Secular Illusions-How the separation of Church and State isn’t straight forward.
Posted by DLW in Uncategorized at 6:02 pm | 
Permanent Link
http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2101002
The author considers and critiques arguments of an “evangelical” secularist…
It also considers some of the thought of Reinhold Niebuhr, which makes for an interesting contrast with the teaching of Greg Boyd, a former professor of mine who has recently finished a sermon series titled, “The Cross and the Sword” that I critique at the following site. Collection of Cross and the Sword sermon series and other sermons by Greg Boyd and Woodland Hills Church
A quote:”Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion’s power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God’s will. Lincoln’s second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, “The almighty has His own purposes.” “
The point could be condensed to where religion has the power to discourage or encourage people to develop habits of deliberation on politics. And it goes without saying that deliberating on politics is not persay intrinsically enjoyable or in the personal self-interest of most of us, who could easily get by with leaving such to others.
dlw