Well, first, it's precisely because I appreciate the way that the myth
of the secular public sphere helped to mitigate religious warfare in
early modern Europe that I'm less sanguine that you seem to be about its
passing.

And second, I think you've got me wrong on religion and politics.  I
don't say religion shouldn't enter in.  It's a question of how.  I was
expressing contempt for the politcal uses to which Mr. Reed puts his
religion.  If a Sunni muslim or a cultural anthropologist puts his creed
or discipline to similar uses, or worse ones, the act in my view is
similarly contemptible.  It doesn't make the creed itself contemptible,
any more than Heidegger's politics (to cite an overused example) make
his philosophy contemptible.

The Catholic Church espouses all sorts of positions I disagree with,
but when the American Council of Catholic Bishops sponsored a campaign
against poverty, some decade or more in the past, under the slogar "If
you want peace, seek justice," I admired that political use of religion.
  An evangelical progressive politics today--and it does exist, though
nobody talks much about it--strikes me as equally admirable.  There is,
after all, plenty in the teachings of the Nazarene prophet that provides
ample support for progressive politics.

That's all I think I'll have to say on this thread, and probably more
than I should have.  

DM

>>> [log in to unmask] 6/19/2005 7:14:17 PM >>>
I think it is more accurate to say that we all care about beliefs,
especially those we do not share, when they stand to affect our
lives--when
they are brought into the "political arena," which can be any public
space.
Singling out "religious beliefs" as particularly problematic indicates
a
special prejudice against them. 

Someone arguing policy from some basis in a religious anthropology,
for
instance, is liable to be differentiated from someone arguing from a
non-religious--maybe a materialist--anthropology. The only neutral
description of the situation is that there are competing first
principles
and conflicted rationalities in play. They are structurally identical,
however, and it is only the foreignness or provenance of one that
concerns
me, or inclines me to consider it suspect or harmful. If I label it
"religious" or "irreligious" I have committed myself to a position in
the
conflict. Often this commitment is made against the "religious"
position
while one's neutrality is also averred (usually sincerely) by upholding
a
"separate but equal" doctrine.

But the presumption that religion and politics can be separated cleanly
or
that there is some legal basis for this--and that they have separate
arenas
(the private and the public)--is a myth and a very useful one (to some
more
than others) for certain purposes. But if it is mystified as a point
of
quasi-religious doctrine itself, it can be demystified--and is has
been, to
a good extent. The myth of a public sphere and a political rationality
shorn
of religion belongs to an age that may well be passing and is looking
rather
shopworn. 

I am surprised that this is not recognized and discussed with
intelligence
more among scholars of early modern Europe. But if Ralph Reed strikes
a
person as a horribly disturbing or merely loathsome toad, I have to
wonder
how well they can possibly understand political actors and the common
person
during the bloody confessionalization of Europe. Our nation states and
the
rational, neutral public square were in part coping mechanisms and
reactions
to religious, political, ethnic, and linguistic pluralism in Europe
that
could not be held together once competing factions went to war with
each
other. And of course individual ethno-national blocs were never
completely
politically stable or homogeneous, thereby preserving the potential for
new
ruptures and reconfigurations. 

-----Original Message-----
From: David L. Miller [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2005 4:34 PM
Subject: Re: Olive Branch


Fine with me.  But you're wrong about what I really mean when it comes
to
Ralph Reed.  I only care about his religious beliefs when he brings
them
into the political arena.  And I'm quite willing to tell any Jew or
Muslim
who uses his politics to hateful ends that he's abusing the dignity of
a
religous tradition that deserves a far different kind of respect.

>>> [log in to unmask] 6/19/2005 4:24:01 PM >>>
 
In a message dated 6/19/2005 9:09:35 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

Having  got that off my chest, I will offer an olive branch, knowing
it
may not  satisfy you.   I do see and hear anti-Christian bias in  the
academy, especially in literary study.  I wouldn't say it's  prevalent
or
endemic, but it's there, and it isn't called out the way  less
fashionable
kinds of prejudice are.


    OK.  I accept.  Your points about the PTA and  school prayers are
also
on 
the mark.
 
   I also acknowledge that the ivory tower crack was not  helpful.
 
       Actually, it really was not my goal to  go off on an angry
tangent.
I 
would really rather talk about Shakespeare  or something.
 
MRS
 
     

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