Gary Hart's new book: God And Caesar in America: An Essay on Religion and
Politi
http://securingamerica.com/ccn/node/2970
Gary Hart's new book: God And Caesar in America: An Essay on Religion
and Politics
Posted by msbehavinforclark on December 9, 2005 - 2:30pm.
God And Caesar in America: An Essay on Religion and Politics (Paperback)
by Former Senator Gary Hart
Former Colorado Senator Gary Hart has written the most compelling,
cogent contemporary treatise for the separation of church and state in
America that we have come across. Titled "God and Caesar in America:
An Essay on Religion and Politics," Hart's work is in the tradition of
Tom Paine.
This is a trenchant, earnest commentary that combines Hart's personal
experience as a child raised in a Church of the Nazarene household (he
attended a Nazarene College), his years as a Yale Divinity student,
and his career as a Yale Law School educated attorney and elected
politician. Although his faith-based upbringing combined with his
years as a national leader in the Senate provide him with a unique
perspective, it is the eloquent, impassioned analysis that Hart
applies to the interjection of religion into politics that makes his
short book so insightful.
Hart can move from analyzing the deplorable manner in which right wing
ministers hold Jesus hostage to achieve their own selfish political
goals to the historical factors behind the separation of church and
state that were enshrined into our Constitution by our founding
fathers. More importantly, Hart makes a moral and practical case as to
why mixing religion with politics is detrimental to both.
"Our founders knew that we would be governed by fallible human
beings," Hart concludes, "from among whom we would select our leaders.
They did not believe that human fallibility in the political sphere
would be corrected by opening the corridors of power to ministers,
priests and rabbis. To the contrary, to turn over the reigns of
government to religious leaders could lead to one of only two
destructive consequences: we would become a theocratic principality
familiar to old Europe or religion would be totally discredited and
taken over by the state."
"Indeed, how can religious judgment all seem to be rendered against
one political party?" Hart asks in a chapter called, "Beliefs, Values
and Justice." "The 'values' employed are very partisan values. All
this religious partisanship is a very short step away from preaching
that Jesus was a member of one political party."
"This kind of political activity may encourage one party," Hart
continues, "and its candidates, but it certainly does nothing to
further the gospel of Jesus."
Indeed, in the original debates over the Constitution, one of the
reasons religion was guaranteed the right to be free of the influence
of politics -- and politics to be kept free of religion -- was that
once a specific religious faction took control of politics, that
religion itself would eventually become corrupted by the secular,
practical concerns of the political sphere.
Hart convincingly argues that religious values, as seen by a member of
any faith, should be practiced in deed in the public sphere, but that
absolutist religious principles have no place in the political world
of the American democracy.
Because of the absolutist nature of the religious right, we have seen
less and less compromise in American politics. "This circumstance has
been created in no small part by the introduction of absolutes,
especially 'faith-based' absolutes, into a political system, where no
single group gets everything that it demands, and often does not even
get one thing it wants unblemished by compromise."
Hart is optimistic that the pendulum will swing back to the heritage
of our Constitutional wisdom creating the separation of church and
state: "Politicians hiding behind the robes of ministers, policy
makers courting a vociferous religious element, adventurers cloaking
foreign military ventures in the crusader's rhetoric, political
manipulators cynically using public fears to turn out voters all will
be swept back into our nation's nooks and crannies from whence they
emerged. This must happen, because America cannot be governed otherwise."
"God and Caesar in America" is a profound and vitally important
reflection on the danger to our democracy posed by religious fanatics
who have seized control of our government. This is a must-read book
for anyone concerned about the Mullah fundamentalists who have
hijacked this nation.
MIGHT BE INTERESTING?
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Posting and reading from alt.politics.usa.constitution OR alt.education
You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads [Virginia] SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members, there are members from
all over the U.S. and a couple from overseas as well]
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.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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