The Overton Salon

By Andrew Dyrli Hermeling

The Final Installment

Part III: Separation Philosophical Breakdown

(Or: Oh snap! My own historical argument doesn’t make sense!)

I have to be honest, I knew I was painting myself in a corner all along.  In fact, in many ways, my frantic pleas for help while surrounded by wet paint are the endpoint I have been trying to illustrate.  And to continue my honest streak, I really don’t know how to get past the incongruity of some of my beliefs.

I hate civic religion.  I find it dangerous and insulting to both history and faith.  When Sarah Palin and her followers use faith as a selling point, my faith tells me to run away as fast as I can.  Yet under a little self analysis, I really am no better.  ALL of my political views are informed by faith in Christ.  If I had my druthers, my faith and state would be congruent, despite my aversion to using God as justification. Galatians 3:28 tells me there is no male or female, which is the basis for my firm belief in the equality of men and women and the necessity for political advocacy for women in order to make this world more like the kingdom of heaven.  Furthermore, the same verse, in my heart, justifies advocacy for more controversial gender issues and the full rights of transgendered individuals.  Similarly, Micah 4:3 is the basis for my firm spiritual and political opposition to war as a diplomatic tool and the exorbitance of the nation’s military spending.  Finally, as mentioned in my previous post, I would argue that the civil-rights achievements of the middle of the 20th century would have been impossible without the aid of strong biblical language.  No complaints from me.

So philosophically, how am I different from Sarah Palin or the rest of the religious right.  Yes, obviously faith in Christ has led me to very different political opinions, but am I philosophically different?

At this point, I cannot see how the individual can conceivably separate faith and politics.  And this is where perhaps we need to abandon our allegiance to the thoughts and political theories of the Founding Fathers.  According to them, if one could not argue in favor or opposition of a political action using reason alone, then the argument was invalid.  But how can we continue to maintain this litmus test of feasibility when we live in an age where we admit that there are no spheres of thought wholly separate from one another.  If my faith is holistic, then it follows that all of my opinions and causes will be informed first by faith.  So I have, as I see, a shortage of attractive options.  I could abstain from political discourse altogether, as the most traditional of Anabaptists do.  But politics are too important, the consequences of my non-participation too great.  I could vote and support only “Godly” politicians and their causes, as the religious-right does, and try and make the church and government become congruent.  But then I would be alienating not only practitioners of other faiths along with those without faith but a great many Christians as well, just as the religious-right would alienate me and the Christ I have come to know.  Or I could exist in this space of philosophical and ethical tension, where I am upset by the intermixing of faith and political dialogue, despite the fact that there are many instances when I am comfortable with it, and run the constant risk of being a hypocrite, if I am not one already.

So there I go, undermining all of my historical arguments against the Tea Party and their tendency toward faulty memory and civic religion.