Religion in the Public Sphere

Rabbi's Notes - July 2005

by Rabbi Margaret Holub

Just this morning I was part of yet another conversation in which a friend said something to the effect that, "I am so sick of religion dominating politics in this country! What ever happened to the separation of church and state?" And, as usual, I nodded, but a bit hesitantly. The truth is, I don't really agree. I want religion running politics in this country! I would give a whole lot to have the religion of Martin Luther King Jr. or the Dalai Lama or Abraham Joshua Heschel or the progressive Muslim theologian Farid Esak or my hero, Desmond Tutu, or post-presidential Jimmy Carter, or one of those great, juicy Jewish feminists like Bella Abzug pushing its way into public policy in this country. No, for me the problem isn't religion in the public square.

It's which religion -- and by that I don't at all mean Christianity (or Buddhism or Islam or Judaism…) The celebrated political linguist George Lakoff was just in Fort Bragg, and something like a thousand people went to hear him. I missed his talk, because it was on Shabbat. But I've read his work, and I think he makes an important point (or several.) He says that most of the hot-button political issues in our public discourse today can be divided along the fault line of two basic perspectives. One is the "strict father" way of seeing things, the other the "nurturing parent" perspective. The strict father worldview calls for self-reliance and competition. It rewards wealth and punishes poverty and frailty, distrusts deviance and believes in preemptively taking charge in a threatening world. The nurturing parent worldview calls people to the table to work things out, believes in caring for the fragile, and is inclined to trust people to live as they wish. There is a strict father version of Christianity, of Judaism and of Islam -- and, I assume, of the eastern traditions as well -- and there is a nurturing parent version of each as well.

For all kinds of reasons that have been widely explored, we are in an age of strict father politics bolstered up by strict father religion. And so we see the angriest, most punishing kind of religious language roared into the public sphere to humiliate and marginalize and ultimately to destroy the majority of us in this world who aren't -- by fate or by inclination -- "good children." So yes, I too -- like the friend I was drinking tea with this morning -- am sick to death of that kind of religion that hates so many different kinds of people (not to even mention plants and animals and the air itself.)

Which is why I am starting, along with many who are wiser than I, to yearn for more, not less, religious talk in the public arena. I long to hear the voice of nurturing, inclusive religion addressing the issues of our day. It was great to get a piece of junk mail the other day from Walter Cronkite touting the "Interfaith Alliance," which is organizing to go up against the "Moral Majority." I'm excited about the upcoming Tikkun conference on spiritual activism (www.tikkun.org for more info.) We need those kinds of religious voices out there in the public square.

Judaism actually makes no distinction between religion and politics. From the perspective of Jewish tradition, it is as much a matter of religious observance how we distribute our taxes or treat prisoners or go to war as it is how we pray. The idea that religion should stay out of the political sphere would be quite foreign to our great teachers (though the idea of freedom and safety for minorities in a majority-dominated culture would not.) Jewish tradition is intensely concerned with history -- which is to say, politics -- and describes the God of the universe as passionately committed to justice.

I have wondered, even while writing this column, how many in our community make a connection in our thinking between Judaism as we know and practice it and our political positions? I actually wonder how many of us are capable of making these connections -- how familiar we are with Jewish sources and ways of reasoning that address political issues? I wonder whether the present-day Jewish community's staunch commitment to the separation of church and state (which, let me be clear, I fully support!) has bifurcated our own brains, so that our "state" thinking and our religious vision don't even intersect? I hope that "shul and state" mingle in our thinking, so that our spiritual lives are affected by matters of public well-being and so that our political thinking and activity are affected by our lives of prayer, study, community and observance.

There's a particular problem, or paradox, for Jews trying to go mano-a-mano with the religious right. And that is that diversity of opinion, questioning, pluralism, respect for the minority viewpoint -- these themselves are central Jewish religious values. And so it is hard for a Jew to sound as shrill as a James Dobson or a Ralph Reed and still feel authentically Jewish. There's always that "on the other hand…" lurking in our thoughts. So, for example, as a religious progressive Jew I oppose the war in Iraq. "But on the other hand" I can imagine that another person of conscience might look at the world political landscape and sadly conclude -- differently than I -- that there needs to be military intervention to secure peace in the Middle East and would advocate for clear objectives, an exit plan and a strong ethos of moral restraint on the part of the military. I wouldn't agree -- but I wouldn't assume that such a person was a scoundrel or a hypocrite either.

Still, I think that lately in political conversations I have often been guilty of only saying, "There are lots of different points of view" and not speaking up for my own religious values. In our community we've done wonderful work on our listening, but less on how we speak up. Even in that conversation this morning -- I didn't take the risk to say what I've written here: that the problem as I see it isn't religion in the public sphere, but narrow and hateful religion in the public sphere, articulated without respect for "the other hand," and practiced very often with deceit.

On a page of Talmud rabbis go head-to-head with each other on the important issues of their world. When we look at that page today we see all those voices in conversation, that gorgeous model of literary pluralism. But we shouldn't lose sight of the individual voices either -- strong, single-minded, marshalling their evidence and making the strongest case they could for their way of seeing things.

I think our nation and world, and our Jewish community, could do worse than living like a page of Talmud, vigorous (and clear and well thought-out) in our various positions on matters of importance, not afraid to use the language of our personal faith to buttress our points, but still, at the end of the day, all existing together on the page. In the end of it all, the Talmud tells us, the students of Hillel let their children marry the children of the students of Shammai, the great opponent. They disagreed, openly and energetically and sometimes hotly -- but they didn't separate from each other.

I'd like to see us start talking politics with each other, speaking our values out loud in the shul (probably not on Shabbat, when we are invited to live in blissful contentment and so there should temporarily be no need for argument.) And more importantly to point our thoughts outward, speaking up as Jews, as religious people (if you are religious) and people of values, adding our visions and beliefs to the public debate.

I'm personally looking for ways to honor "the other hand" without giving short shrift to the one hand, to speak out clearly into the public sphere from my own religious values about the world matters that occupy my mind and heart. I am taking leadership, through Rabbis for Human Rights North America, in organizing the Jewish community's opposition to US-sponsored torture, and this is already teaching me a lot about the challenges of giving voice to religious values in the political arena. I will keep you posted on what I learn, and I hope you will be doing the same.

© 2005 Rabbi Margaret Holub

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