The Michael Eric Dyson Reader (92 page)

24
. Of course, Hauerwas and Baxter might argue that the Founders viewed religion primarily as an aid, and not a critic, of the government. That may be the case, but as they point out in regard to the freedom of religion in their discussion of Will earlier in their essay, the intent of the Founders is not as important as what has occurred in practice. Similarly, what has occurred in practice is that persons and groups have appealed to their religious beliefs to challenge American government, ranging from the civil rights movement to antinuclear activists.

25
. Marty,
Pilgrims in Their Own Land
, pp. 155–156.

26
. Ibid., p. 157.

27
. Ibid., p. 158.

28
. George Washington, quoted in Berns, “Religion and the Founding Principle,” p. 213.

29
. Jefferson, quoted in Berns, “Religion and the Founding Principle,” pp. 217–218.

30
. Ibid., p. 213.

31
. Admittedly this distinction between functional and moral subordination doesn’t completely resolve the tensions created by conflicts of conscience over legally established political practices. In such cases, of course, it is clear that moral insubordination takes precedence; but the violation of the law in the name of conscience results in the Christian acknowledging the conflict created by her religious beliefs by accepting the penalty of breaking the law until the law is changed, either as a result of civil disobedience or through shifted public consensus, or reconstructed public practice, later reflected in law. The examples of Christian participation in the civil rights movement, feminist movements, and antinuclear war movements stand out.

32
. For instance, Ronald Thiemann has argued that Hauerwas represents one of two unacceptable options in developing an effective public Christian response to the crises of North American civilization. In characterizing the first option, represented in the thinking of theologian Paul Lehmann, Thiemann, in
Constructing a Public Theology: The Church in a Pluralistic Culture
(Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox, 1991), summarizes Lehmann’s position, expressed by Lehmann in an essay entitled “Praying and Doing Justice”: “Arguing out of the Reformed tradition’s close association of faith with obedience, Lehmann asserts that proper worship always has as its goal the accomplishment of justice in the world. The righteousness of faith must result in transformative justice within the public realm. Thus Christian worship is essentially political, and the
lietourgia
of the church extends naturally and directly into political action” (p. 114). The second option is represented by Hauerwas in his book,
A Community of Character
. According to Thiemann, Hauerwas contends that “by being faithful to the narratives that shape Christian character, the church will witness to a way of life that stands apart from and in criticism of our liberal secular culture. Christian worship, then, must be an end in itself directed solely toward the cultivation of those peculiar theological virtues that mark the church as a distinctive community” (p. 114). But Thiemann concludes that neither of these options “provides us with the theological resources we need to face the distinctive challenge presented to North American Christians” (p. 114). He continues: “Neither the politicization of worship nor its sectarian separation from public life will suffice in our current situation. . . . We must find a middle way between the reduction of the Christian gospel to a program of political action and the isolation of that gospel from all political engagement” (p. 114). And in an essay, “Justice as Participation: Public Moral Discourse and the U. S. Economy,” in
Community i n
America
, in which he clarifies the position of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in their pastoral letter on the economy, David Hollenbach juxtaposes their belief that “the church has a responsibility to help shape the life of society as a whole” to Hauerwas’s position on such matters (p. 220). Hollenbach says: “Hauerwas concludes that the church should cease and desist from the attempt to articulate universal moral norms persuasive to all members of a pluralistic society. . . . [The letter’s] disagreement with Hauerwas is with his
exclusive
concern with the quality of the witness of the Christian community’s own life. In the traditional categories of Ernest Troeltsch, the bishops refuse to take the ‘sectarian’ option of exclusive reliance on the witness of the Christian community that Hauerwas recommends” (p. 220).

33
. Hauerwas and Baxter, “The Kingship of Christ,” p. 11.

34
. Ibid., p. 14.

35
. Stanley Fish, “There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech, and It’s a Good Thing, Too,” in
Debating P. C.
, ed. Paul Berman (New York: Dell, 1992), p. 241.

36
. Ibid.

37
. Ibid., pp. 241–242.

38
. Quoted in Thiemann,
Constructing a Public Theology
, p. 24.

39
. Fish, “There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech, and It’s a Good Thing, Too,” p. 242.

40
. Ibid.

41
. Ibid.

42
. Ibid., p. 243.

43
. Ibid.

44
. Hauerwas and Baxter, “The Kingship of Christ,” p. 10.

45
. Ibid., p. 17.

46
. Ibid., pp. 17–18.

47
. This is not to deny universal dimensions of Christian faith. It is to challenge essentialist notions of Christian identity fostered by references to church without spelling out the church’s social location, who its members are, under what conditions they practice their belief, what historical factors have shaped their faith, and so on.

48
. I understand “black church” as shorthand to symbolize the views of black Christianity. The black church is certainly not homogeneous, and I shall be focusing on the prophetic dimensions of black religious faith. Hauerwas and Baxter’s failure to take the black church seriously is part of a larger pattern that has rendered the black church invisible for most of its history. Even investigations of American religion have usually, until quite recently, excluded black religion as a central force in American life. As C. Eric Lincoln, in
Race, Religion and the Continuing American Dilemma
(New York: Hill & Wang, 1984), says, the “religious situation is structured in such a way that any investigation of religion in America has usually meant the religion of white Americans, unless ‘Negro,’ ‘folk,’ or ‘black’ religion was specifically mentioned” (p. 123). And as Charles Long says in
Significations: Signs, Symbols, and Images in the Interpretation of Religion
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986): “In short, a great many of the writings and discussions on the topic of American religion have been consciously or unconsciously ideological, serving to enhance, justify, and render sacred the history of European immigrants in this land. Indeed this approach to American religion has rendered the religious reality of non-Europeans to a state of invisibility, and thus the invisibility of the non-European in America arises as a fundamental issue of American history at this juncture” (p. 149).

49
. I have in mind here the large number of black ministers among current members of Congress, continuing a tradition in this century established by leaders such as Adam Clayton Powell; the activity of black church leaders in the civil rights movement and the political movements it gave rise to, especially the presidential campaigns of Jesse Jackson; and the large number of black churchpersons affiliated with historically black institutions of higher education. In each area, the black church has supplied many of these persons the principles they have appealed to in making the claims of black equality, justice, and freedom to the larger American public. For two examples, see Charles Hamilton’s biography of Adam Clayton Powell,
Adam Clayton Powell Jr.: The Political Biography of an American Dilemma
(New York: Atheneum, 1991), and Roger Hatch,
Beyond Opportunity: Jesse Jackson ’s Vision for
America
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988).

50
. Cornel West,
Prophetic Fragments
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1988), pp. 22–23.

51
. See Mechal Sobel
, Trabelin’ On: The Slave Journey to an Afro-Baptist Faith
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988; original ed., 1979), and James Washington,
Frustrated Fellowship: The Black Baptist Quest for Social Power
(Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1986).

52
. Sobel,
Trabelin’ On,
p. 85.

53
. Ibid., p. 85; and Bailyn,
The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
, pp. 261–262.

54
. I do not mean by any measure to romanticize the religious dissenters. Although they fought against slavery, they fought more effectively, desperately, and consistently for their own religious freedom, largely out of self-interest.

55
. For instance, John Allen pointed out the hypocrisy of his fellow countrymen making claims to colonial freedom while simultaneously denying liberty to slaves, employing religious terms like “sacred,” “praying,” and “fasting” to drive home his point. He said: “Blush ye pretended votaries for freedom! ye trifling patriots! who are making a vain parade of being advocates for the liberties of mankind, who are thus making a mockery of your profession by trampling on the sacred natural rights and privilege of Africans; for while you are fasting, praying, nonimporting, nonexporting, remonstrating, resolving, and pleading for a restoration of your charter rights, you at the same time are continuing this lawless, cruel, inhuman, and abominable practice of enslaving your fellow creatures” (quoted in Bailyn
, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
, p. 240). And Isaac Backus pressed arguments for the religious dissenters to be released from the bondage of the Church of England, asserting that civil and religious liberty were one. Backus tirelessly proclaimed that the church of Massachusetts “has declared the Baptists to be irregular, therefore the secular power still
force
them to support the worship which they conscientiously dissent from,” and that “many who are filling the nation with cry Of LIBERTY and against oppressors are at the same time themselves violating that dearest of all rights, LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE” (quoted in Bailyn,
The Ideological Origins of the American
Revolution
, p. 263).

56
. Robert Wuthnow makes helpful distinctions between conservative and liberal versions of civil religion in
The Restructuring of American Religion
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). About conservative civil religion, Wuthnow says: “On the conservative side, America’s legitimacy seems to depend heavily on a distinct ‘myth of origin’ that relates the nation’s founding to divine purposes. According to this interpretation of American history, the American form of government enjoys lasting legitimacy because it was created by Founding Fathers who were deeply influenced by Judeo-Christian values” (pp. 244–245). Wuthnow also states that conservative civil religion “generally grants America a special place in the divine order” and that the idea of “evangelizing the world is in fact a much-emphasized theme in conservative civil religion” (p. 247). He contends that despite “formal separation between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of man, the ‘two kingdoms’ doctrine in conservative civil religion also confers a strong degree of divine authority on the existing mode of government” (p. 248). Conservative civil religion also grants “capitalism a high degree of legitimacy by drawing certain parallels between capitalist economic principles and biblical teachings” (p. 248).

Liberal civil religion, however, makes little “reference to the religious views of the Founding Fathers” and doesn’t “suggest that America is God’s chosen nation” (p. 250). Liberal civil religion “focuses less on the nation as such, and more on humanity in general” (p. 250). Wuthnow says that rather than “drawing specific attention to the distinctiveness of the Judeo-Christian tradition, liberal civil religion is much more likely to include arguments about basic human rights and common human problems” (p. 250). Liberal civil religionists also “appeal to broader values that transcend American culture and, indeed, challenge some of the nationalistic assumptions it incorporates” (p. 253). The liberal “version of American civil religion taps into a relatively deep reservoir of sentiment in the popular culture about the desirability of peace and justice” (p. 253). As a result, Wuthnow mentions, “religious leaders who champion these causes may detract from the legitimacy of the current U.S. system rather than contribute to it” (p. 254).

It would be good for Hauerwas and Baxter to keep the distinctions between the two versions of civil religion in mind when making claims about its “counterfeit” religious status. Although it probably wouldn’t persuade them to change their views, it would nonetheless help them make crucial distinctions about the varying functions of civil religion as it is employed and exercised by different spheres of the citizenry, and even by different branches of Christianity.

57
. Long,
Significations,
p. 152.

58
. Ibid.

59
. Ibid.

60
. Ibid., pp. 152–153.

61
. Of course, King’s later beliefs about the necessity for radical social, economic, and moral transformation of American democracy presented a serious challenge to extant political arrangements. See James Cone,
Martin and Malcolm and America: A Dream or a Nightmare
(Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1991), especially pp. 213–243.