Philosophical Foundations of the Religious Axis

Religion, Politics, and American Political Architecture

John R. Pottenger

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9783030339739
• eBook ISBN: 9783030339746
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Political Philosophy

This book discusses the evolution of three philosophical foundations from the twelfth through the eighteenth centuries that converged to form the basis of liberal democracy's approach to the place and role of religion in society and politics. Identified by the author as a "religious axis, " the period of convergence promoted rational and empirical investigation, enabled the development of diverse religious beliefs, and affirmed religious liberty and expressions amidst pluralist politics. The author shows that the religious axis' three philosophical foundations—epistemic, axiological, and political—undergird the political architecture of American liberal democracy that designed a containment structure to protect a vast array of religious expressions and encourage their presence in the public square. Moreover, the structure embodied a democratic ethos that drives religious and political pluralism—but within limits. The author argues that this containment structure has paradoxically ignited frenzied fires of faith that politically threaten the structure's own limits.

© The Author(s) 2020

J. R. PottengerPhilosophical Foundations of the Religious AxisPalgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policyhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33974-6_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

John R. Pottenger¹

(1)

The University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL, USA

John R. Pottenger

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

In 2013, Steve Green , president of Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. , and son of billionaire philanthropist David Green , developed a four-year curriculum on the Bible, which he sought to place as a pilot program in the Mustang Public School District of Oklahoma City. He had hoped that—with school board approval and successful implementation—the curriculum’s adoption would be replicated in other public school districts throughout the United States by 2017.¹ Green had publicly declared that his Bible curriculum “should be mandated” in all public high schools so that they will “be able to teach and educate students” about the Bible.² Initial discussions with school board members looked promising for trial runs of the curriculum, but only as a voluntary course for their high school students. In the meantime, external reviews of the proposed Bible curriculum were also received by the board members for their consideration.

Upon closer examination of Green’s curriculum by external evaluators, questions arose regarding the historical accuracy of the curriculum’s content as well as its constitutional viability in public schools . Mark A. Chancey , professor of Religious Studies at Southern Methodist University, found that the curriculum “typically replicated [Green’s personal] theological emphases.”³ In particular, it presented “the Bible as an infallibly accurate historical source” whose ancient manuscripts have shown little change overtime. Given Green’s inaccuracies in his history of the Bible, Chancey inferred that the presentation was only intended to disseminate Green’s “conservative Protestant beliefs in biblical inerrancy.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also reviewed the content of Green’s curriculum in light of US Supreme Court decisions regarding potential violations of the First Amendment’s establishment clause if curricula are used to teach the Bible from a religious or sectarian point of view. The ACLU found that the curriculum’s content contained statements of religious advocacy that are “far from being nonsectarian,” including its “regular appeal to theological language and ideas, its promotion of the notion that God’s promises have been fulfilled in our day, [and] its use, without comment, of the Protestant canon.”⁴

Although they had initially expressed interest in placing Green’s Bible curriculum in a public school district located in the hometown of the Hobby Lobby headquarters, the Mustang school board members reevaluated their level of interest when they considered the external reviews. With Chancey’s unfavorable scholarly evaluation as well as the likelihood of a lawsuit from the ACLU that would challenge the constitutionality of the faith-based content of the curriculum, board members elected to forego adoption of Green’s curriculum.⁵ Green then postponed indefinitely any efforts to seek approval to implement his curriculum by other public school districts. But Green was not the only one interested in returning the Bible and evangelical Protestantism to the public schools.

Christian America

Since the 1990s, similar efforts have been underway by religious organizations and publishers who have designed, promoted, and frequently been successful in placing their biblical literacy curricula in various public schools across the United States. The National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools —one of the more active faith-based organizations that have developed and promoted biblical literacy curricula to re-Christianize the public schools —claims success in its ability to place its curricula in public schools: “To date, our Bible curriculum has been voted into 3,274 high schools in 41 states. Over 650,000 students have already taken this course nationwide, on the high school campus, during school hours, for credit.”⁶

Emblematic of faith-based curricula on the Bible designed for public schools , the biblical literacy curricula of Green and the National Council contain a historical narrative of British America as having been settled by pious Christian colonists who sought to establish a Christian commonwealth in the New World. Furthermore, the narrative depicts the founders of the American republic as imbued with the same religious values and expectations of the earlier settlers in their attempt to unite the former colonies as sovereign states under a divinely inspired constitutional framework. In his public speeches and writings, Green also employs the Christian America narrative by focusing on the writings of Christians in general and the presence of the Bible in particular.⁷

Green’s narrative begins with a spiritualized history of the Bible’s ancient compilation of sacred books and subsequent translations before it finally appears in the New World in the fifteenth century. He notes that later in the seventeenth century, the King James Version (KJV) arrived with John Winthrop and the Puritans who landed in New England. Following close behind them, the Pilgrims arrived with their Geneva Bibles . Overtime, as they joined efforts to construct a Christian commonwealth in America , the popularity of the Geneva Bible gave way to that of the KJV. Green then emphasizes the centrality of the spiritual impact of KJV biblical teachings in shaping the early political culture of American society: “The history of the Bible in America is a strong indicator of what our forefathers believed about it.”⁸ In fact, he says, “For the past 400 years, the American educational system has become instrumental in defining who we are. It is central to our society.”⁹

During the first three decades of the new nation’s history, Green explains, the narrative of a Christian America had prevailed throughout society. Nevertheless, early in the nineteenth century, efforts to sustain public acceptance of this narrative began to weaken, which increased the possibility of American society’s moral foundation eroding and potentially culminating in an irreversible state of decline. He notes that in 1827 a crucial event occurred that set the nation on a path toward secular public education . The state legislature of Massachusetts had passed a law prohibiting the use of books that promoted a particular religious denomination or sect in the state’s public schools . Green asserts that “the idea was to create a religious ‘neutral zone,’ where no particular religion would be promoted.”¹⁰ But acrimonious and inconclusive debates arose throughout Massachusetts, as well as in other states, that increasingly questioned the likelihood of any public school’s ability to incorporate the Bible in a religiously neutral way, while simultaneously presenting it as a source of spiritual edification for the state’s youth.

Green states that the debates appeared to have been finally resolved nearly two decades later in the federal case of Vidal v. Girard’s Executor (1844 ). In its decision, the US Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of a religiously neutral use of the Bible in public schools but only for moral instructional purposes.¹¹ Nonetheless, while the decision affirmed a role for the Bible, Green argues that social and political “momentum was [still] on the side of the secularists.”¹² Indeed, over 100 hundred years later, he laments, Supreme Court decisions in the early 1960s “effectively removed prayer and religious devotion from the classroom, beginning a new era of secular education in America.”¹³

The historical convergence of the Bible and its teachings with the emergence of the American republic, Green believes, ought to be central to any properly designed, biblical literacy program for educational purposes in the public schools . Such programs should teach the Bible as an important historical document in the founding and development of America, as well as a moral guide for a religious people, both of which are necessary for the survival of America as a righteous nation. This approach, he says, must reinforce the essential theme of a providential and sacred history of Christian settlers and, later, founders of the American republic who had envisioned and intended for the United States to become and remain a Christian nation : “America’s Founding Fathers not only believed that the Bible was foundational to American society, but they also believed that society should be built upon it for generations to come.”¹⁴

Moreover, as with the evangelistic intent of Green’s proposed Bible curriculum, the National Council’s curriculum also intends to serve as “a way of advancing a larger agenda of increasing the role of ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. American Political Architecture: Establishmentarianism, Toleration, Containment
• 3. Discerning the Religious Axis: The Religious Question and Axiality
• 4. Epistemic Foundation: Epistemologies and Worldviews, the Bible and Public Schools
• 5. Axiological Foundation: Emancipation of Values, National Prayers, and Same-Sex Marriage
• 6. Political Foundation: Religious Proclamations, Free Exercise Expansion, Establishmentarianism
• 7. Paradoxes
• Back Matter