ICOSA News Items
Summary of Talk by Jim Spickard at our January meeting
Interreligious Council Meeting January 2010Summary of Professor Jim Spickard’s remarks on the Entanglement of Religion and Politics
by Simone Brown
On Monday, January 11 Dr. James Spickard of Redlands University in California spoke at the January meeting of the Interreligious Council on “ The Entanglement of Religion and Politics” held at the Jewish Federation of San Antonio.
He introduced the topic by stating that there are always calls to separate religion and politics in the United States and this leads to entanglement between the so called good guys and bad guys. He gave examples in the past like the 60’s with civil rights at the forefront when religion was a real part of the movement. Also when the New Christian Right emerged in the 70’s, some members of the Republican party embraced their religious ideas.
The audience was reminded that relating church and state was quite different in many countries. In Denmark belonging to a State church was an identity. 92% of the population belonged to the Danish Church, 86% paid a voluntary tax, though only 2% attended services. Another example was Greece in which all citizens belonged to the Greek Orthodox Church.
It was also stressed that Americans look at their freedom of religion from their First Amendment right .Whereas the French understand that religion has no place in the public sphere.
Religious Sociologists have noted a change from the 1950’s in people identifying themselves religiously. Protestants decreased from 45% to 20% today. Non-religious went from 9% to 19%. Roman Catholics stayed the same at 25%, but immigration of Catholics may be the cause of the consistency.
Different areas of the USA also present differences. On the West coast 1/3 of the population have never been to church versus the South where many do attend church.
With a larger immigration population since the mid 60’s, one might ask, do the many religions that engage the world, accept the legitimacy of other groups, or do certain sectarians feel they are the only ones saved? (exclusivists)
We were cautioned to remember that the politics of sectarians are different from evangelicals. The new Christian Right when it emerged was moderately sectarian among evangelicals. Presidents had mentioned God in speeches in the past, but no one had mentioned Jesus till Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George Bush II.
American society today uses new words like Civil Religion which can be defined that God has a mission for this country. The individual and the political realist and the idealist must decide if they have a personal mission and can be included in the Civil Religion genre. This concept affects the governance of society on many levels, be it local or national.
As Dr. Spickard closed he reminded the audience that the American way to view separation of church and state and its various interpretations are quite different in other countries. We presently are involved politically with Iran and Egypt which are very politicized theologically and yet we have to understand them politically and religiously. Once we all do that we have a better chance at working together for common goals.
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