If you've never read "The Naked Public Square," by John Neuhaus, I'd recommend it to you. Neuhaus was no fan of the religious right, as portrayed by the likes of Jerry Fallwell or his son; but he was crystal-clear on the problems that by necessity are created when religion, and the Judeo-Christian ethic that accompanies it, are removed …
If you've never read "The Naked Public Square," by John Neuhaus, I'd recommend it to you. Neuhaus was no fan of the religious right, as portrayed by the likes of Jerry Fallwell or his son; but he was crystal-clear on the problems that by necessity are created when religion, and the Judeo-Christian ethic that accompanies it, are removed from the public square. His point was that the loss of the religious voice in civic affairs does not create a void, but instead a vacuum. And that vacuum must be filled by something that speaks to people's innate, and ultimately religious needs. This usually takes the form of some sort of authoritarianism or soft tyranny. America's religious tradition provides a somewhat fragmented voice on matters of conscience or other moral questions, and has been slow to recognize the co-opting forms of religious zeal that these secular movements represent. But you are right that for America to regain it's footing, the Church has to regain it's footing, and enable those within it to make the moral argument for American/Western civilization. The weight of history is behind the Church. We who constitute it need to be the ones right now, who, in the words of WF Buckley, are standing athwart history, yelling "stop."
From Neuhaus:
"Chesterton's observation that America is a nation with the soul of a church underscores the fact that Americans are a people on purpose and by purpose. In most other major nations, the people were prior to the polity. America, however, has been fabricated, in the precise sense of that term, by ideas and beliefs. Religion provided the "sacred canopy" under which that deliberate construction took place. For this reason Tocqueville could confidently assert that religion is America's "first political institution." The founders' talk about "Nature and Nature's God" was a lowest common denominator form of ecumenism aimed at comprehending a diversity of beliefs, but it was not just rhetorical fluff. A limited, individualistic, and procedure-based polity was only plausible because so much else was already in place, so to speak. The values and virtues that the polity assumed were chiefly the business of religion. But there was no "separation" in the sense that term has assumed today.....There was, in short, an expansive understanding of what was "public" in American life. ... Some of those who deplore the decline of the public role of religion accuse militant secularists of engineering that decline. ...These religionists, however, seldom recognize the degree to which they have collaborated in their enemy's crusade."
If you've never read "The Naked Public Square," by John Neuhaus, I'd recommend it to you. Neuhaus was no fan of the religious right, as portrayed by the likes of Jerry Fallwell or his son; but he was crystal-clear on the problems that by necessity are created when religion, and the Judeo-Christian ethic that accompanies it, are removed from the public square. His point was that the loss of the religious voice in civic affairs does not create a void, but instead a vacuum. And that vacuum must be filled by something that speaks to people's innate, and ultimately religious needs. This usually takes the form of some sort of authoritarianism or soft tyranny. America's religious tradition provides a somewhat fragmented voice on matters of conscience or other moral questions, and has been slow to recognize the co-opting forms of religious zeal that these secular movements represent. But you are right that for America to regain it's footing, the Church has to regain it's footing, and enable those within it to make the moral argument for American/Western civilization. The weight of history is behind the Church. We who constitute it need to be the ones right now, who, in the words of WF Buckley, are standing athwart history, yelling "stop."
From Neuhaus:
"Chesterton's observation that America is a nation with the soul of a church underscores the fact that Americans are a people on purpose and by purpose. In most other major nations, the people were prior to the polity. America, however, has been fabricated, in the precise sense of that term, by ideas and beliefs. Religion provided the "sacred canopy" under which that deliberate construction took place. For this reason Tocqueville could confidently assert that religion is America's "first political institution." The founders' talk about "Nature and Nature's God" was a lowest common denominator form of ecumenism aimed at comprehending a diversity of beliefs, but it was not just rhetorical fluff. A limited, individualistic, and procedure-based polity was only plausible because so much else was already in place, so to speak. The values and virtues that the polity assumed were chiefly the business of religion. But there was no "separation" in the sense that term has assumed today.....There was, in short, an expansive understanding of what was "public" in American life. ... Some of those who deplore the decline of the public role of religion accuse militant secularists of engineering that decline. ...These religionists, however, seldom recognize the degree to which they have collaborated in their enemy's crusade."