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Introduction: Martin Marty's Religion and Republic
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13413 |
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BOOK WORLD
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9 / 1987 |
536 Words |
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The question of the relationship of religion to the American Republic is as old as the Republic itself. America was founded by people in search of religious freedom. The men who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were conscious of the centrality of this issue. Thus, as we celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution, we consider Martin Marty's Religion and Republic: The American Circumstance, which reflects on religion and republic from the early history of America to modern times.
As Marty points out, religion, dismissed for a number of years as one of the quieter and safer dimensions of national existence, has suddenly reappeared as a dynamic factor in American political and social life. Religion is bound up in many decisive conflicts: Typical of these are the struggle for civil rights and the debate over abortion.
But the question itself goes deeper. Today it is argued by Richard John Neuhaus and others that the American experiment is endangered by the systematic attempt to distance public life from the religious convictions and values of the American people. This is a traditional American argument; Thomas Jefferson, for example, worried how the liberties of the nation would be secure if removed from the "conviction in the minds of people that these liberties are the gift of God."
Marty stresses other aspects of the American situation. He sees a present-day America in which religious and, more frequently, racial or ethnic groups have challenged the need for national consensus; these groups have often pressed private interests, neglecting those that promote social morale. He wonders if concern over
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