I've been arguing for some time now that it's clarifying to think of the cultural sphere as separate from the political sphere. There is obviously overlap, but I think a lot of our current confusion and poor judgment in the political sphere lies in incorrectly understanding what politics is really about and what culture is really about. So I'll briefly rehearse here what I've said about it in previous posts.
Culture is the realm of freedom and values, and politics is the realm of power where competing interests resolve conflicts and promote projects that benefit the commonweal. In the cultural sphere of pluralistic societies, as all modern and postmodern societies have become and will remain into the indefinite future, freedom is the central value. People should be allowed to freely associate and live according to any values system they choose, and to engage in the pursuit of happiness in whatever way suits their idea of it. And they should expect no interference from the government so long as they don't encroach on the rights of others. That's what it means to live in a free society and it's at the heart of what it means to live as an American.
This sense of being an American, however, doesn't sit well with those on the cultural right, which wants to define themselves as the only true Americans, and everyone who doesn't fit into their traditionalist template as un-American. And the Dominion Christianist wing of the cultural right wants to run the country as a theocracy. This isn't even a traditional American idea--it's pre-American; it's medieval. And yet we find people like Monica Goodling was trained at Pat Robertson's Regents University law school, and according to the school's webpage, 150 other Regents graduates are currently serving in the Bush Administration. I'm sure most of them are very nice people in the same way most ordinary people who become involved in cults like the Unification Church are nice people. It's not they as individuals that concern me, but their role in promoting an ideology that is designed to set up the American political system on a fundamentalist biblical basis rather than constitutional basis.
We live in a free society, and these people are free to believe whatever they want, but when they enter the political sphere, their ideas should be repudiated because they want government to be established on a basis that is undermining of the constitution. The rest of us have to call them out and see clearly that their agenda has no legitimate place in our political discourse. It's utterly un-American and indefensible as such.
I'm a Christian, and I take my beliefs seriously, but I think every political candidate and appointee in the future needs to be asked whether in the performance of his or her duties in the political sphere, which principles take precedence: biblical or constitutional? And anything in the background of such a persons which would indicate that biblical principles (or any other religion's principles) would come first, should render them disqualified without a second thought unless they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they have renounced those ideas. I'd say the same of someone who had earlier publicly advocated violent revolution or was a member of the Ku Klux Klan or the Nazi Party. Such people have a right to their views in the cultural sphere, but they should be afforded no respect or credibility in the political sphere. Their views are inherently inimical to the constitutional rule of law which is the essential basis for the American polity.
So now that I've been clear about how certain attitudes that are permissible in the cultural sphere ought to be disqualified from serious consideration in the political sphere, just how does the cultural sphere interface with the political? Obviously, the people who operate within the political sphere have values and beliefs that are shaped by their lives in the cultural sphere. For me Martin Luther King's leadership of the civil rights movement is a perfect model. It was profoundly religious in its inspiration, but it translated itself into rights language when interfacing with the political sphere. MLK used religious language when talking to members of the desegregation movement, but secularese or rights language when talking to officeholders in the political sphere.
Politicians with religious beliefs who are elected to office are, we would hope, inspired by and shaped by those beliefs, and their performance in office would of course be affected by those beliefs and ideals. But as officeholders their first responsibility is to the constitution, and if there was a conflict between their constitutional duty and their religious beliefs, it might be necessary for them to resign or to recuse themselves. But never should their religious beliefs undermine the constitutional rule of law.
Politicians have a responsibility to be who they are, i.e., the kind of persons shaped by their values and beliefs in the cultural sphere, and yet they have a responsibility to represent the pluralism of worldviews and value systems of their constituency. For this reason politicians, whatever their cultural background, should be evaluated solely on their political program and their political track record. Good politicians are genuinely interested and respectful of cultural values that differ from their own. And their job as their representatives in the political sphere should be to translate the legitimate political concerns of their constituents into language and programs appropriate within the political sphere.
But politicians have no responsibility to engage in arguments with opponents in language other than that appropriate to the political sphere. An argument about one's beliefs in evolution or God as criteria for election should be dismissed as irrelevant without hesitation. But his beliefs or values concerning the death penalty or abortion, for instance, should be a matter for political discussion because one's cultural values shape one's political positions in areas that might be legislated in ways that affect the rights of the parties affected.
It should be clear that I think that religious people have every right to bring their concerns into the political sphere, but they have to translate their concerns into secularese. And if they don't translate, then I can't think of an instance in which it would be appropriate for political discussion. If there are readers who can think of and exception, let me know. There might be something I'm not considering. But from where I stand, nothing could be clearer or more necessary than this separation of the cultural from the political. If there are problems with such a separation, they are minor compared to the problems that arise when they are not separated.
But I'm open to criticism. I know lots of people have a hard time with this conceptually. So take your shots.
See also "Religion and Politics I" , "The Radically Centrist Narrative," and "Controlling the Narrative."