Column: Politics and Religion
By Charles Jeanes
A new Pope and an old question: must politics reject religion?
The pursuit of politics is religion, morality, and poetry all in one. — Madame de Stael
Being Human, being spiritual, being political
My last column was a rambling examination of democracy, because Canada was going through a federal election. Now we have a new government, with the same party and a prime minister we must learn about as he leads us.
Today, the major news about leadership comes from the realm of religion: a new pope, Leo XIV, an American by birth, now leads the world’s 1.3 or so billion Roman Catholics. Who cares about that? A lot of people.[source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church#:~:text=The%20Catholic%20Church%20(Latin%3A%20Ecclesia,Catholics%20worldwide%20as%20of%202024. ]
Leo will lead a lot more people as Pope than Mark Carney will lead as prime minister of Canada. The Pope will be lucid about his spiritual identity. It is, after all, part of the job description.
This column is my exploration of one question: Do we want leaders, in politics — or society, economy, culture — who appear blank in spiritual character? The topic means I address the religion/politics debate, but something deeper too.
In short, I wish that spiritual and moral convictions become part of the job description of Canadian political leadership.
Will religion poison politics in any State?
A lot of modern people want religion to be completely a private matter and have no bearing on politics; witness how Quebeckers can be led by their provincial government into imposing tight restraint on believers if they work for that government. https://ccla.org/major-cases-and-reports/bill-21/ Personally, I think Quebeckers who support Bill 21 have a weak understanding of our Charter right to freedom of speech and worship. Religion ought to be freed from the kind of bias that “laicite” has normalized in France and Quebec.
Religion has a bad name among postmodern, Western, humanist, materialist citizens in affluent democracies. It is suspected of being primitive, immature, and a throwback to less-enlightened times. It is often called “mind-control.”
Ever since the rise of liberalism’s political dominance in the West, religion has been retreating from the public sphere. The American and French Revolutions separated church from state and this became the Western norm. “Liberation” – as liberals describe their goal – has meant Authority is always suspected of over-reach, and religious clerics are unwelcome in the liberal order based on secular values, scientific materialism, and individualism.
But religion has pushed back. I think it is never easy to discern when the State has over-reached itself and interferes with the right of a citizen to worship in liberty free from politics.
Will people be good without religion?
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. ― John Adams
“The fundamental basis of this nation’s laws was given to Moses on the Mount…If we don’t have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State.”
― Harry S. Truman
I strongly doubt anyone in Canada today would say only religious people are morally good, or that only religion teaches humans right from wrong. That argument was made frequently in our past, but at least since the 1960’s, the consensus is that we humans can be good and not religious, and we can learn right conduct without religion. [please see Appendix]
I am old enough to remember being taught in public school in the 1950’s that Christianity was our moral teacher. Canada no longer condones that teaching in our schools.
“The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”
― John Adams
John Adams, the second president of the USA [1796 – 1800] seems clear in this assertion, and yet other presidents have seemed to contradict Adams’ doubt about the foundation of the USA, “one nation under God.”
Let me take it as a given fact that readers agree, human beings do not need institutional religion to make them learn moral behavior, to know right from wrong, and to grasp the essential truth of the so-called Golden Rule. https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/the-pacific-heart/202412/the-golden-rule-obsolete-relic-or-absolute-imperative
What I cannot take as a consensus among readers is my own opinion – as I concluded my most-recent Arc – that “people get the government they deserve.” People most definitely suffer under awful regimes and do not deserve it, but democracy puts the onus on citizens to do something about their bad rulers. I do hold us all collectively responsible when democratic systems lose their credibility as self-government. And in The Globe and Mail of May 10th this year, no less a public intellectual than Andrew Coyne says Canada’s democracy is a failure. I urge readers to find and read this column in the Opinion section.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-canada-has-the-form-of-democracy-but-not-the-substance/
Will a State where no person ‘has religion’ be a State hard to live in?
I am also old enough to remember that one of the most-vehement arguments against Soviet Communism in the 1950’s was that it was “godless.” Without religion, the poor benighted millions who lived under Stalin, and then a billion under Mao, were suffering atrocious governments derived from Marxian theory and Leninist revolutionary-party institutions. A State where aggressive atheism was the foundation of its policy toward religion was a horrid place to live.
Indeed, China today displays a very potent antipathy toward religion in its ruling Party. [ See https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/08/30/government-policy-toward-religion-in-the-peoples-republic-of-china-a-brief-history/ ]
But again, I am going to assume a broad consensus among readers that a society where no religion at all is practiced by the people, will quite possibly be a fine society to live in. We know of many societies where institutional religion was never in place, and yet the people lived in peace, plenty, and contentment.
[on the subject of primitive “utopias”: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/primitive-society Also see essays in the Appendix.]
I specify “institutional” religion; the State is an institution too. Societies with neither are far removed from the present real situation of humans on earth.
Conclusion
“We must recover the whole sense of gift, of gratuitousness, of solidarity. Rampant capitalism has taught the logic of profit at all costs, of giving to get … and we see the results in the crisis we are experiencing! … No to a financial system, which rules rather than serves. Behind this attitude lurks a rejection of ethics and a rejection of God.” “Christian spirituality proposes an alternative understanding of the quality of life, and encourages a prophetic and contemplative lifestyle, one capable of deep enjoyment free of the obsession with consumption.” – the late Pope Francis
In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose. The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. — Jimmy Carter
Personally, I find the argument compelling that politics alone cannot substitute for spiritual life, and the latter does not need organized religion in institutions to be real. The inner life of Western people contains a constellation, a library, of systems of ideas; there is a different formula or recipe for each of us, no doubt, but individualism, humanism, liberalism, secularism, and capitalism are the common ingredients of Western modern and postmodern minds, inarguably.
We have had a few centuries of living in the West with these ideas, and with the slow dying away of the force of religions in our political, social, and economic orders. Do you, reader, think the consequences are on balance ‘progressive’? I do not. I think absence of articulate moral philosophy in leaders is undesirable.
In short, I would prefer political leaders whose lives have a public ingredient of spiritual practices, not necessarily religious, but visibly grounded in serious moral philosophy. Ignorance of who our leaders are in their souls, does not serve us well in democracies. Popes are expected to speak about their interior, but we let politicians be vague. I want leaders who reveal their spiritual insides.
Jimmy Carter was a leader who spoke about his faith. We know he was a fine and compassionate human being by his actions since leaving the White House. His work for the poor and oppressed deserves our respect. But we know a president who holds bibles for public appearances, and is a moral cretin — and is now ruling the superpower south of our country .
In closing, I address a point that might have rubbed Canadians the ‘wrong way’ – to wit, I have often used quotes in this essay from Americans, about religion, politics, morals, and public life, but I have quoted no Canadians. Blame it on my incomplete education; perhaps I simply do not have the depth of knowledge. But there seems to be a dearth of people in Canadian public life in the past who made quotable references to the relation of church and state, religion and politics, morals and public life.
In our recent history, Tommy Douglas and Pierre Eliot Trudeau have been remarkable leaders whose Christian faith was quite public and yet who were shy about speaking out on the subject of their personal spiritual identity and how that was significant in their politics. Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan were not shy about this, and as a Canadian, I found those two American leaders’ open Christian declarations in political situations, off-putting. It simply has not been part of Canadian political culture to talk about one’s faith.
Trudeau’s piety as a Roman Catholic is remarked by everyone who has written about him; Tommy Douglas was named “the greatest Canadian” and we all knew he was a devout Baptist. https://www.douglascoldwelllayton.ca/tommydouglas
I know full well I have not made any converts to my point of view, persuaded no reader, that a return of declared spiritual and moral philosophy as fully part of a leader’s public identity would be of great benefit to Canadian public life. It is an opinion that cannot adduce facts to support it. So, call it an intuition.
Intuitions have reasons that Reason knows nothing about.
Appendix
Essays, articles, and books on topics readers might profitable delve deeply into.
1. Separation of State and Church, Politics and Religion
https://www3.trincoll.edu/csrpl/Religion%20and%20Liberal%20Democracy/relibdem.htm
These two readings are a good start on the topic of the relationship of the two.
2. Liberalism as “secular religion”
“The way liberals are interpreting the First Amendment today is that it prevents anyone who is religious from being in government.” ― Rush Limbaugh
“The American Founding Fathers’ understanding of the First Amendment was that it protected an individual’s religious freedom; it was not meant to protect individuals from religion per se.” – Francis Fukyama, American philosopher
Francis Fukuyama on liberalism, identity politics, and capitalism :
https://philosophynow.org/issues/136/Francis_Fukuyama_and_the_Perils_of_Identity
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/francis-fukuyama-liberalism-discontents/
Fukuyama in his own words:
https://www.persuasion.community/p/whats-wrong-with-liberalism-theory
3. Yuval Harari on Humanism, Liberalism, and Religion
Yuval Harari is a global intellectual phenomenon. His views on religion provoke debate.
The real problem with liberalism, for Harari, is that its ultimate goals are based on the falsified myth of monotheism. Harari says that it is not necessary to be a religious person to behave well in life.
“For 300 years, “liberal ideals inspired a political project that aimed to give as many individuals as possible the ability to pursue their dreams and fulfil their desires. We are now closer than ever to realising this aim—but we are also closer than ever to realising that this has all been based on an illusion. The very same technologies that we have invented to help individuals pursue their dreams also make it possible to re-engineer those dreams. So how can I trust any of my dreams?” – Y. Harari
And in his own words:
“Religion is a deal, whereas spirituality is a journey. Religion offers us a well-defined contract: ‘God exists. He told us to behave in certain ways…’ We are usually not allowed to question or change this contract – we just need to believe in it and follow the rules. For religions, spirituality is a dangerous threat. Religions typically strive to rein in the spiritual quests of their followers, and many religious systems have been challenged not by laypeople… but rather by spiritual truth-seekers who expected more than platitudes.”
“Humanity’s belief in the value of a human life (first as religious souls, now as humanist human rights) is what brought us to today. Our religious thought has evolved from blind faith to skeptical science-empowered humanism. Western liberal humanism (freedom foremost) reigns today, having shrugged off challenges from Soviet socialist humanism (equality foremost) and Nazi evolutionary humanism (fittest foremost) in the 20th century. But it cannot reign in the future, as science strips away our intersubjective notion that human lives hold meaning. The only religions (ethical structures) left to us now are techno-humanism (cyborgs foremost), or data-ism (data foremost).”
“Liberalism has a particularly confused notion of ‘free will’. Humans obviously have a will, they have desires, and they are sometimes free to fulfil their desires. If by ‘free will’ you mean the freedom to do what you desire – then yes, humans have free will. But if by ‘free will’ you mean the freedom to choose what to desire – then no, humans have no free will.” — Yuval Noah Harari
https://elmerjohnthiessen.wordpress.com/2019/05/10/a-philosopher-examines-yuval-noah-harari/ [A Christian point of view on Harari]
4. Charles Taylor on public life and the disappearance of religion
https://ubcgfcf.com/charles-taylor-and-the-myth-of-the-secular/
Taylor is an acknowledged authority on the history of how religious faith and practices evolved into minority cultural phenomena in the West since the advent of modernity, science, and capitalism. His book on the subject is unique.
https://laisve.lt/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Taylor-Secular-Age.pdf
[Charles Taylor is the philosopher who asks most cogently, “How did we in the modern world go from a time of almost unanimous faith in our religion, Christianity, to this time of almost no religion visible in public life?” He traces the arc of this history from the year 1500 to 2000. Please see Appendix]
A long essay on this subject of religion and its decline in the West:
https://www.amacad.org/publication/daedalus/secularism-its-discontents
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