. One certainly can define "religion" broadly enough to encompass this milieu. But it would not surprise me to see a more explicitly religious establishment arise. And it would not surprise me if it were post-Christian.
