Which Comes First, Church or Country?
In an earlier post on the Member Feed, one of the more thoughtful (albeit cryptic and esoteric-minded) members, Pseudodionysius, posted the video below, in which Archbishop Chaput tells his faithful that "we're even Catholics before we are Americans," that "Catholic identity takes precedence over everything," and instructs them to act accordingly with regard to issues such as abortion, which "requires abosolute adherence."
On Pseudo's thread, I posted a comment observing that the formulation placing church before country is problematic and discomfiting for many non-Catholics:
It's one thing to put God before country. But to put church before country is more problematic. When the Archbisop says, "We are Catholics before we are Americans," that makes many non-Catholics worry about allegiance. Imagine someone saying, "I am Muslim before I am American." (Ryan's response to the debate question on abortion was discomfiting to everyone and awkward for him. Protestants, perhaps because they require no intermediation of a church or a priest, do not have as much of a problem reconciling the interaction of their faith and their politics.)
In response, several others, KC Mulville for example, asserted that allegiance to church creates no necessary conflict with allegiance to country:
Obviously, the two allegiances don't need to conflict. And, until Obamacare, my citizenship and religious affiliation were never in conflict. The United States never asked me to do anything that interfered with my duties to my church, and my church never asked the reverse. In fact, both institutions supported one another.
KC Mulville is definitely onto something. But to me the absence of a natural tension between church and state is not quite so obvious, and that is of course precisely why we have our First Amendment. Religion is the realm of faith. Politics is the realm of reason--at least the modern project, beginning with Bacon and Machiavelli, and advanced by Locke and our own founders, attempted to make politics subject to reason. However, both faith and reason--in their practical manifestations as church and country--assert claims about truth. They do not merely assert truth claims, they impose truth claims with threats of serious punishments either now or hereafter. And those claims often conflict . . . unless church and state are the same thing.
(To the good Catholics who assert that there is no tension between faith and reason, one observes that any such claim assumes that one's own faith is the one true religion and one's own reasoning is the only reasonable reasoning.)
I'm old enough to remember when JFK, amid accusations that he would put allegiance to Pope above allegiance to country, gave this apologia:
I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President -- should he be Catholic -- how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him.
I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.
To fend off the accusation of divided allegiance, JFK resorted to the extreme view that in America "the separation of church and state is absolute." In some ways JFK's overstatement is not surprising.
If one wanted to be especialy provocative, one might suggest that JFK's confusion illustrates why something like the American Constitution could never have been first written in a country of Catholics, for the same reasons that Modernity could not have come about before the Reformation. (In that regard, compare the current condition of New World countries colonized by England with the current condition of those colonized by the French and the Spanish.)
The Framers understood that the difficulties (a too-mild word) arising from the tensions between faith and reason were permanent--permanent, but not beyond recourse. However, they did not think the traditional arrangement unifying church and state was a good solution to the permanent problem. Nor did they think that our contemporary seeming solution excising religion from public life was beneficial or even possible.
Instead, consistent with their healthy appreciation of the moderating effects of blended or mixed arrangements, the Founders and Framers sought a mixed and middling sort of compromise, in which church and state might influence each other without one dominating the other. They even thought that the two might influence each other in ways beneficial to both. (Elsewise, why did they speak of sacred honor and rights endowed from the Creator?) Some would be shocked by the idea that the wise Framers intended, or at least expected, that religion should influence state and that state should influence religion. Whoever is shocked forgets that the First Amendment, as written, applied only to the federal Congress, not to individual States or to local governments: "Congress shall make no law . . . "
The continued success of the Framers' mixed and middling arrangement very much depended upon preservation of a federal system that reduced (and dissipated down to the states) the occasions for conflict between church and state by carefully limiting the matters over which the central government would exercise power.
By destroying those limits, by expanding the occasions for conflict into the details of daily life, ObamaCare makes mutualy destructive zero-sum warfare between churches and the federal government inevitable. (KC Mulvile was right about that much.) By undoing the Framers' practical middling and mixed arrangement, ObamaCare propels us toward a time when one or the other of two apparent alternatives must supplant it: either the traditional arrangement of unified state and religion or the contemporary alternative that would extirpate religion from public life. The latter will prove to be untenable--religion cannot be removed from public life. Moreover, the notion of godless religion is an oxymoron. It seems the only remaining questions are: Who shall be our gods? And will our new arrangement leave us without the strength and will to resist other, historically more durable, alternatives?
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Comments:
Aug '12
Re: Which Comes First, Church or Country?
I'm Catholic before I'm American
May '10
Re: Which Comes First, Church or Country?
No religion that fails to assert its primacy is worthy of the allegiance of anyone.
Jan '11
Re: Which Comes First, Church or Country?
Let me begin by noting that the concept of limited government is precisely the answer to this question.
The government is not the people.
The American experiment depends on the notion of government being a servant, not a superior. Our model of government comes from the old story of the three neighboring landowners, where a swamp develops that affects all three. None of the individuals wants to be responsible for draining the swamp by himself, so they all enter into an agreement whereby an entity (government) comes in and performs the common service.
In that model, government is given a specific job. It's powers are enumerated. Government doesn't become the superior of the people; it remains a servant. Government is an institution, on par with the schools or the economy. It's a device. It's an organized solution to address some aspects of life's problems.
Obamacare, however, supposes that g0vernment has primacy of place, such that it claims the right to define and limit all the other institutions. Government no longer adheres to enumerated authority; it now claims to be in charge of its own enumerating.
I deny that the state has authority to define truth.
Nov '11
Re: Which Comes First, Church or Country?
KC Mulville: . . . the concept of limited government is precisely the answer to this question.
. . . .
. . . Our model of government comes from the old story of the three neighboring landowners, where a swamp develops that affects all three. None of the individuals wants to be responsible for draining the swamp by himself, so they all enter into an agreement whereby an entity (government) comes in and performs the common service.
In that model, government is given a specific job. It's powers are enumerated. . . .
. . . Government no longer adheres to enumerated authority; it now claims to be in charge of its own enumerating.
I deny that the state has authority to define truth.
I mostly agree, with qualifications:
What was the vote on draining the swamp? Unanimous or 2-1? Before they decided to drain the swamp, they had to decide how to decide, and had to decide whether swamp-draining was even a proper matter for government.
On your last point, one cannot ignore that our Constitution is a political document, not a religious document. What I mean by that is that at the origin of our system, a political dcoument authoritatively defined the place of religion, not the other way around.
May '10
Re: Which Comes First, Church or Country?
Totalitarian regimes supress religion because it calls people to an allegiance higher than the state.
This world is not our home. If Caesar forces a choice between God and Caesar, I choose God.
Jun '12
Re: Which Comes First, Church or Country?
You have written a thoughtful post, Astonishing, I shall do my best to provide a thoughtful response. You seem to be suggesting that asserting one's Catholic faith as primary over political citizenship is uniquely troubling (maybe you are not, but that seems to be the case). If so, I don't think that is valid. Numerous non-Catholic Christians oppose abortion and the HHS mandate (indeed, several non-Catholic entities have joined in the legal fray against the HHS mandate). Clearly, these non-Catholic Christians find their faith taking precedence over being pliant citizens. Other examples come to mind, such as the Amish not being forced to serve in the military. It is a matter of conscience at its most basic. If a secular authority contradicts the teaching of the Church, a Catholic is bound to follow the Church. In Protestant terms, the same would hold true for the Bible, or in some instances (probably) Creedal statements. Our ecclesiology is different, but the underlying principle is the same. I think you overstate the case on Catholicism being inconsistent with the Founding. Maryland was established as a Cathlic colony, and the Catholic Charles Carroll signed the Declaration of Independence (cont.).
Re: Which Comes First, Church or Country?
May I complicate the issue by adding "family" to the question? Where does family fit in regarding importance with God and Country?
Not trolling here - I've pondered it before with no real answer, and I'm looking for input.
Sep '10
Re: Which Comes First, Church or Country?
You may want to review the New Testament passages on who Christians believe the God of this world to be.
Nov '12
Re: Which Comes First, Church or Country?
When I was growing up in England, I remember hearing from time to time the accusation that British Jews had dual or divided loyalties. It even came up in a parliamentary debate over a matter concerning Israel. One of the MPs at that debate addressed this decisively:
"An old friend of mine who has just died, who served all through the war, used to say, 'I do not know whether I am a Jewish Yorkshireman or a Yorkshire Jew.' "
This encapsulates my own feelings on the subject....except that I'm not a Yorkshireman.
Sep '10
Re: Which Comes First, Church or Country?
And Archbishop Chaput has preached on JFK's infamous Houston speech before.
Mar '12
Re: Which Comes First, Church or Country?
Give to Caesar what is Caesar's. Give to God what is God's. One allegiance is temporal. One allegiance is temporal moving to eternal. Which is more important: The temporal or the temporal moving to eternal?
Once you have the answer to that question, you'll know to whom you owe your primary response. It is not a question I can answer for you.
Of note, I have heard a lot of people say a lot of things. Anymore, I watch them to see what they do. If you want to know what is important to someone, watch and see what that person does. Then you'll know what is important to that person.
Edited on November 21, 2012 at 9:01pmJun '12
Re: Which Comes First, Church or Country?
(cont. from #6). Moreover, there are Catholic roots to many modern principles that the Enlightenment usually gets credit for (cf., Wood, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization). I would submit it was less France and Spain's Catholicism and more their corrupt monarchies, vice Britain's robust parliamentarianism, that accounts for the underwhelming results of their new (and old) world projects. And England was a Catholic nation for roughly a thousand years prior to Henry VIII testicular induced decision to break with the See of St. Peter. But undoubtedly, the Reformation theologies were a powerful infuence on our Founders' worldviews, I certainly would never deny that. To get a better feel for what Archbishop Chaput is arguing, I would highly recommend reading his book Render Unto Caesar. He explicates his case there very well. There is nothing in contemporary modes of governance, even exceedingly excellent ones like the form the U.S. has enjoyed for most of its existence, that insulate them from imposing coercive requirements on persons of faith the same as the Caesars or the Soviets. When that happens, believers-- of any stripe-- are obliged to be "the King's good servant, but God's first."
Edited on November 21, 2012 at 9:07pmMar '12
Re: Which Comes First, Church or Country?
As the country abandons God, as it now is in the process of doing, I will gladly abandon the country. It is not just the government. We now live in a country where the majority of people seem to prefer the pleasures of this world to the promises of the next. It is dangerous to offer one's allegiance to a country in this condition.
Mar '11
Re: Which Comes First, Church or Country?
God.
Jul '12
Re: Which Comes First, Church or Country?
Chuntry? But seriously, ideally, there should be no conflict between the two. America, as founded, didn't ask a citizen to choose between church and country. Not so today. Overall allegience goes to God though.
Edited on November 21, 2012 at 9:40pmJun '12
Re: Which Comes First, Church or Country?
Carroll's brother Daniel also signed the D of I. And Daniel Carroll and Thomas Fitzsimmons (of Pa.) were both Catholic signers of the Constitution.
May '10
Re: Which Comes First, Church or Country?
Astonishing, I think you are right in pointing to a problem. The American experiment only works in concert with religions that
1) grant a separation between Church and state, and
2) accept there there is such a thing as Natural Law, accessible to reasonable persons of any faith or no faith.
Without those, we're left with "majority rules" and, eventually, "might is right."
Neither secular leftists nor radical Muslims grant separation of Church and state or that there is such a thing as Natural Law.
Jun '11
Re: Which Comes First, Church or Country?
Clarification: Do you mean "Country" or "The crap they play on the radio these days"?
May '10
Re: Which Comes First, Church or Country?
As to your question, I can't quite understand where you see a difficulty.
Feb '11
Re: Which Comes First, Church or Country?
Actually, although Maryland was established as a Catholic colony, by 1692, Catholicism was basically outlawed there. There were no colonies that specifically welcomed Catholics, although Pennsylvania resisted pressure to penalize Catholics for being Catholic. Rhode Island, a religiously tolerant colony, had civil restrictions on Catholics from its first published law code in 1719.
St. Isaac Jogues, a French Jesuit martyr, escaped captivity in the 1640s and made his way to New Amsterdam (NYC today), where he was welcomed by a Dutch minister in spite of it being illegal to be a Catholic priest in the colony.
I'd say it is difficult to overstate how unwelcome Catholics were at the time of the founding of the republic.
In 1789, the same year the newly ratified Constitution took effect, John Carroll (distantly related to Charles Carroll of Maryland) was appointed Archbishop of Baltimore, the first diocese and the beginning of the organizational structure of the Catholic Church in the USA.