The Audacity of Hope

freedom that would become the model for the First Amendment’s religion clauses, it
wasn’t these students of the Enlightenment who proved to be the most effective
champions of a separation between church and state.
Rather, it was Baptists like Reverend John Leland and other evangelicals who provided
the popular support needed to get these provisions ratified. They did so because they
were outsiders; because their style of exuberant worship appealed to the lower classes;
because their evangelization of all comers—including slaves—threatened the
established order; because they were no respecters of rank and privilege; and because
they were consistently persecuted and disdained by the dominant Anglican Church in
the South and the Congregationalist orders of the North. Not only did they rightly fear
that any state-sponsored religion might encroach on their ability, as religious minorities,
to practice their faith; they also believed that religious vitality inevitably withers when
compelled or supported by the state. In the words of the Reverend Leland, “It is error
alone, that stands in need of government to support it; truth can and will do better
without…it.”
Jefferson and Leland’s formula for religious freedom worked. Not only has America
avoided the sorts of religious strife that continue to plague the globe, but religious
institutions have continued to thrive—a phenomenon that some observers attribute
directly to the absence of a state-sponsored church, and hence a premium on religious
experimentation and volunteerism. Moreover, given the increasing diversity of
America’s population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever
we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a
Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.
But let’s even assume that we only had Christians within our borders. Whose
Christianity would we teach in the schools? James Dobson’s or Al Sharpton’s? Which
passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus,
which suggests that slavery is all right and eating shellfish is an abomination? How
about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or
should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount—a passage so radical that it’s doubtful
that our Defense Department would survive its application?
This brings us to a different point—the manner in which religious views should inform
public debate and guide elected officials. Surely, secularists are wrong when they ask
believers to leave their religion at the door before entering the public square; Frederick
Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther
King, Jr.—indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history—not only were
motivated by faith but repeatedly used religious language to argue their causes. To say
that men and women should not inject their “personal morality” into public-policy
debates is a practical absurdity; our law is by definition a codification of morality, much
of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
What our deliberative, pluralistic democracy does demand is that the religiously
motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It
requires that their proposals must be subject to argument and amenable to reason. If I
am opposed to abortion for religious reasons and seek to pass a law banning the
practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or invoke God’s will and
expect that argument to carry the day. If I want others to listen to me, then I have to