A New Progressive Vision for Church and State
    date and time TBA

    The old liberal vision of a total separation of religion from politics has been discredited. Despite growing secularization, a secular progressive majority is still impossible, and a new two-part approach is needed--one that first admits that there is no political wall of separation. Voters must be allowed, without criticism, to propose policies based on religious belief. But, when government speaks and acts, messages must be universal. The burden is on religious believers, therefore, to explain public references like "under God" in universal terms. For example, the word "God" can refer to the ceaseless creativity of the universe and the objective validity of human rights. Promoting and accepting religious images as universal will help heal culture-war divisions and promote the formation of a broad-based progressive coalition.

(Critiquing the proposal will be ACLU attorney Vic Walczak (who litigated Kitzmiller vs. Dover, the landmark "intelligent design" case); Rev. Kyoki Roberts, a prominent Zen Buddhist, Rev. Chuck Freeman, a Unitarian Universalist minister from Austin, Texas, and radio broadcaster; and me.)

Ledewitz responded to the controversy, which has spread widely in the blogosphere, by adding new elements:

None of this comes as any surprise to me. I just hope people will remember two things. First, the words "under God" are in the Pledge of Allegiance. I did not put them there. No court will take them out. No national politician will support taking the words out. If you think gun control is a losing issue, or legalization of marijuana, or gay marriage, try drumming up support for taking on God.

I am proposing a reinterpretation of religious language in which "God" stands as a symbol for a quite naturalistic understanding of reality and the Ten Commandments stands as the promise of universal human rights. The issue for me is relativism and nihilism, which I oppose, but which many secularists also oppose. To put this another way, why isn't the Declaration of Independence unconstitutional? Answer, because grounding human rights in a Creator is a political assertion about rights, not a theological assertion about a Creator-God.

Second, for all the controversy, secularists have to be able to live actual lives. This means thinking about the very same things that religious believers think about. I tried to capture that in my book, Hallowed Secularism. Reverence is a human term, not a religious one.

While I certainly have my own thoughts about all this, I want to let Ledewitz' speak for himself here. But I do think that this entire episode, regardless of the merits of Ledewitz's ideas, or the responses to them, before, during and after our panel, will say a great deal about the state of progressive discourse on this essential subject.