The New Republic Online: What God Owes Jefferson (1 of 2)

The New Republic Online: What God Owes Jefferson



What God Owes Jefferson

by Alan Wolfe



Excerpts from the book

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The First Amendment's other clause--the one separating church and state--is another liberal idea without which conservative religion could not exist. Written just two decades after the publication of The Wealth of Nations, the First Amendment essentially created a free market in the salvation of souls. Left without the financial guarantees offered by state monopolies--especially, in the early American Protestant imagination, the decadent and reactionary Catholic Church--congregations would live or die by their own efforts in recruiting members, tithing their purses, and kindling their enthusiasm.

By the time Tocqueville arrived in the 1830s, the pattern had been set. The itinerant preacher, the bewildering variety of new denominations, the determination to evangelize: all took advantage of America's remarkable experiment in church-state separationism to organize on behalf of God. European religion--not only in its Catholic form, but also in its various Calvinist and Episcopal manifestations, burdened by the privileges secured by established churches--withered and, in the opinion of many, died. But American religion, banned from the state, infused the culture. The more it was kept out of politics, the deeper would be its reach into every other area of life.



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eligions that draw too close to politics lose their capacity to innovate. If they receive government money, they become bureaucracies, which is one reason that at least some deeply conservative believers are skeptical of President Bush's talk about faith-based initiatives. If their objective is to get out the vote, they will want an obedient flock, not disputatious otherworldly saints. Their clergy will become more comfortable in the country club than on the street corner; worried about their standing, the status of their capital campaign, and their ties to local business, they will lose their ability to speak to the economically marginalized, from whom conservative religion has always drawn the bulk of its new recruits. (Whatever its commitment to real Darwinism, the Bush administration's unblinking support for social Darwinism ensures that untold numbers of potential conservative Christians will never live to adulthood.) Their churches may grow, to be sure; indeed, they will develop management objectives, best practices, and consumer surveys to ensure their growth. But the resources of the spirit are limited, and the more that goes into committee work, the less there is for God. Evangelicals did well in America not least because they had little or no political power.