Freedom of/from religion, theology

INTRODUCTION

The Christian Secularist (CS) edits this blog's postings. The blog features brief passages selected from the works of theologians and philosophers followed by succinct commentary, observations, critiques, propositions, or tangential thoughts. While source material necessarily springs from the minds of well-known contemporary and historical figures, commentary from the pseudonymous CS seeks to avoid the dual bias of appeal to authority and argumentum ad hominem. Neither the name, credentials, gender, nor institutional affiliation of CS will come to light in this blog. CS welcomes thoughtful and spirited reflections on the contents of these postings.

CS

STATEMENT

“While all authority in [the federal republic of the United States] will be derived from and dependent on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority. In a free government, the security for civil rights must be the same as for religious rights.”

—James Madison. The Federalist, Essay 51 (1788)*

PROPOSITION

The Christian faith thrives in the United States like no where else on earth as a direct consequence of the Founders’ enlightened insistence upon a secular system designed to protect the rights of those standing apart from the majority. At its ultimate peril, the nation’s Christian majority undertakes assaults upon this secular structure, a structure that has provided the very milieu most accommodating to the growth of genuine faith. Thoughtful Christians, those who know and rightly interpret the lessons of history, understand that in the liberal and educated West, a faith freely chosen is a faith of depth and that a religion imposed through coercion ultimately withers, becoming a hollowed out vestige. Hence, a term that seems on the surface oxymoronic—that is, Christian Secularism—characterizes the tradition most obliging to the survival and growth of Christianity itself. Furthermore, this tradition tolerates non-Christian thought and practice to the extent that those practitioners uphold the principles of tolerance set forth in the nation’s founding documents.

CS

*The Essential Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers. David Wootton, ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2003.