Untying the Gordian Knot:
Purging the Influence of Secular Religion from American Politics
Let us not call them our leaders, but they are merely our politicians who show their true quality when even the best-intentioned of them struggle to propose legislation which would limit lobbying and campaign contributions from carrying too much influence over our national politics. We view such courageous political will in light of its shady surroundings; we glorify as virtuous the few who work in favor of justice to the State. But in the case of today’s politicians, it is clear that those who don’t slowly kill us…only tilt at windmills.
There is only one way to combat undesirable influence over politics, and the Founding Fathers forged the way by codifying the separation of Church and State within the United States Constitution for just that purpose. We must appeal to their spirit as we formulate a defense against the current influence of corporate power over national politics. Our true leaders are still those Constitutional Convention delegates who crafted our new-born State. To correct the deplorable state of national affairs, we must examine original State documents with the circumspection gained in light of the subsequent developments of our constitutional and cultural history.
If we wish to proscribe against certain kinds of insidious activities surrounding our national politics for the protection of our elected officials from undue pressure on their lawmaking and policy, then we must return to the Constitution, specifically to where Church was debarred from active participation in the governance of the State. In the gradual elucidation of that protection, our Judiciary has progressively ruled that the State remain neutral concerning any civil activity which takes part in constitutionally protected rights. In combination thereof, the law which calls for separation of Church and State, together with the Judicial position of State neutrality toward any particular group’s conception of what is ‘good’ for people to believe, are meant to securely limit the excess of influence on the governance of the State.
The challenge to us is not in finding broad support for feeble new proscriptive laws; rather our challenge rests in sacrificing our pride and our comfortable assumptions regarding society in all its parts – of which Church and State are only two. In our vanity, we proclaim for a purely rational function of our many social institutions, and we are committed to free enterprise for such institutions as they compete for survival in a rational economy. But we must revisit the study of the structure of society to determine whether rationality is not misapplied toward those areas of society which furnish the irrational, spiritual needs of the people. These areas of activity are thereby constitutionally protected, and are constitutionally precluded from participation in the governance of the State by virtue of their participation in the secular religion of the populace, and whose activities have come to supplant the congener religious functions which the European Churches formerly maintained.
The purpose for the separation of Church and State, as every student knows, was originally meant to protect against the active participation in State governance by agents of any established Church as such, which at the time were everywhere found in Europe. In our time, we discover through the science of sociology that corollary secular institutions have taken the reins in providing social services to the population, away from the formerly ubiquitous Churches of Europe . These new corporate institutions currently enjoy the freedom to participate in State governance, to the extent of authoring legislation and influencing voting and policy through contributions of money or some other offer of value. The role of the Churches of Europe in the management of secular affairs for the State has been taken over by corporate enterprise. Alone, that fact does not debar such institutions from participation in the government of the State. However, if the institution is concerned with influencing the secular religious life of the people as recognized by social science, then the protections of the Constitution kick into effect.
It is a simple task, really, to point out the right perspective by which to discern those industries which contribute to the secular religious elements of our civil life, which illegally participate in State governance, offending the separation of Church and State. Indeed, it is far easier to prove the current practice of illegality rightly understood as already outlawed under the Constitution, than it is to pass new and piecemeal legislation against what is misconstrued as merely unseemly conduct - for which legal loopholes can forever be contrived. Only in responsibility to the Constitution and to its traditional interpretation in the courts can the lasting solution to our problem be found.
The U.S. Constitution was written in an age that did not yet possess a practical sociology. The science of sociology enriches our understanding of the terms Church and State which the Founding Fathers used in their traditionally philosophic sense. Immediately following our American Revolution, a great turn in philosophy was made which ushered in a new scientific awareness. The terms Church and State quickly became antiquated in the new analytical environment, and we restated them sociologically as Religion and Government. Thus their meaning becomes clarified in that the concept of Religion is significant of more than just the operations of formally established Christian Churches, while the concept of Government is restricted to the official, procedural and bureaucratic operations in service to the State as a whole.
Therefore, Religion as a concept is expanded to include the seats of other faiths, and even to include such public sentiment and activity which bear the stamp of Religion in fostering the ‘ties that bind’ us together as a single society, though they offer no ostensible worship of the divine. Alternately, the concept of Government is restricted, in the case of the State, to the administrative and legislative function of the United States, but expanded, on the other hand, to include deliberative assembly in the new shareholder-run corporations, left free to insulate their deliberations from the over-reaching arm of the European form of the Imperial State. Such is the very backbone of our procedural republic, and the effective preserve against a totalitarianism which would check private enterprise with the intrusive administrative arm of a Napoleon, or a Stalin, or a Hitler.
The United States Government protects itself on this count in two ways: first, by limiting its own responsibility toward those elements of society which contribute to either the sacred or the secular Religious satisfaction of the people; and second, by limiting the responsibility of those same institutions for reciprocal influence over the Government of the State. It remains then to determine which institutions contribute to the secular Religious component of our society.
To begin in analysis, reckon at just what social services did the Churches of Europe furnish in the Religious support of the State in the era in which our Founding Fathers acted in revolt. Furthermore, reckon at which secular, non-governmental institutions arose in the ensuing times to replace the Churches in stewardship of our cultural ‘ties that bind.’
To iterate, the Churches of Europe ran hospitals; they promoted morality through the communication of stories through literature and dramatic entertainment, they offered universally similar environments where people could congregate to achieve a sense of connectedness and community with one another; they fed the lower classes with basic nourishment, they provided clothing to the lower classes. They owned and managed vast tracts of land used for pasturage and agriculture; owned and managed vineyards and breweries; managed the calendar, and established holy days of rest throughout the year. They provided hospitality to travelers. They patronized and commissioned works of art and architecture; patronized the composition and performance of musical entertainments; censored literature, philosophy, and science for the security of the State. They oversaw education for the State; built and managed universities and schools; preserved and copied ancient texts in ecclesiastical libraries.
They compelled legislation and policy by direct participation in government; they encouraged nations to war, and even paid the expense; they profited from war through the sale of provisions from their vast estates for the maintenance of armies. They provided diplomatic expertise; provided administrative services and acumen (see clerk from cleric.) They managed and financed building projects, engineering projects, and land reclamation efforts. They financed trade missions and conquest of new lands; sold legal expertise; managed the probate of wills for the State. They financed mortgages. They oversaw the burial of the dead. They accepted property from individuals as a form of insurance against disability. They made loans on the security of pledged property. They directed single women to productive social ends. They were confessors to the wealthy, and absolved leadership for the immoral conduct and duplicity which statecraft requires.
It is next to determine which subsequent and secular institutions replaced the Churches of Europe in providing these Religious functions to society. These are, namely, health care industries; pharmaceutical industry; television and motion picture industries; fast food industry; clothing retailers; hospitality industry; music industry; social service agencies; universities and educational service industries; employment services and welfare contractors; insurance corporations; banks and financial institutions; military contractors; agricultural and pasturage industries; engineering companies; architectural and building companies; mortgage corporations; publication houses; probate firms; mortuaries; art patronage houses; alcohol producers; lobbyists; war profiteers; diplomatic support services; administrative services; information and communication technology.
Exclusive of this list are industries which developed independently of pre-Revolutionary European Church influence, and they remain in the running for continued or developing Governmental influence. In addition, such mercantile activities as arose apart from Ecclesiastical competition in the Old Europe continue in viability for influence. Therefore, energy, mining, commerce, science, manufacturing, and transportation hold an argument for freedom from constraint in their influence on government. On the other hand, and again, banking, finance, entertainment, communications, education, probate, mortuary, information technology, clerical services, military contractors, agriculture, lobbyists, clothing retailers, alcohol producers, art patronage, architecture, engineering, construction, hospitality, medicine, health care, and social services persist beyond the pale of governmental involvement, secure in the State’s commitment to neutrality toward their activities concerning a promulgation of a conception of the ‘good.’
In conclusion, there is known to be in effect in America a Religious component of secular society which commits its corporate purveyors to responsibility for managing the unifying elements of the people. In light of this recognition, such industries deserve the protection from interference which Churches continue to enjoy. In the exchange, these industries must recuse themselves of direct influence and participation in the Government of the State, according to the dictates of the Constitution and its continuing Judicial interpretation. The promise for the improvement of the success and character of these industries is held in their reciprocal exemption from Government interference. On the other hand, those remaining industries which are in play for governmental participation enjoy a freer hand than formerly, as the field has been cleared of competition, and their influence may increase. Meanwhile, for them, the reciprocal attention by government thus obtained might well exact a greater regulatory control in compensation, quid pro quo. The resulting situation as envisioned presents a picture of the cleaner government, and more responsible corporate activity, that many Americans long for, and which the health of the country and of the economy stand in desperate need. It is a simple solution to a formerly complex problem, arrived at by a proper focus on the nature of the original problem, rather than in contriving an answer to a problem incorrectly conceived. The Gordian Knot is untied, and the purge of Government of the influence of secular Religious corporations can begin in its admittedly frightening, though ultimately salubrious, steps to recovery.