Gerson on America as (Not) a Christian Nation

I have the highest regard for Washington Post columnist and former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson.  I look forward to his columns and regard him as the best speechwriter of his generation and worthy of mention in the same sentence with Peggy Noonan and William Safire.  I thought well of his first book  and hope someone (hint, hint) will ask me to review his second effort , co-authored with Pete Wehner, another very smart ex-Bush Administration official.

That said, I found today’s column a bit—actually more than a bit—disappointing.  He used Christine O’Donnell’s somewhat ham-handed (but not, in my view, altogether unwarranted) attempt to read “separation of church and state” out of the First Amendment as an occasion to take to task  those who regard America as a “Christian nation.”  Here’s the boldest statement of his thesis:

America is not a Christian country and has never been, for historical, theological and philosophic reasons.

His reasons?  Well, first, the Founders were a religiously and theologically diverse bunch, some tending in the direction of Deism and Unitarianism.  “Their commitment to disestablishment, in some cases, accommodated their own heterodoxy.”  And second, ”American religious communities were often strong supporters of disestablishment.”  Finally, the “Jewish and Christian” anthropology of the Founders required a respect for human autonomy: “freedom of conscience is essential to [our] dignity.”

Now, I recognize that there’s only so much you can say within the confines of a newspaper column, but all three of those propositions require more nuance than he offers.  Yes, the Founders were a relatively diverse bunch (albeit not by contemporary standards), but that means, among other things, that there were enough orthodox believers to go around.  For every Jefferson who wanted to keep his religious opinions private, there was a Washington who wanted his troops to attend worship services and an Adams who thought he could make political hay by publicizing Jefferson’s heterodoxy.   And while it’s true that some “American religious communities were . . . strong supporters of disestablishment,” others weren’t.  As for his third proposition, I won’t quibble with it except to note the incongruity of the conclusion he draws from it:

At least where the federal government was concerned , the Founders asserted that citizens should be subject to God and their conscience, not to the state.

Why does he need the qualifying clause I have italicized if not because, apparently, the same people who subscribed to the “Jewish and Christian” anthropological proposition regarded it as not necessarily inconsistent with state religious establishments?  Let me add also that the relationship between “autonomy” and a person’s subjection to God is problematical, to say the least.  Am I legislating for myself or am I subject to God’s law?

If all Gerson means to say is that the Founders did not mean to establish a Protestant Church of America as a substitute for the Church of England, I won’t quarrel with him.  But I’m not sure that’s all he means.  Here’s his penultimate paragraph:

So does the Constitution, in Jefferson’s gloss, require the “separation of church and state”? Institutionally, yes. Theologically, yes with one notable exception. Nearly all the most important teachings of faith — doctrines on individual salvation or the destination of history — have no public role or relevance. They are compromised by contact with power. But one belief — a belief in the nature and rights of human beings — is the basis of any political philosophy, including our own. It matters greatly if “all men are created equal” or not.

There are many problems with this statement.  (For example, he can’t seriously claim that any political philosophy requires a “belief in the nature and rights of human beings” . . . whatever that is?  Does he mean to assert that Aristotle, who surely did not “believe in” human rights, is not a political philosopher?)  The principal bone I want to pick has to do with the “institutional” separation of church and state.  Most obviously, as he implicitly concedes, the First Amendment, as written, left state establishments intact.  More importantly, however, the “separation” formula doesn’t capture the nuances of an “institutional” relationship in which one of the mechanisms for propagating a Christian public culture was a school supported by public funds or a public land grant.  The Northwest Ordinance, passed by the very same Congress that adopted the First Amendment, provides for schools in which religion and morality are taught.  Whatever this arrangement is, it is neither an establishment of religion nor an “institutional” separation of church and state.
Now, Gerson is no simple secularist, and he affirms, as well, that the Founders were not secularists.  But in reacting as he does against the “Christian nation” folks, he perhaps gives too much aid and comfort to those who really don’t want to go beyond the Jeffersonian slogan.  Better to provide a subtler conception of what “Christian nation” might mean or might once have meant.  Some years ago, I attempted this .  Here’s part of my conclusion:

If, then, there is a spirit of the Founding to which we’re supposed to hearken, it’s one that is quite friendly to public expression and support of religion. The Founders recognized its importance both as an expression of the innermost longings of the human soul and as an essential support for the civic virtue on which our republic relies. They would have approved this part of Justice William O. Douglas’s opinion in Zorach v. Clausen, if not necessarily the largely separationist framework in which he embedded it: “We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.”

In sum, while it may well strain credulity to claim that at least some leading members of the founding generation were orthodox religious believers, it is equally incredible to regard them as rigidly bent on an absolute and inflexible separation of church and state, a wall high and impermeable. Whatever their private beliefs, many at least acquiesced in and even encouraged public expression of religion. They respected, admired, and worked with men like Samuel Adams (to be accurate, the beer label should say “Brewer, Patriot, Orthodox Calvinist”). They loved women whose religious orthodoxy they respected and did not discourage.

Gerson clearly acknowledges ways in which our public culture has “Jewish and Christian” roots.  Does he fully recognize how important it is to nourish those rootsor how important it is to support their renewal?  Or has he not been listening to our President ?