The Nexus of Governmental Integrity and the Survivability of American Constitutional Democracy

George J. Gatgounis

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781725261259
  9781725261266
• eBook ISBN:
  9781725261273
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

The American government is in a state of crisis--a crisis of integrity. Law is not what holds nations together; rather, cultural values and prevailing social conditions sustain an undergirding belief in the legitimacy of law. Moral and religious consensus must come before a legal order. This book discusses several cases of the erosion of credibility as examples--Gorbachev's failed attempt to modernize Russia, the deceptions of the Vietnam War, and the Iran-Contra arms scandal. Next comes a study of how civil religion and governmental integrity interplay. The final chapter is a well-documented historic overview and examination of the Supreme Court's challenging task of constitutionally defining religion, especially in cases of conscientious objections and religious exemptions to state mandates. The issues are timely, and Gatgounis is uniquely qualified to examine them as both a constitutional lawyer and religious scholar.

How Civil Religion and Governmental Integrity Interplay: An Analysis of Michael J. Perry’s Love & Power

The Role of Religion and Morality in American Politics

INTRODUCTION AND STATEMENT OF THESIS

Michael J. Perry’s Love and Power: The Role of Religion and Morality in American Politics is a call to middle ground between sectarian imperialism and nondisclosure of foundational religious premises in political dialogue. Perry lays a course of moderation, avoiding the extremes of an outright exclusion of religious discourse from the political process and a divisive doctrinal triumphalism that obstructs constructive dialogue. While Perry insists that the public square must accommodate religionists—not only their moral views but also their religious baggage—he tempers his insistence with a call to religionists to maintain a pluralistic, tolerant attitude.

Accordingly, Perry’s work is a response to a variety of views he finds objectionable. Perry denies Kent Greenawalt’s claim in Religious Convictions and Political Choice that citizens should refrain from invoking religious grounds when explaining their political positions in public.305 Perry envisions a new legal culture that does not think of religion, in Stephen Carter’s words, as a “hobby, something done in privacy, something that mature, public-spirited adults do not see as a basis for politics.” Perry objects to the use of the Establishment Clause as a guarantor of public secularism. Further, religion should not be the object of open hostility, as Richard John Neuhaus argues in The Naked Public Square.

In We Hold These Truths, John Courtney Murray outlines “articles of peace” that would frame common ground between divergent creeds. In a similar vein, Perry’s Love & Power is a proposal for the “proper role, if any, of religious-moral discourse in the politics of a religiously and morally pluralistic society like the United States.”306 Perry balances high regard for religious belief with an abhorrence of violence to the fabric of pluralism.

Although Perry pioneers new ground by arguing for full disclosure of morality undergirded by religion, his work falls short of explaining how this full disclosure can become accepted practice in policy and law-making circles. In sum, the “what” of his vision is inviting, but the “how” of its implementation is unclear.

ANALYSIS

Premises

Both Perry’s previous work, Morality, Politics, and Law, and Love & Power proceed from common premises, a psychology of self and a political philosophy of pluralism. Because moral and religious convictions are self-constitutive, one cannot avoid bracketing aspects of one’s very self in political dialogue.307 Perry criticizes as impossibly restrictive any political theory that requires a citizen to bracket her particular religious convictions, either to achieve impartiality, as Rawls argues, or neutrality, as Dworkin argues. To Perry, pluralism is a recognition that “human beings do not have all the same needs and wants,” and therefore the way of life that is good for some may even be bad for others.308 Perry defines a society as pluralistic if it is comprised of competing beliefs about the “good or fitting way for human beings,” some or all, to live their lives.309 The discussion in Love & Power derives from the twin axioms that human beings can not separate their core...

Table of contents

• TITLE PAGE
• INTRODUCTION
• GOVERNMENTAL SURVIVABILITY DERIVES FROM ITS INTEGRITY, CREDIBILITY, LEGITIMACY, TRANQUILITY, AND ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY
• MAJOR CASE IN POINT: THE FRAGMENTATION OF GORBACHEV’S GOVERNMENT
• FOCUS ON MCNAMARA AND VIETNAM: INTEGRITY, CREDIBILITY, AND LEGITIMACY IN DOWNWARD DEMISE
• THE LINE DIVIDING GOVERNMENTAL POWERS: A LINE OF SEPARATION OR HERMETIC ISOLATION?
• HOW CIVIL RELIGION AND GOVERNMENTAL INTEGRITY INTERPLAY: AN ANALYSIS OF MICHAEL J. PERRY’S LOVE & POWER: THE ROLE OF RELIGION AND MORALITY IN AMERICAN POLITICS
• CONCLUSION