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Mystical Morality A response to Ralph E. Ancil's "Prophets of Piety"by Earl Lee
Once upon a time, I took my children to a Halloween party in our small town in Kansas. The party was sponsored by a group of evangelical Christian churches and was held at our local Armory. The children's games included various religious themes; a "fishers of men" game, a Noah's Ark bean bag throw, and even a Pro-life display with a "pin the tail on the unborn." The sponsors, it seems, were not particularly sensitive to the idea of the separation of Church and State, or the party would not have been held at the National Guard Armory. The ministers who hosted the party, can hardly plead ignorance of their actions. That this happened in Middle America represents in microcosm what has been happening to public debate on social issues in America. Evangelical Christian churches have demanded and gotten an "accommodation" for their beliefs, as a kind of droit de seigneur, a divine right of access. Apparently, many Christians believe that they have a special relationship with local, state, and federal governments that is not enjoyed by other religions. The Evangelicals feel that their divine right of access dates back to an era before the American Revolution, and has priority over the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or any other social contract. This is generally referred to as a "Natural Law" position. These Evangelicals usually point to the phrase "law of Nature and of Nature's God" in the Declaration of Independence as a justification for their divine status. Certainly Mr. Jefferson would have found abhorrent the idea that Christian sects constitute a special case; that they have rights and privileges not extended to other religious people who choose to worship God in other ways. It seems rather perverse for these Christians to argue that Thomas Jefferson, who originated the concept of a "wall of separation between Church and State," would, in authoring the Declaration of Independence, include language that throws open the door for religious leaders to play whatever role they want to, without restraint, in controlling the direction of civil government and using it to further their own political agenda. Reading Jefferson's Act for Establishing Religious Freedom (1779) would quickly convince most rational people how wrong-headed this interpretation is. People should feel free to bring their religious beliefs with them into the polling booth. On that issue I feel we all agree. Where we disagree is in the belief that individual churches, as a body consisting of a community of believers, should play an active role in politics. Church members should not be forced to adopt the "politically correct" view on threat of damnation or excommunication. The excuse for this behavior is the dubious claim of a "secular humanist conspiracy" that must be overthrown. Some Christian writers claim that humanism is a "religion" and that there is a "humanist-inspired conspiracy" among NOW, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, etc. These are not communities of believers engaging in religious fellowship, but are loosely-knit groups which share views on specific issues. Another problem with the conservative religious approach is that its use of political rhetoric tends to skew public debate. Although Ancil often cites Richard M. Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences, it is really more appropriate to look to Weaver's The Ethics of Rhetoric. The last section of The Ethics of Rhetoric discusses "ultimate terms in contemporary rhetoric" pointing out that certain words can be used to stir up emotions. Weaver defends this practice by claiming that religious words and ideas are all part of a great chain of being linked to God. In his essay, Ancil indulges in this practice first by claiming that "piety," "transcendence," and other characteristics are "objective values" rather than "subjective values." These words are more than words; they are expressions of a mystical reality. This is similar to Francis Schaeffer's claim that certain values are "moral absolutes." In the world of the evangelical Christian, "piety" and "transcendence" become real, solid thingsÑicons to which they expect us to sacrifice our lives, our liberty, and especially our reason. Like Schaeffer, Ancil makes sweeping generalizations that are almost impossible to disprove. He is adept at using both the post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this therefore because of this) and the straw-man fallacies in his arguments. Ancil asks conservatives for suspension of disbelief in looking at his relig-ious arguments, much as in Schaeffer's famous distinction between secular "truth" and Christian "true truth." Ancil uses this in his attack on feminists. His argument that feminism is responsible for our "immoral, degenerate, and quite unhappy society" is not far removed from the claim made by many evangelicals that removing prayer from the public schools resulted in high levels of teenage pregnancy, suicide, etc., etc. The silliness of these arguments is ludicrous in the extreme in Weaver's Ideas have Consequences wherein he claims that modern feelings of "alienation" are the fault of medieval philosophers! The problem is that once you accept these mystical "moral absolutes" then the whole process of examining cause/effect relationships is thrown out of whack. You then have people believing that Pat Robertson is able to turn back a hurricane by praying on television. Rev. Jerry Falwell, on Firing Line some years ago, indignantly complained that a popular televised faith healer who "heals" people by having them place their hands on the TV screen, is a fake. These so-called "healings" are bogus because, as Falwell proclaimed, "he tapes those shows two weeks in advance!" God, obviously, cannot work through a taped programÑonly live broadcasts! Ancil's attack on feminism is a classic example of the straw-man fallacy. He claims that many women have been made unhappy by neglecting their nurturing roles. He then calls on conservatives to "affirm women in their tra-ditional roles" and restore "chivalry" to male/female relationships. His argument bears a striking resemblance to the arguments made by pro-slavery advocates in the 19th century. He implies that slaves were perfectly happy as slaves, and would be so to this day, if they hadn't heard the constant complaints of the Abolitionists which caused their unhappiness. When Mr. Ancil called upon conservatives to "affirm" women in their maternal vocation, he probably really meant to use the word "confirm" since this word more meaningfully describes the sense he meant. The problem is how to get those blasted feminists to shut up and quit making "normal" women unhappy. Whatever the current problems we face, hopefully things will not get so bad that we are forced to reject our inalienable rights in order to fight Mr. Ancil's idea that we should "conform to the divine pattern." Mr. Ancil's idea is obviously at odds with the idea of freedom as put forth in the Bill of Rights. Liberty does not mean the freedom to say what other people want you to say, to believe as other people want you to believe; liberty is not the freedom to want the things that the government thinks you ought to want. Some years ago a British Labour party speaker was giving the usual liberal speech about shorter working hours, more subsidized housing, more welfare. In the middle of his speech he was interrupted by a group of hecklers who jibed, "Bigger cages, Longer chains! Bigger cages, Longer chains!" We all too often are arguing about relative amounts of freedomÑÊmore or less freedom. All too often we end up betraying the concept of freedom by asking the government for "bigger cages" and "longer chains."
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