Mac-Coleman

4 November 2011 –

Bumper Sticker of the Day – “I heart my bird; I spade my cat.”

The final type of sovereignty that heavily influences peoples’ thoughts of government is what I call Religious Faith Sovereignty. Depending on the situation, one’s allegiance to one’s religion may indeed trump all other allegiances or obligations. Fortunately, to mitigate such a threat to the body politic, the freedom of religion is ensconced in the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. The freedom to worship what and how one pleases is vital to the maintenance of an acceptable form of overall sovereignty among a diverse people. Most all western nations’ constitutions have some statement outlining religious toleration. Such toleration allows vastly different peoples to maintain their basic religious obligations—a form of individual or group sovereignty—and still participate in a wider concept of sovereignty.

The modern western, Judeo-Christian concept of sovereignty and religious toleration dates back to a series of treaties signed in the mid-1600s in Europe called the Peace of Westphalia. This series of treaties ended devastating, decades-long conflicts on the continent among principalities whose religious differences were interwoven with economic, dynastic, and other casus belli. The Peace of Westphalia more or less recognized that a country’s “prince” had the right to determine his state’s religion. At the time, the choices were more or less Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism. However, adherents of a religion other than the state religion would be allowed to worship publicly at appointed times and privately at their will. Finally, a prince’s exclusive sovereignty over his lands, people, and agents abroad (ambassadors, etc.), was recognized, as well as the prince’s responsibility for his subjects’/citizens’/agents’ acts while outside his lands. These documents laid the foundation for our modern version of sovereignty and the different versions of freedom of worship that exist in Europe and the West.

The Peace of Westphalia’s effect on religious faith sovereignty has been profound. Since the 1600s in the western, Christian world, religious organizations have played a diminishing role in the actual conduct of governance and in the concept of a sovereign nation-state. However, churches’ direct involvement in governments did not stop immediately, and separation between established religions and government has not evolved the same in all western countries. In the United States, for example, the First Amendment forbade the federal government from establishing a state religion. But, that did not stop some of the states from establishing them. Some states such as Virginia and Georgia forbade the establishment of a state religion or the taxation of citizens to support a specific church. But Massachusetts had a law until 1833 that required every man to belong to a church and allowed those churches to tax their members. Until 1877, New Hampshire required its state legislators to be of the Protestant religion. Until 1835 in North Carolina, only Protestants could hold public office; from 1835-1877 the state constitution allowed only Christians to hold public office. It wasn’t until 1961 that the Supreme Court ruled that such clauses in state constitutions constituted a religious test incompatible with the First and Fourteenth Amendments. A long time since the 1600s; not really.

Does this mean that today in the United States, Christian principles and virtues do not heavily influence the passage of laws and the interpretation of those laws by our courts and the adherence to those laws by our citizens? Not at all. In fact, such influence is central to the concept of religious faith sovereignty. Americans admit that a people’s religious or moral principles may indeed determine how it will select a government to exercise exclusive internal and external jurisdiction of the exercise of power. But, we refuse to hold to any laws that abridge another’s exercise of his religious freedoms, except those that are contrary to the Constitution, or those that create a specific religious test to elect officials. Religion influences citizens’ and elected officials’ decisions, but no laws can be vetted through any particular church for ultimate legitimacy.

Religious faith sovereignty thrives in a society governed by the U.S. Constitution where there has evolved a basic toleration for all religions. If a state or city wants to pass a law closing all commerce on Sunday, it can do so if a majority of its citizens wants to. Importantly, such a law does not prevent Jews from going to Shabbat on Friday evenings to honor their Sabbath or Muslims from going to Mosque on Friday mornings, for example. Does that mean that the state or city also must pass a law passed prohibiting driving cars on the Jewish Sabbath or daytime restaurant operations during Ramadan? No, not if the majority does not want it. Why the difference? Because both Jews and Muslims, minorities both, can still practice their religions unobstructed, if not actually enabled by the law. The majority’s religious faith sovereignty will always have more influence in American society, because everyone’s constitutional guarantees of religious freedom are met.

Religious faith sovereignty would conflict with the U.S. Constitution and its guarantees of freedom of religion if adherents to a specific religion demanded that society enable the tenets and practice of their faith through the law. Ask yourself, would there be a conflict if a religious group demanded that public schools provide prayer rooms for children and allow students sufficient time during the day to use those rooms? Would there be a conflict if a specific religious group demanded legal remedy be provided to counter public or private criticism of its religious tenets or its leaders, or to counter a licentious satire of its religious tenets, or to legally punish what the group considers sacrilege? A more serious question: Would there be a conflict with the Constitution if the leaders of a faith vetted public laws and then advised adherents to follow only those laws the leaders deemed consistent with their beliefs? Finally, would there be a conflict if the tenets of a group’s faith and its practices were as much political as they were religious in nature? In other words, would one of the aims of a faith be to establish itself as the law of the land? One need not be a Constitutional scholar to recognize that such an exercise of religious faith sovereignty doesn’t adjust to thrive under the aegis of the First and Fourteenth Amendment, but directly attacks it.

Anecdotally, I have observed these scenarios played out in the United States and throughout the world. Libya, the country our President recently said has a long and difficult road to democracy after the overthrow of Qadafi, has announced that all laws the new government passes will be reviewed by a special Islamic council for their compatibility with Sharia Law. If the laws are not consistent with Sharia Law, they will be nullified. Sharia now is the supreme law of Libya. Yup, Libya’s road to democracy as the West knows it indeed is long. That’s OK, if you are devout Moslem and want to live in Libya. Sadly, I have heard U.S. citizens who are Moslems say that the Christian concept of divine government would take effect when Jesus Christ returns and sets up his theocracy. According to Islam, Sharia will govern the earth when Islam rules in all countries, including the United States. My question in return: Does that mean that the Constitution of the United States will be rendered null by Moslems who either vote it out or take over the country? The answer, in the end, has always been a simple yes. Hmm...

In conclusion, I must say that sovereignty is not a pristine or static condition in any country or among any people. A country must defend itself and its interests, internally and externally, from those who would exploit and subjugate it. If a country cannot do this, it will soon lose it sovereignty to some other organization or movement. Since I didn't get to it today, tomorrow I hope to expand on the concept of cohesion as a contributing element to durable sovereignty.