A Secular Faith: Why Christianity Favors the Separation of Church and State

[ChristianTrader]

A new book by D. G. Hart coming out in September.

http://snipurl.com/tcj0

Book Description
Darryl Hart contends that appeals to Christianity for social and political well-being fundamentally misconstrue the meaning of the Christian religion. His book weaves together historical narratives of American Protestantism's influence on the nation's politics, and commentary on recent writing about religion and public life, with expositions of Christian teaching. The tapestry that emerges is a compelling faith-based argument for keeping Christianity out of politics. A Secular Faith is sure to provoke a firestorm of debate among evangelicals and those who oppose their political activities.

I can hardly wait to see how he argue for this from a historical, confessional perspective.

CT

 

[crhoades]

Sean Michael Lucas, professor at Covenant Seminary and author of a biography of Dabney, has posted on his blog a review of the book. He is critical of his thesis and doesn't think he pulled it off.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Part 2 deals with Hart's book and Part 3 is Lucas's idea of a way forward based upon the southern presbyterian heritage.

Here are a few quotes to whet the appetite:

In addition, Hart comes at the question from the perspective of an American religious historian who has thought deeply about these issues in a separate, yet related, venue: the relationship between Christian faith and academic scholarship. For example, in his The University Gets Religion, he promoted the value of an irrelevant(emphasis in original - C.R.) faith, a faith that restricts itself chastely to Word and sacrament and to the church’s spiritual mission, one content with private spheres and unwilling to intrude itself in public spheres, such as the academy. Christian scholars should “stop trying to secure a religion-friendly university while paying deference to the academic standards of the modern university,” Hart claimed. Rather, Christian academics should to glad to “have to live in an apparently schizophrenic manner, separating what they do in the classroom or publish from what they do at home or as part of a community of faith.” For in this way, religious faith would be restricted to its proper sphere—a private, spiritual sphere focused on eternal matters and rewards—where it can be maintained in its full, exclusive, sectarian glory.

Against those who would agitate for the public utility of faith for thinking through public issues, Hart bluntly claimed that “faith and public policy have little to do with each other”

To believe that an exclusivistic religion, such as Christianity, can serve as the basis of national unity or a resource for public policy ultimately misunderstands the true nature of Christianity (9). As a result, Christianity is “virtually useless for resolving America’s political disputes”

Hart’s solution is to return to an understanding of a separation between the church and state. This separation is ultimately rooted in older Lutheran and Calvinist divisions: law and Gospel; kingdoms of sword and word; spiritual and civic righteousness; spiritual and civil liberty; the church as organization and as individuals (35-7, 60-6, 232-4, 244-6). However, the ultimate division that informs a separation between the church and state is a renewed appreciation for and appropriation of the divide between secular and sacred

And it is at this very point that Hart struggles. While he wants to argue that church and state ought to remain separate (with which I agree), he transforms that argument into a claim that faith and politics ought to remain separate. And that is the impossibility of his argument.

This greatest evidence that faith and politics cannot be separated is that Hart’s entire book, purporting to demonstrate that Christianity is an apolitical faith, argues this very political claim from the standpoint of the Christian faith.

I'll save my commentary for later. Overall, I think Lucas gave good reviews. I'm awaiting Hart's book so that I can read it first hand. Trusting that Lucas wasn't taking quotes out of context, I am surprised that a book like this is written by a well respected Presbyterian and Reformed historian. Well not surprised, let's just say disappointed.