Fish Stick Friday

Secular government has repeatedly stepped forward to prohibit the traditions of religious practice by forcing them to conform to the dictates of law. While the use of certain psychotropic drugs are permitted within narrowly defined limits, their unfettered use for religious purposes is prohibited by civil law. Polygamy is entirely prohibited within the United States. Certain accoutrements for worship are disallowed among the incarcerated. Conversely, religious institutions are exempted from submission to otherwise reasonable and universal laws (e.g. taxes, ADA compliance, etc.). The logic behind such exemptions is based on the notion that private institutions should be free from governmental pressure; and that they should be at liberty to discriminate. A boys club shouldn't be forced to admit girls (or in the case of the Boy Scouts, poofters). The NFL shouldn't be forced to hire crippled nickel backs. The RNC can shun wisdom and the Catholic Church can indulge in all manner of bizarre discrimination (e.g. no sex for the staff, no ladies in charge, etc.). The separation of Church & State in this regard is pretty much a tenuous yet settled issue (for the time being).

The growing appetite for political activism among Conservative religious groups, however, may very well upset this balance in the years ahead. Simply put, political organizations are not afforded the same protections from government as are churches, and when a church assumes the duel roles of political advocate and mystical shepherd it cannot help but jeopardize the sanctuary enjoyed by the latter when it indulges in the rigorous exercise of the former.

It is appropriate, for example, that the issue of gay marriage be wrangled over in state legislatures and U.S. Congress instead of in the houses of religion. Why? Because when politicians refer to marriage as a "sacred institution" they're lying by half. It's a civil institution that can be actuated by a justice of the peace. Christian conservatives, in their attempts to change civil law to reflect religious tenants, will find it difficult to avoid the equal and opposite reaction. The real question is not whether civil society will change (or corrupt, depending on your viewpoint) the practice of religion, but how it will change it.

For the time being, we can pretty much rule out any direct/legal assault on religion. Churches will keep their tax exempt status. They won't be forced to admit weirdos into their prayer groups. Indirect and internal forces of change, however, may very well become the catalysts for major change in religious communities. The menacingly conservative Pope, Benedict XVI, aside from being a natty little asshair-of-a-man whose worldview is poisoned by superstition and fear, has been more instrumental than most people realize in reversing and frustrating the advances of Vatican II; yet even he may not be able to maintain the bulwark against progressive change.

Last month I read Garry Wills' Why I Am a Catholic, which details the disparity between (and history of) the doctrinal orthodoxy of the Catholic Church and the actual practice and faith of the body of the Church. Also discussed at length: the absence of a theological foundation for the Church's official stances on celibacy, abortion, divorce, female priests, gay marriage, and many other socially divisive issues. Which is why this article caught my eye.

"Celibacy has no theological foundation," Gregorios III Laham, who attended the synod as the patriarch of the Melkite Catholics, an Eastern Rite church, said at an early session, official briefers reported. "Married priests are admitted," he said.

After that bombshell, the Vatican cut back on the detail provided to reporters on the talks unfolding among 256 bishops, who came to discuss on-the-ground concerns from around the world.

Internal resistance to undemocratic and ideological fiats from the Vatican is not in itself unusual, but perhaps the timing of this latest kafuffle is. John Paul II, it is well known, packed the bishopric with conservatives and yes-men; but he didn't, couldn’t, purge the larger body of the Church of liberals. American Christians, meanwhile, have all but abandoned the Vatican and it's hierarchy. The powerful American churches are more likely to consult the opinion of James Dobson than Benedict XVI.

"As an evangelical, I believe that the Roman Catholic Church is a false church," [Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Dr. Albert] Mohler remarked during a 2000 TV interview. "It teaches a false gospel. And the Pope himself holds a false and unbiblical office."

As the mega-churches of Colorado Springs and the old Bible Belt become more and more engaged in the gladiatorial arena of American politics – pouring donatives into Christian PACs and 527 organizations – advocacy for the staid traditions of the Church is abandoned entirely. While the Catholic Church is ironing out its position on female clergy, apostate splinter-groups no longer give it a second thought. Just so with a host of other issues.

In a sense, the American Christian community has decided to pick it's battles. It has chosen abortion, homosexuality, and the separation of Church and State. What has it abandoned in the process? Faith, hope and charity.

The juggernaut of American secular culture, in consort with the incontestable power of time, will respond with the only means at its disposal: the sovereign power of the collective will as expressed through government sanction and regulation. When an individual's liberty becomes fettered by the faith of his society, the only reasonable target for the defenders of liberty becomes that very faith itself.