During last year's Presidential campaign, Senator John Kerry said something remarkable for a Democratic presidential nominee. In a July visit to Iowa, he told the Dubuque (Iowa) Telegraph Herald, "I believe life does begin at conception." While this is the position held by the pro-life movement, it is not a position normally espoused by supporters of legalized abortion.
But Senator Kerry didn't stop there. He went on to say, "I can't take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an atheist. We have separation of church and state in the United States of America." Just this week, on NBC News' Meet The Press, he reiterated this by saying, "I am actually personally opposed to abortion. But I don't believe that I have a right to take what is an article of faith to me and legislate it to other people. That's not how it works in America."
It was this further clarification that demonstrated a couple of flaws in his understanding of church and state relations, and they are flaws that are far too common.
The first flaw is the misunderstanding of what an article of faith is in a religious sense. (There is a broader, secular definition, but Senator Kerry's equating of his Catholic belief with an article of faith makes it clear that he's not using that definition.)
It is not a theological statement to say that life begins at conception. Some people draw this conclusion from science. Some draw this conclusion from logic. Some draw this conclusion from the teachings of their faith, but that does not make it an article of faith which would cross the line between what we should or should not legislate.
The questions of whether the resurrection actually took place, or whether the bread and wine in communion truly become the body and blood of Jesus, or Jesus was the Messiah sent by God are all articles of faith. They are inherently theological questions about which the government cannot take a position.
This leads into the second flaw in Senator Kerry's comments, which is to say that the separation of church and state would prohibit the government to pass legislation reflecting the belief that life begins at conception.
The fact is that we frequently espouse moral teachings in our legislation. Why did we outlaw slavery? Because of the moral belief that it was wrong, a belief drawn by many abolitionists from their faith and their understanding of every person having been created by God in His image. Was it a violation of church and state to enshrine this moral belief in law simply because some people reached that belief on religious grounds? No, because it is not a theological issue. Believing that we are created by God is a theological statement. Believing that slavery is wrong is a moral statement.
The same is true of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. It takes very little time listening to the speeches or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to realize that the belief that fueled his fight against racism was drawn directly from his faith. If he had called for legislation that enshrined those theological underpinnings in law, there would have been church and state issues. However, he didn't call for the Congress to act in defense of a theological position. He called for Congress to act in defense of a moral position which some, but not all, of its advocates reached as the logical application of their faith. The fact that some opposed racial equality, also on religious grounds, did not make it an inappropriate issue for Congress to address.
The distinction between a moral position and a theological position is a fine one, albeit an important one. For people of faith, the natural inclination may well be to blur the two, which is fine in our personal lives, where there is no need to keep them separate. If, however, we are going to exercise our rights and obligation as citizens to address the issues of our time through our elected officials, we not only can distinguish between the two, but we must. Otherwise, we run two risks.
First, we run the risk of diluting our religious freedoms. If we fail to distinguish between the moral and the theological, we invite Congress to pass legislation that does the same. The properly-understood separation of church and state exists to protect the church from the government, and once Congress feels free to weigh in on theology, that protection is diminished.
Secondly, we run the risk of going the opposite direction and muting our voices on the issues where we must speak out. If we mingle the moral and the theological, we make it easy for those with opposing views to simply dismiss the moral out of hand on the grounds that the government isn't supposed to take theological positions.
No matter which one of these risks the pendulum swings to, they aren't risks we can't afford to take, and when elected representatives such as Senator Kerry speak, we need to let them know that they can't afford to take those risks either.
