Recently, radical Muslim clerics in northwest Pakistan — now under Islamic law –  are calling for expansion of Islamic law across the entire federal republic of Pakistan.  This raises the question: Should religions rule nations?  In a word–No.  However, this needs important clarification.

There seems to be couple senses in which a religion can rule a nation:

First, if a religion rules a nation the leaders of the specific religion are also in governing control, thus in enacting laws the ruler(s) acts only in the interest of that particular religions beliefs.  The State is always subservient to the religion.  The religion is eternal whereas the state is the temporal means through which the eternal truth is communicated and brings society to order.

Second, if a religion rules a nation this could also mean that the ruler is appointed by the leaders of the religion.  This is the case for Charlemagne at the beginning of the 9th century, as Pope Leo III appoints him as Holy Roman Emperor.  However, Charlemagne rules as a Christian Emperor seeking to structure society and government upon a Christian understanding of the world.  Thus, while he is not head of the Church like the Pope, he still governs in the interest of a particular religion.

Often living on this side of history makes us develop habits of thinking that C.S. Lewis calls, “chronological snobbery.”  We assume the myth of progress, the “success” of American democratic ideals as a triumphalist situation in which we can now look condescendingly toward our ‘naive’ ancestors.  We commit the fallacy of thinking the “new” is automatically better than the “old.”

Furthermore in looking at the past, the question of “Should religions rule nations?” is a much different than “Should religious believers have attempted to rule nations with their religion?”

It is all too easy to condemn the views of dead people, and while the past societies may have been wrong they deserve the utmost Charity.  We must let those who have gone before us to have their say.  Yet, often the vices of Christendom are more often discussed than its overwhelming virtues.  The critics of past Christian nations will sooner point to the Crusades, rather than to the Churches role in education and relieving poverty.

Yet, historically, people of faith have resorted to integrating their faith and government so as to ensure the success of their religion.  This is not to merely propagandize.  Most people of faith believe they have the Truth.  Truth is essential to any manner of governing.  Religion is not about subjective beliefs, but facts about the world.  Thus, they do this in order to give their posterity the Truth.

It is not my purpose here to argue that past societies, particularly Christian ones, are unjustified in their nationalization of their particular religion.  However, in the wake of a history of religious bloodshed wisdom now says that the integration of a nation with a particular religion is to be avoided.  In a pluralistic world no nation should operate under a system in which the ruling class forces others to believe a particular religion.  Christianity in particular is not a religion of force, but rather of choice and love.

However, there are eternal truths that all people in all cultures have believed, regardless of religion, e.g. morality.  Unfortunately, European nations and increasingly in America, the nationalizing of religion is often associated with people who are pro-life, and, furthermore, many are accused of the desire to nationalize religion because they engage in public religious discourse.  The secular world desires to denude society of religious language as a secularists view of reality is that faith is merely about private living, not knowledge.

It is important to note that the most religious of people were the founders of the free-world.  Government, as the founders realized, ought to protect fundamental rights.  These rights, regardless of the religion that is the actual source of them, are that of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Yet, this happiness is not a subjective state that one determines on their own, the happiness here is an objective state that one reaches through becoming virtuous by acting out virtue.  Being good is what makes one happy.  Therefore, a nations primary goal ought to be about making good citizens.

Having a religion rule a nation is often more about the force of the religion upon the people, and less about the actual making of good citizens.  One becomes good through free choice, not through coercion.  Radical Islamic nations often fall into the trap of coercing others into belief, rather than persuasively communicating it’s message.

Just as nation ought not nationalize religion, but should allow the free expression of differing religions, a nation with religious freedom ought not reduce religion to merely personal private beliefs held only by merely subjective faith.  Legitimate religions, that is those religions that are grounded upon a reasonable view of reality in line with a universal norms, ought to be allowed freely and openly debated even in a public forum.

Recently, while in Turkey, Obama had this to say, “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation.”

Historically, of course, America has consisted of predominantly Christian citizens.  This is no secret.  Even today the largest religion in America is Christianity.  However, the fact that the majority of the citizens identify themselves as Christians does not necessarily mean that America is a Christian nation.

Though I have often vicariously experienced the pain of loss through various authors’ lamentations, nothing, however, so teaches like the reality of firsthand loss—when that looming shadow that is cast over all our lives is brought painfully and suddenly to the present through the loss of someone we love.

In these times, all intellectual questions about the nature of pain and suffering are presently brought to our mind, yet they are now caught up and entangled with the knowledge and experience of our humanity—we are deeply aware of our lack of answers as we are flooded by overwhelming emotion- like when a stubborn child, who normally is ambivalent to his mothers constant presence, becomes lost and, consequently, desires above all things the embrace of his mothers arms, so we to in the midst of emotional grief long for an embrace that will grant hope amidst the stream of tears.

Etched into the Declaration of Independence is the famous phrase that we are all endowed with inalienable rights, that of life, liberty….

…..and the pursuit of happiness.

In particular, the idea of happiness is something all humans for every century have discussed.

It is perhaps the most fundamental thing that all men have in common.  We all want to become happy.

Shakespeare Sonnet 29

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;

Like a dog who always wants only what the owner has in his hand and never what is in the kennel, so often my discontented heart longs for things of others and not what I currently have.

“To praise you is the desire of man, a little piece of your creation. You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” -St. Augustine, Confessions.

The restless heart wanders far from God, it roams, as Augustine says, far from home.

The restless heart pursues vanities because it is tainted with sin.

Sin is to love that which only brings us pain, to delight in that which can not bring joy and happiness, only misery.

The restful heart is found by fully and completely loving God.

Yet, what does it mean to love God? Moreover, what does it mean to love?

So it seems that the word is out: Textbooks are not accurate in representing Religion… what else is new..?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,506773,00.html

This reminds me of a time a few weeks ago when I was subbing at a middle school, and we read out loud as a class a chapter in their history textbook on the Crusades.

In explaining why some went to war, the textbook said “some were just looking for something to do…”

According to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as well as Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama, the financial crisis is all due to the Bush Administration’s “failed economic policies” and the “right wing ideology of anything goes, no supervision, no oversight, no regulation.”

In his opening comments during the first debate, Barack Obama responding to a question about the economic situation of the United States, and specifically the bailout bill said,

“Now, we also have to recognize that this is a final verdict on eight years of failed economic policies promoted by George Bush, supported by Senator McCain, a theory that basically says that we can shred regulations and consumer protections and give more and more to the most, and somehow prosperity will trickle down.”

I don’t pretend to have a complete or accurate understanding of this book as I have only read it once. But when I completed this William’s masterpiece I knew I had become profoundly different.

For many, Williams is simply incomprehensible, thus frustrating. To others, he is a Classic Romantic. My experience of Williams is somewhere in between these two ideas. At times, I have no idea what he is saying- yet other times he gives me longings like no other author I have read before- longings to experience true joy and true facts and obtain true knowledge of myself.

Williams brilliantly and eloquently shows how the pursuit of ultimate joy is found in the love of “facts” and that self-knowledge is gained through the continual search for truth. In contrast, self-destruction and damnation come to those who put self above truth and pleasure above joy; to those who avoid the truth by perversely seeking their own self-ambition.

This book shows that life is about two ends: ascending to heaven through facing fears and pursuing self-knowledge by relentlessly seeking the truth; or descending to hell by cocooning yourself in a coffin of selfishness.

Thus, every step every day is a journey toward one of the two ends. Will I wake up tomorrow and face the truth? Or will I evade the truth and place self as the end? These are the questions of everyday; of every choice.

Williams has shown me the danger behind choosing wrongly.

There are many times that I loathe being human.  That is, I intensely dislike my finite nature, being inside time, not being omnipresent, and my inability to see or predict the future.  Basically, I commit the fallacy of wanting to be God when it is only possibly to be Clint, and thus to be human.

Why do I commit such a dumb fallacy?

Why do I want to be something other than I am?

Of course, it is good to desire to be like God. Basic Sunday school Christianity teaches that to be a disciple of Jesus Christ is precisely to become more like him, not only metaphorically, but actually.

And here is my error.  I long to be like Christ, but I do the opposite of what it takes to become like Christ. I am tired of waiting on the future, so I worry about future?  I a long to be infinite (which I can’t become anyways), so I get upset at being finite?

To become like Jesus Christ (the one who is alone fully God and fully man) is precisely to not worry and dwell upon who I am not.  Of course, I do need to look to the one who I am not yet this is different than worrying about who I am not.

The only person who I can be today is myself.  Thus, myself I shall be (even if I long to be different).

When I look, gaze, or behold Christ I am admiring Him. Therefore, my admiration of his majesty is what moves me to become like Him.  When I worry about not being like Him my thoughts are turned away from Him and put on myself.

How can I become more like Christ if I am primarily focused not on him but on the self?

To become like Jesus Christ is to fix my eye upon his glory, longing to be completely and fully united with Him by being like Him, while living in the reality of the present condition without giving worry to the future.

As C.S. Lewis says, “Happy work is best done by the man who take his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment “as to the Lord”. It is only our daily bread that we are encourage to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.”

Amen.