The Princeton Tory is excited to launch a “Letters” section this semester. For the first time, the Tory asked members of the student body for short responses to a selected question. The first such question was “Should religious beliefs shape policy?” Students were free to approach this question from a personal, theoretical, legal, historical, or other angle. The best of these submissions were selected by the Editor-in-Chief and are published below.
Before addressing whether policy should ever be guided by religion, it should first be established what public policy is and what its goal should be; my own personal definition of religion will also be explained before answering this question.
Personally, I view public policy’s design as being to promote the good of each human being as an individual, but also the good of each human being as a social being. Ultimately, this rests on a conception of politics as simply the sum of all individuals and the relationships and connections / relationships that exist between them.
If we define religion or spiritual belief as some belief in a higher creative power, this has necessary implications for what it means to be human and what it means to be in relationship with other human beings, and other parts of the created world. Religion, as such, serves as a meaningful and powerful way for people to understand their place in the world, and provides people with an outlook of how they and the societies that they are a part of should engage with humanity and nature.
If thought of in this way, religion as applied to politics is really no different than applying any other ethical framework to politics. All ethical frameworks – whether religious or not – posit conceptions of human beings and their relationship to nature and society as a whole. There seems to me to be no good reason to assert that a religious ethical framework should be considered somehow less valuable to political discourse than an areligious ethical framework. Ultimately, both religious and areligious ethical frameworks strive towards similar goals; given this, there seems no logical reason to remove religion from political discourse and public policy.
On a more personal note, I believe that political discourse and policy rooted in true religious ideals of mercy and love have the potential to transform our politics for the better. Although I am no longer Catholic, it was actually my practicing of Catholicism for several years that led me to hold more progressive and a more humanistic stance on many political issues. Though Catholicism and Christianity more broadly are often associated with political conservatism, I think that Christianity – in its purest form – recognizes that humans are flawed, thus making the extension of mercy, understanding, and empathy – as opposed to rigid, conservative conceptions of justice that do not allow for flexibility or mercy – requisites for a more humane political order. A rigid, conservative political order that demands unreasonable standards of perfection from humans – a political order that demands people to “pull themselves up by the bootstraps,” to help themselves with no governmental or community assistance in a flawed political and social order – is fundamentally inhumane and contradicts Christian (and other religious) discourse surrounding mercy, love, and understanding. A discourse framed in terms of religious ideals of mercy, love, and empathy certainly would not be a bad thing in a world where political discourse is dominated by hatred and ideological rigidity.
If I were to give a yes-or-no answer to the question of religion shaping policy, I would easily answer “yes.” It is telling that Jefferson, to whom the “wall of separation” metaphor is commonly attributed, was not very religious. Religion cannot be excised from policy because policy has to be based on some conception of the human good. (I won’t spend my words refuting Dworkin; you can talk to me later for a proper rant about secularism.)
The question I find interesting, and that I think you may be more concerned with, is how religion should inform policy. For this I am still working out an answer. If you are not a theocrat and/or believe in religious liberty, this question is especially difficult. Here are my entry-level thoughts on the subject:
In Jewish mysticism, or Kaballah, there is a concept known as “tzimtzum,” or “contraction.” As I understand it, the concept is used to describe the paradoxical necessity of a finite entity, generally God, inhabiting a finite space, like the universe. This concept can loosely be applied to religion in politics as well: religion is an all-encompassing belief system that theoretically informs how a person thinks and acts. Religion holds a place at the kernel of intellectual life where reason cannot survive. Politics, by contrast, is a kind of finite entity: people can only do so much, organize themselves in so many ways, compromise so much before giving out. Again, if you are not a theocrat, the political system can never be in complete alignment with your religious beliefs. The mandate of religious people is to ask the questions that can resolve this tension. What are the first principles of civic life? When the infinitude of religion is “contracted” into the finitude of politics, what is lost? What can be lost? What must be preserved?
The Illusion of Neutrality
The concept of neutrality is often heralded as the cornerstone of a fair and open society. Many use the appeal of fairness through neutrality as a basis for the argument that religious beliefs should not shape public policy. This sentiment posits that by removing the “bias” of religion in the public sphere, we might achieve a purer, more equitable foundation for governing the affairs of men. Secularism, in particular, champions this cause, suggesting that the void left by the absence of religious belief offers a cleaner slate upon which to inscribe the laws of the land. However, the premise that any worldview can claim absolute neutrality is fundamentally flawed.
To deliberate on the role of religious beliefs in shaping policy, we must first navigate the definition of religion and what it means to be “religious.” The term “Religion,” capitalized to denote formal religious systems, is often defined by organized worship practices, codified beliefs, and communities united by shared faith. In contrast, secularism presents itself as a direct challenge to these frameworks, defined by its naturalistic elements, individualistic nature, and rejection of God. These definitions mask a deeper similarity between secularism and its theistic counterparts: both are manifestations of faith.
Secularism harbors a profound belief in the autonomy of human reason and the primacy of the empirical world as the sole reality. Within this belief lies an unspoken “faith”—not placed upon altars for gods or spirits, but rather deposited in the self and in humanity’s innate ability to sieve through falsehood towards the shining grains of truth, without the guiding hand of divine
revelation. This faith, while not religious in the traditional sense, fulfills a similar role by providing a foundational perspective through which one interprets the world and makes moral judgments. In essence, secularism, in denying the existence of a God, elevates human reason and autonomy to the highest authority. This is not a neutral position; it is a distinct viewpoint with its own moral implications.The illusion of neutrality, then, is just that—an illusion. It is a sleight of hand that attempts to mask the inherent beliefs and values that underpin secularism, suggesting that it operates outside the influence of the very convictions that define it. Now, if secularism, with its unspoken creed, can influence the shaping of policy, what then of religious belief? It seems a great injustice, and indeed a folly, to exclude from the public square those perspectives born of faith under the guise of maintaining a neutrality that does not, in truth, exist. The task before us, therefore, is not to purge our policy-making of religious influence. Rather, it is to acknowledge with humility that every stance we take and every law we draft is informed by belief. The question is not whether our policies should be shaped by these beliefs, but which beliefs should shape them and how.
In embracing this reality, we might find ourselves engaged in a more honest dialogue, one that recognizes the contributions of both secularism and religion to our collective moral discourse. It is in this space of mutual acknowledgment and respect that we can hope to craft policies that reflect the depth and diversity of human experience.
One of the most fundamental cornerstones of American law is the separation of church and state. As one of the many safeguards against tyranny, the Founding Fathers recognized the potential for religious thought to corrupt democratic ideals. The underlying problem of this issue lies in the discrepancy between the subjective nature of humans and the need for an objective legal system. A democracy must not favor one demographic over another. For a real life example of this, consider my homeland of Poland. As a member of the EU, Poland is mandated to be a democracy. Despite this, many public policies have restricted LGBTQ+ rights, women’s reproductive rights, and freedom to criticize religion on religious grounds. The problem is not the moral justness of these policies, per se, but rather the subjective method to which they are made law. For the non-Catholic minority in Poland, many of whom may even support such restrictions, shaping policy around religious beliefs is objectionable. In other words, even doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is problematic. However, that is not to say that all policy decisions need to be fully centered on logic. Different cultures around the world have their own moral code, and many decisions cannot be shaped by logic alone. Consider the case of polygamy in Nigeria, where unlike the US, men are permitted to marry multiple women. The question of whether or not polygamy should be allowed in a society cannot be easily solved by logic alone. The US, alongside many other Western nations, answered this question long ago based on biblical beliefs of marriage consisting of two partners. As a diverse society with many different values and customs, we have many tough policy decisions to make. To make the crucial decisions for problems which logic cannot resolve, we must rely on our ideals of what the United States is and should be: A democracy that protects all its citizens and values freedom above all else.
(Photo by Aiden Frazier on Unsplash)
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