This article deals with the introduction of strongly fundamental views into the theory and practice of politics. It also concerns the transformation of religion from a concern with religious faith to the creation of political religions. Thus forces have been at work in the past two decades seeking to make a religion of politics and transforming religion into a holy political crusade in the form of a particular version of partisan politics.

This article begins with a critique of the orthodox American doctrine calling for the separation of church and state, especially as this doctrine has been formulated by the United States Supreme Court. This doctrine is simplistic, dualistic, and merely jurisdictional; it is also much too narrowly tied to Hobbesian-Lockean liberal prejudices and their asocial vocabularies. The predominant American religious traditions (Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish) are all, at core, biblical, and a biblically derived reformulation of American thinking on church-state relationships would differ from the orthodox tradition in three fundamental respects: (1) far from a “separation” of church and state, these would be seen as partners in a shared world of national moral experience; (2) the religious element in this combination, as much as the political, would be understood in broad, social terms, not merely those of “private conscience”; (3) in their shared world, the specific relationships between church and state would be seen in ongoing, dialectical terms rooted in their necessarily conflicting visions of the nation's past, its problems, and its promises.

Political jurist, philosopher, and publicist, Christian Thomasius (1655–1728), in seeking to set apart the ordering principle of political society from that of the religious community, in effect put forth two distinct ethics of mutuality, an “intrinsic” ethic of inherent purpose and an “extrinsic” ethic of instrumentality, the former characterized by disinterested love, in need of no further justification, the latter characterized by prudential reciprocity, in demand of a rational grounding. Unity in the former is viewed as consensual and necessary, whereas it is seen as plural and contingent in the latter, thus designating politics as the domain of instrumentality, plurality, and contingency. Similarly, citizenship is sharply contrasted with the idea of fraternity. Its defining quality is identified with decorum, which, though it entails elements of moral and legal accountability, is held to be neither strictly moral nor strictly legal. Its effective operation is, however, posited on the possibility of an unfalsified consciousness. In exploring the category of decorum as an ethic of mutuality, reference is made to contemporary discussions on liberal and communitarian theory and on the conditions of rational debate in politics.

Benedict Spinoza is the first philosophical proponent of liberal democracy. In his Theologico-Political Tractate he calls for the liberation of philosophy from theology and for the subordination of religion to politics. Though Spinoza may have not influenced the American Founding Fathers directly, both the clarity and the paradoxes of his arguments are perhaps the best guide to understanding better the present-day conflicts over religion and politics in the United States. Spinoza's insistence on the prerogative of the political sovereign to exercise absolute authority in the sphere of moral action necessarily complicates religious values. But the “inconveniences” resulting from liberal democracy are justified in terms of justice.

As legal scholars know, the constitutional law of religion is a mass of intellectual confusion. The author argues that the confusion results from the tensions between the liberal and republican traditions of American public life. He points out that the liberal tradition — the one that predominates in our law and political theory — is incapable of developing “a concept of politics into which religion would comfortably fit,” in part because of liberalism's hostility toward religion. He concludes by “suggest[ing] some ways in which a reconstituted law of religion” — rooted in the republican tradition — might provide a better accommodation between the interests of believers and nonbelievers. This essay appeared originally in The Connecticut Law Review (Vol. xx). The editors are grateful to Professor Tushnet and The Connecticut Law Review for permission to reprint it in this special issue.

Although there has been substantial academic interest in the New Christian Right, to date there has been little effort to place it in a larger historical context. There have been three waves of fundamentalist Christian Right activity in this century, and there are a number of similarities between the contemporary organizations and earlier ones. The contemporary fundamentalist Right, however, is a more sophisticated political movement than its predecessors, with an expanded issue agenda and more widespread public awareness. More recently, a pentecostal Right has begun to become active in politics. For a number of historic reasons, this pentecostal Right may have greater potential to unite conservative Christians than does its fundamentalist counterpart.

A reflection on the meaning of limited government illuminates both its theoretical limits or boundaries and its practical limitations. The full rationality of the Lockean argument for narrowing the scope of politics to bodily self-interest may be questioned from two apparently opposite standpoints: because of its aggressive materialism or because it seems to rest upon a distinctly Christian dichotomy between spiritual and secular concerns. This paradox is further represented in the religious liberalism of the American Revolution, and a consideration of Calvin's theology suggests that this spiritual secularism is not simply an eighteenth-century confusion, but may derive from a radicalization of the Christian idea of transcendence. Thus both religious and secular sources of the ideal of limited government rest on unlimited claims for the unity of private self-preservation and universal Truth. This faith does not, however, exhaust the meaning of the Founding.

Renewed interest in the relationship between religion and politics in the United States and widespread discussion of recent pastoral letters adopted by the American bishops, especially those dealing with disarmament and the economy, have drawn attention to the political values of American Catholics. After a brief historical review of the political experiences of American Catholics and of the roles social theorists accord religion in political life, this article addresses three concerns: (1) in a nation of joiners, does parish participation reinforce civic participation? (2) are there patterns in the connection between religious values and political values? and (3) do parishioners feel that church leaders should offer teachings on personal morality and sociopolitical questions and, if so, should the teaching be accorded special respect? The primary basis for empirical generalizations is a sample of 2667 active, parish-connected non-Hispanic Catholics.