MITT AND JESUS:
ON THEOLOGICAL CONTROVERSIES IN U.S. POLITICS
Richard E. Rubenstein
There is famous church in Israel, in the town of Abu Gosh, known as the
Crusader Church of the Resurrection. I visited it fifty-plus years ago as a student.
The main part of the church, still in use, was built in the twelfth century by Christian
invaders of the Holy Land. “This place is really old!” you think – but then you take a
staircase down one level and find yourself in a chapel built by the Romans more
than a thousand years earlier, and apparently used by soldiers of the Tenth Legion
in Jesus’ time. A dizzying temporal drop . . . but it doesn’t end there. Another stonecut staircase leads to a level deeper still, where a freshwater pool bubbles among
the rocks, fed by an underground spring. The pool dates back to the Canaanite era
and was apparently considered sacred even then. Two millennia before the
Crusades, people were worshipping at this same spot.
Certain theological controversies remind one of the Crusader Church. They
take place on a level from which staircases plunge downward into the remote past.
An example is the current dispute between the Mormons and their adversaries over
the nature of Jesus Christ. The dispute involves other beliefs as well, but the Latter
Day Saints’ position on Jesus is the principal reason that Baptist minister Robert
Jeffress called Mormonism “a false religion” and a “cult.” While Billy Graham’s fire-

University Professor, School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason
University
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breathing son, Rev. Franklin Graham, denied that Mormons were Christians,
American Family Association radio host Bryan Fischer went even further, charging
that since Milt Romney worshipped a “false god,” his election as president would
weaken the nation spiritually.i I want to reflect briefly on this controversy and its
origins, and then ask why theological disputes of various sorts are popping up so
frequently in American political discourse and what can be done about that.
I. Mitt and Jesus
The Christological position voiced by the Latter Day Saints and certain other
religious groups – Jehovah’s Witnesses for example – long predates the founding of
Mormonism by the American visionary, Joseph Smith. It is similar to the views
expressed by certain seventeenth-century Unitarians, who insisted that Jesus Christ,
although a divine being, did not occupy the same infinitely exalted level as the
Creator.ii But – here a deeper staircase appears – this “subordinationist” doctrine
actually originated some 1700 years ago in the teachings of a respected Alexandrian
priest named Arius, who taught that while Jesus Christ was God’s Son, only the
Father was “uncreated.” According to the Arians, Jesus was born of a virgin,
crucified, and resurrected to serve imperfect humanity as a supreme example of
selfless holiness and transcendent moral power.iii Less than God but more than
Man, the Christian Messiah and Savior was a creature of God, not Jehovah Himself.
To consider him coequal with God or a human personification of the Deity on earth
would turn Christianity into an essentially polytheistic faith, they thought.
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Moreover, it would vastly reduce the importance of Jesus’ manhood and discourage
believers from trying to imitate him.
This view of Jesus, which is essentially the same as that espoused by the
Latter Day Saints, was so well rooted in Eastern Christian thought that many
Christians (including leading bishops and Roman emperors) considered it orthodox.
But Arius’s opponents, led by Athanasius, the formidable bishop of Alexandria,
branded it heretical and mounted a violent seventy-year campaign to make the
brand stick. If Christ was less than God, they argued, how could he conquer sin and
death? And if he was also more than man, what sort of demigod was he? Jesus was
wholly man and wholly God, the Athanasians declared – a separate person
mysteriously incorporated (along with the Holy Spirit) into an essentially unified
Godhead. Constantine I, the first Christian emperor, agreed and convened the
Council of Nicaea in 325 to try to settle the dispute. No dice. It took a half-century
more of ferocious conflict involving massive street riots, assassinations, state
repression, and the convening of more than sixty Church councils, before the issue
was finally resolved in favor of the Athanasian camp and its Trinitarian doctrine.
Even then, another century of violent conflict loomed, based on competing
approaches to the question of Jesus’s divine and human natures.iv
If the Latter Day Saints’ position is essentially Arian, the arguments advanced
by Athanasius and his supporters are identical, for all intents and purposes, with
those relied on by the Mormons’ modern opponents: Roman Catholics, most
evangelical Protestants, and many members of mainstream Protestant churches.v
The Christ they worship is God incarnate, the Creator in earthly form, not a lesser
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being, no matter how holy and inspiring. Even so, the Mormons’ claim to be
Christians is no more offensive to most Trinitarians than similar claims made by
Unitarians, Christian Scientists, or, for that matter, progressive members of
mainstream churches who recite the Nicene Creed without necessarily believing it.
Some, however, often identified as “fundamentalists,” find Mormonism as infuriating
– or almost – as Athanasius found the alleged heresy of Arius. It is worth asking
why.
One common answer is that angry exclusionism is part of the fundamentalist
character, dictated either by literalist biblical beliefs, obedience to intolerant
leaders, or some collective neurosis or personality flaw. But parties in conflict
typically assert that the root cause of the conflict is the other party’s defective
character. There is sometimes a little truth to this, but usually not much. Another
more utilitarian explanation emphasizes the competition for converts between
evangelical Protestants and the energetic, proselytizing Mormons. As N.Y.U.
professor David S. Reynolds puts it,
The real issue for many evangelicals is Mormonism’s remarkable
success and rapid expansion. It is estimated to have missionaries in
162 countries and a global membership of some 14 million; it is also,
from its base in the American West, making inroads into Hispanic
communities. Put simply, the Baptists and Methodists, while still
ahead of the Mormons numerically, are feeling the heat of competition
from Joseph Smith’s tireless progeny.vi
Again, this contains a piece of the truth. “Conversion envy” may well play a
role in stimulating anti-Mormon feelings among some evangelicals. But the intense
competition between Protestants and Roman Catholics for converts (especially in
the Latino population) does not prevent Richard Land of the Southern Baptist
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Convention from remarking that most evangelicals ”believe that Catholics are
Christian brethren with whom we have doctrinal disagreements. They believe that
Mormonism is another religion.”vii Supposing that this description of evangelical
attitudes is correct, one may still ask how much difference it makes in American
politics whether a candidate is defined as representing “another religion.” Rev. Land
himself goes on to assert that evangelicals do not think that Romney’s Mormonism
“should disqualify him from running for president or being president.” Better a
Republican heretic than Obama – or, as one wag puts it, “The Evangelicals love Jesus,
but they hate Obama more!” A good joke, yet Romney’s selection of Representative
Paul Ryan, an ultra-conservative Catholic, to be his running mate may have been an
attempt to overcome anti-Mormonism among the religious members of his
conservative base as well as to energize the Tea Party Right.
The outcome of such maneuvers is, in any case, quite unpredictable.
Sociological studies suggest that “religious cleavages” play a significant role in U.S.
politics, but one difficult to describe.viii Because of their abstract focus on religious
differences, moreover, these studies do not explain why theological disputes
sometimes intensify to the point that they become politically salient – in extreme
cases, potentially violent. Considering the amount of ink spilled since 2001 on the
subject of religious violence, the subject remains remarkably under-theorized. We
will theorize a bit about it here before returning to the topic of American theopolitical disputes.
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II. The Dynamics of Heresy Conflicts
For starters, it is worth noting that while the adherents of different faiths
have sometimes come into conflict over the course of human history, the issue of
heresy – an intra-religious matter – has been particularly productive of intense,
often violent, struggles. Why? Two factors seem especially worth examining: the
dynamics of conflicts involving charges of heresy and the possible close connection,
sometimes amounting to fusion, of theological differences with ethical/political
divergences.
The dynamics of heresy conflicts. The leaders of one religious group may
charge another group’s leaders with heresy when the latter, claiming to represent
and to speak for the members of both groups, offer interpretations of fundamental
beliefs and practices with which the former strongly disagree. One can see why
such a charge sharply raises the stakes of religious conflict. The game is zero-sum
almost by definition. The correctness of the view labeled heretical implies both the
falsity of the self-declared orthodox view and, very frequently, the illegitimacy of
that side’s representatives. The followers of Arius and those of Athanasius would
not have been so eager to ban each other’s teachings, excommunicate each other’s
bishops, and fight in the streets for control of churches and civic institutions if each
school had not claimed to represent “true” Christianity, as opposed to the errors and
lies of the competition.
The two groups’ closeness (in this case, arising from a common origin) is a
source of their conflict, not simply because of the ambivalence of closely related
parties, as Lewis Coser maintained, but because each side tends to view the other as
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a sinister parody of itself.ix Apparent heresy infuriates the “orthodox” because it
smacks of misrepresentation – a kind of theological trademark infringement – which
misleads the innocent into believing that it states the religious truth falsely claimed
by orthodoxy. In classical Christian thought, deceptive versions of truth and
goodness are quite literally diabolical, emanating from the Great Seducer and Father
of Lies. For this reason, openly anti-Christian polemics are greatly preferred to
falsely-Christian witnessing. This is one reason that Southern Baptists can consider
followers of the Roman Catholic Church (formerly, to militant Protestants, the
“Whore of Rome”) merely erring brethren, while “heretical” evangelicals like the
Latter Day Saints are branded non-Christian. Psychologically speaking, the
opposition of the orthodox to those they consider heretics seems grounded in a
powerful sense of insult. The Athanasians accused the Arians of “rending the robe
of Christ,” i.e., degrading the Savior, throwing dirt on his reputation, and, by
implication, besmirching theirs. Each side in such a controversy feels smeared and
dishonored by the other. As a result, heresy often seems to demand the sort of
forcible retaliation that mere religious differences do not.
Theological/political fusion. If Richard Land is correct in surmising that his
fellow Southern Baptists will vote for Mitt Romney notwithstanding his heretical
views, this may be because the heresy in this case is purely doctrinal and does not
implicate related ethical and sociopolitical divergences. A Pew Forum poll taken in
January 2012 informs us that, “The political ideology of Mormons closely resembles
that of white evangelical Protestants (61% conservative, 27% moderate and 9%
liberal), and both groups are far more conservative than other major religious
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groups and the public overall.”x Interestingly, other polls suggest that the
Americans most hostile to Mormonism are those who continue to identify the
religion with its polygamous past – a serious ethical divergence, but one based on
ignorance of the Mormons’ current monogamous praxis.xi The intensity of the
Arian-Athanasian controversy, on the other hand, like the intensity of CatholicProtestant conflict a millennium later, reflected serious theological and ethicopolitical differences.
Two brief illustrations may help to clarify the point. For the Arians, the
divine Son was an ethical model meant to inspire humans to make substantial moral
progress on their own. For the Athanasians, he was God incarnate, sacrificed to
relieve sinful humans of a burden they were incapable of shedding unaided. The
former retained a relatively optimistic vision of human nature and society
reminiscent of classical and Jewish views, implying a less crucial role for the
institutional Church. The latter, far more pessimistic (or, they would insist,
realistic), insisted on the Fall of Man and anticipated the fall of Rome, implying the
need for a supremely powerful Church.xii Similarly, the theological differences in
play during the Protestant Reformation and 150 years of European religious war
were closely linked with struggles involving conflicting social classes, national elites,
cultural norms, and preferred forms of governance.xiii Martin Luther’s German
translation of the Bible, which made every literate person a potential interpreter of
Scripture, was, perhaps, the single act most revelatory of the intimate connection
between the Reformation’s theological and political principles.
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When it comes to contemporary “culture wars” between religious
conservatives and religious or secularist progressives, a crucial question is how to
describe the relationship between doctrinal and ethico-political issues. We
understand that, even where a “fusion” of these issues takes place, theological
differences are more than an ideological mask for other forms of conflict. True,
theological frameworks sometimes obscure social issues and offer dubious solutions
to socially generated problems. At other times, however, they expose these issues,
express them symbolically, and mobilize people en masse to deal with them.xiv The
same alternatives may be observed in the case of secular ideologies, reminding us
that theology is a form of ideology in the broad sense rather than a mode of thinking
entirely sui generis. Louis Althusser reminds us that ideological doctrines are
“material” to the extent that they are instantiated in practice.xv The materiality of
theology, I would add, is particularly evident in societies in which religion retains a
primary epistemological role, like those of the Muslim East, or in which religious
practices purport to fulfill unsatisfied human needs, as in much of the West.
To take one current example, extreme Islamism of the kind represented by al
Qaeda and other Salafist groups would surely not have appeared without the prior
subordination of Muslim nations to the West and intensified social conflict within
those nations. Islamism is clearly a “fused” religio-political ideology. At the same
time, doctrinal principles such as the ummah and the Caliphate, which incorporate
or imply organizational, ethical, and political norms, cannot be dismissed as mere
window-dressing. According to Althusser, such principles inhabit the Imaginary
realm of Lacanian psychology, right next door to the (unknowable) Real. That is,
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they point to certain social realities and possibilities even while obscuring others.
One such possibility, in the case of Islamism, is the potential existence of a panIslamic political entity or “imagined community.”xvi Despite their many differences
(sectarian, ethno-cultural, national, etc.), those who inhabit the Muslim nations
could conceivably come to consider themselves a people sharing certain common
historical experiences and cultural norms – a community capable of organizing itself
across present national, tribal, and sectarian dividing lines. I say “conceivably,”
since, practically speaking, this development appears highly unlikely. Even so, it is
one function of ideology to reach from the realm of the theoretically conceivable
practical to that of the practical. Before the American Revolution wrote the ideas of
Locke and Montesquieu into institutional existence, the idea of a liberal-democratic
state seemed unrealizable or “utopian.”
It was Lewis Coser who first distinguished between “realistic” and
“unrealistic” conflicts, declaring the former, but not the latter, resolvable through
peaceful politics.xvii We have come to understand that this distinction is far too
simple and stark. Against those who assert that utopian religious commitments
make disputes unresolvable by peaceful means, I would suggest they are no more
intractable than serious conflicts involving passionately held secular beliefs.xviii
Fused disputes are difficult to resolve through conventional instrumentalities of
elite decision-making, power-based negotiation, and civil strife, all of which were
repeatedly resorted to in the Arian controversy, as well as in later struggles between
Sunni and Shia Muslims, Catholic and Protestant Christians, Hindus and Muslims,
and modernists and traditionalists of various faiths. What often resolves them, at
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least for the duration, is a shift in mass consciousness, often linked to convulsive
social and political changes, that generates a new consensus. In the fourth century,
the views of Athanasius and his allies achieved general acceptance because they
responded more effectively than those of the Arians to the human needs and
political sensibilities of people inhabiting a collapsing Roman Empire. In the next
millennium, Christianity was redefined to include both Roman Catholics and
Protestants because Catholic hegemony proved inconsistent with the explosive
diversity of a modernizing, commercializing Europe.
The need for a new consensus also seems relevant to the modern struggle
between progressives and conservatives – the so-called culture wars that currently
roil political life in the United States and a number of other nations. By “consensus,”
of course, I do not agreement on all disputed points of doctrine or even on major
theo-political issues. The new understanding that ended Europe’s religious wars
did not resolve theological disputes between Catholics and Protestants, which
continue to this day. But because it was constitutional both in a legal sense and in a
broader, social sense, it was largely effective in de-linking theological and political
issues. Protracted conflicts end when the parties agree on methods of eliminating
or mitigating their causes, as well as on methods of processing future disputes.
Since a new, generally accepted constitution in this sense has not yet emerged – at
least not in the United States – the culture wars persist.
III. The Revival of Theo-Politics in America
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Analysts have understood for some time that Americans identifying
themselves as strongly religious tend to sympathize with the Republican Party, and
that white Protestant evangelicals, in particular, form a significant part of that
party’s base.xix (Roman Catholics are more evenly divided in party preference, while
most Jews still solidarize with the Democrats.)xx The relatively greater importance
of religious identification and political motivation in the United States than in most
other Western countries is also well documented.xxi What has not been sufficiently
analyzed or understood, however, is the increased use of theological reference
points and intensified religious controversy in recent U.S. elections.
What did Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum mean, for
example, by asserting in an Ohio speech that President Obama supported a “phony
theology – not a theology based on the Bible”? In response to immediate criticism,
the candidate later denied that he was calling the President a non-Christian. Rather,
he explained, he was objecting to Obama’s anti-biblical values – his “radical
environmentalist agenda,” for example, which advocates serving the earth rather
than using it to benefit mankind.xxii If Santorum had been more articulate about this,
he might have accused Obama of earth-worship, the modern equivalent of ancient
pantheism, which was considered heretical by all the Abrahamic religions. But his
apparent suggestion that the president was not a good Christian had already
produced adverse press reactions, so he left the serious theologizing to clerical
supporters like Rev. James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Although leaders like
Dobson often used the softer language of “values” to avoid needlessly antagonizing
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the unborn-again masses, they implicitly or explicitly charged Obama and the
Liberal Establishment with fomenting a number of anti-Christian heresies.
Which heresies? One just named is pantheism: the doctrine that God is not
the Creator who fashions the universe ex nihilo, remaining outside it while stamping
it with His spirit, but, rather, a being (or beings) coterminous or even coincident
with the natural universe. Other views considered heretical by many Christian
traditionalists are the neo-Arian insistence, shared by Mormons, Jehovah’s
Witnesses, and others, on Christ’s subordination to God; the Gnostic emphasis,
typical of Friends, some Baptists, et al., on a divine “inner light” within all humans:
and the Manichean view that Good and Evil are equally matched, with human
willpower deciding which force will prevail. All these perspectives bear some
relationship to what one might call the master heresy of modernism: radical
humanism. This is not the Catholic humanism espoused by figures like Erasmus, but
the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment perspective, identified with such
thinkers as Rousseau and Marx, that sees human nature as essentially (i.e.,
potentially) benevolent rather than crippled by original sin. An early version of this
perspective, bitterly anathematized by no less than Augustine of Hippo, was
Pelagianism, which taught that humans are essentially free to act virtuously or to
sin. Pelagius and his colleagues linked this doctrine to a defense of human sexual
desire as God-given and to a critique of ecclesiastical institutions wedded to an
unjust status quo.xxiii
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Pelagianism, as well as other praxes declared heretical in earlier days, are
very much alive today in modern forms, although many of their advocates and even
some of their critics may not recognize their origin. There is one peculiarity about
the modern use of the term “heresy” which seems worth noting. As noted earlier,
the charge of heresy assumes an intention on the part of the alleged heretic and
orthodox to speak for the whole church, which in late antiquity and medieval times
meant the whole society, more or less. Is this the case for modern ideologues
publicly advocating radical humanism, Mormon Christology, or any other view once
anathematized by the authorities? On the one hand, it seems that no such group can
claim to speak for the whole “church.” Each group is exercising its right to selfexpression under a regime of pluralistic tolerance that denies the existence of any
universally authoritative church. But this distinction is probably overly technical,
since the meaning of tolerance (itself a product of a humanist worldview) is
contested. Each side in the current “culture wars” denies the validity of the other’s
values and hopes that its own perspective will become universal. In a modern,
pluralistic context, charges of heresy are clearly inappropriate if they assume that
the offending doctrine should be banned or its advocates punished. But, to the
extent that they reflect a hoped-for universality, they remain meaningful and cannot
simply be wished away.
This hoped-for universality, in fact, is precisely what we mean by ideology,
isn’t it? When cultural commentators in the United States proclaimed “the end of
ideology” in the early 1960s, they described the exhaustion of serious debate over
which worldview and praxis, Communist, Capitalist, or Other, was entitled or
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destined to become global.xxiv Instead, assuming the existence an alleged global
consensus in favor of late capitalist values and practices, they anticipated debate of
a sort over the most efficient and humane means of realizing the new world order.
(“Pluralism” as a socio-political ideal assumes the existence of such a consensus
rather than denoting its absence.) The appearance of challenges to these values
under religious banners therefore took both scholars and policymakers by surprise
and tempted disputants on both sides to deny the legitimacy of the other’s
intentions, assumptions, and methods. It seems essential, in any case, to consider
the views of all participants in current theo-political disputes to be seriously
ideological rather than dismissing any perspective as a product of ignorance,
unthinking dogmatism, or sinful hubris.
We can talk first about how secularists and religious progressives view
religious traditionalists, and then about how the latter perceive the former. To
state, as some progressives do, that those who charge others with doctrinal errors
or anti-Christian practices must be knee-jerk biblical literalists or the unthinking
pawns of dogmatic ministers is, in my view, a dangerous over-simplification.
Conservatives generally believe that the praxes they condemn are not only malum in
se, but also demonstrably destructive to individuals, social relationships, and valued
social institutions. That is, they argue consequentially, using social data as evidence,
as well as a priori, from revelatory texts and teachings. Some maintain that the main
source of these bad consequences is external; i.e., that God punishes sinners for their
personal and collective misdeeds. (One recalls the Rev. Pat Robertson’s famous
warnings that God would send hurricanes to punish the sinners of the Gulf Coast.)
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The more common view, however, is that destruction is the natural product of sinful
behavior in the same way that healthy personal and social development is the
product of virtue. God does not have to punish the sinner directly, since the sin
generates its own punishment.xxv
When religious traditionalists like Rick Santorum oppose same-sex marriage,
for example, this is not only because the Book of Leviticus condemns homosexuality
(male homosexuality, anyhow), but also because they consider gay sex a symptom
and facilitator of increasing social decay. Conservative Christians (as well as many
Orthodox Jews and Muslims) link the radical humanist heresy, which many see
originating or accelerating in the “sinful sixties,” to a host of social ills ranging from
the decline of the traditional family to increases in crime, poverty, disease,
alienation, and the loosening of communal bonds. To them, humanism as practiced
in modern society is unacceptably hedonistic and individualistic, prioritizing
individual pleasure over sacred duties to the self and the community. They believe
that, like many other heresies, it represents a form of idolatry – in this case, the
glorification of the individual human being, including his/her craving for sexual and
emotional freedom, unfettered self-expression, and pleasure, in lieu of the
glorification of God. By contrast, in their view, the worship of the Abrahamic God
implies a severe critique of these “all too human” impulses and an embrace of
internal and external limitations meant to repress or control them.
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It is precisely the apparent failure of progressives to recognize and honor
such limitations that led Santorum, in one notorious interview, to object to same-sex
marriage on the grounds that:
In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my
knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on
homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog,
or whatever the case may be. It is one thing.”xxvi
Santorum’s phraseology was crude and confusing, no doubt. But his intent was not
to equate homosexuality with bestiality or incest in all respects, but, rather, to
classify all these behaviors as examples of unrestrained desire incompatible with an
orthodox Christian sense of man’s sinfulness and need for discipline. Marriage is
“one thing,” he insisted, because alternatives to marriage between heterosexual
adults shift the locus of decision-making about such matters to human beings
unrestrained by external (“God-given”) customary and legal norms. And humans
simply cannot be trusted to generate their own norms. In the view of religious
traditionalists, the course of modern history, with its revolutionary and counterrevolutionary violence, its corrupt politics, decadent social practices, and uncaring
destruction of communities, is proof of this incapacity.
A critical humanist might well reply that this sort of thinking hopelessly
conflates causes and effects. The social ills noted do exist, but they are the products
of a violently dysfunctional system – unrestrained, globalizing capitalism and richnation militarism – rather than the results of some defect in human nature or of
humanist philosophy. In fact, the frustration that such ills generate, especially when
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reform efforts fall short and more radical change seems unobtainable, is a primary
cause of the turn toward religious fundamentalism.xxvii People do have a potential
for destructive as well as creative behavior, but many zealous evangelicals overstate
the power of free choice to an extent that good Christians of an earlier age have
considered heretical. Clearly, the human potential for good or evil is deeply
influenced, shaped, and channeled by social systems that delimit the scope of
acceptable thoughts and reward or punish actions. One need not endorse the view
advanced by some self-declared humanists that free choice is an “illusion” to
recognize that there are degrees of freedom, and that some choices are more
constrained than others.xxviii
This sort of reply clearly does not resolve the dispute over individual or
social responsibility for misbehavior, but it has the virtue of being dialogic, since it
does not simply assume that religiously motivated people are incapable of
participating in a reasoned discussion. If radical humanists can engage conservative
secularists in discussion, they can also engage ideological opponents who see the
world through religious lenses. Moreover, those who fail to recognize theology’s
ideological character often underestimate its potential to engender both beneficial
and vicious sociopolitical results. Beneficial: consider the Catholic Worker
movement, which some clergy are attempting to revive.xxix Vicious: recall the attack
on radical humanism mounted by the Catholic Church and many Protestant
churches during the Enlightenment – a position that, carried into the twentieth
century, generated clerical fascism and moved many church leaders to view Hitler
and Mussolini as bulwarks against communism. Dobson- or Robertson-style
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fundamentalism fuses theology with ethics and politics in a manner reminiscent of
this counter-revolutionary past, although as yet the compound is not nearly so toxic
or explosive. Whether current attacks on radical humanism are incubating fascism,
and, if so, what can be done to abort this development, are critical questions for
analysts of American theo-politics.
The way not to respond to the Religious Right, it seems to me, is to attempt to
convert conflicts over significant religious, ethical, and political issues into disputes
over legal boundaries. Recall that the idea of keeping theological disputes out of
politics is a fairly recent one. It wasn’t until Europe had gone through a century to
and a half of vastly destructive religious wars and another century of violent
revolutions that a consensus of sorts was reached to privatize religion and
secularize government. Especially in America, the lines of separation were never
clear, and most disputes involving religion were about the proper location of
boundaries – whether public institutions, for example, could be used for private
religious activities, or whether religious organizations should be compelled to
adhere to government-sponsored standards.xxx (The dispute between the Obama
Administration and the Roman Catholic Conference of American Bishops over the
availability of contraceptive services in Catholic-run hospitals is a typical example.)
Nevertheless, the past few decades have clearly witnessed a resurgence of religion
in the public sphere.xxxi Strong disagreements about sexual behavior, family
relationships, abortion, euthanasia, just and unjust wars, the sources of political
corruption, and the morality of criminal punishments, inter alia, reflect clashes of
beliefs and ethical standards, not just disagreements about boundaries, although
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there is still a tendency to frame them as boundary disputes. As soon as one asks
why such value-based conflicts have multiplied, however – and why old boundaries
are so often transgressed – the contention begins.
IV. Humanism as an Ideology
Among secularist and religious humanists, one finds a marked tendency,
parallel to that on the Religious Right, to deny that “progressive” views are
ideological. If the traditionalists often seek shelter from uncertainty in the strictures
of faith and the language of Scripture, the progressives search for an equivalent
refuge – a space beyond argument – in the doctrines of science. Consider the alleged
differences cited by many between “theories” and “facts.” Creationists who accept
the Genesis account as fact describe the process of natural selection as a mere
theory, while their humanist opponents (taking the bait) insist that Creationism is a
mere theory and Evolution an undoubted fact. Similarly, progressives are fond of
asserting that their fundamental beliefs and ethical commitments are based on
reason and evidence, while those of conservatives are the products of “blind faith.”
The traditionalist response is that their beliefs are principled, while those of the
progressives are rationalizations for modernist groupthink and hedonistic selfinterest.
Such distinctions seem to me both self-serving and overblown. Of course,
natural selection is a theory, not a fact! But there is nothing “mere” about a wellsupported theory. Darwin’s theory, as modified by later genetic discoveries, is
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supported by overwhelming evidence, while the evidence for Creationism is thin at
best. Where basic beliefs and values are concerned, however, it is by no means clear
that those of progressives or secularists are more rational or evidence-based than
those of religious conservatives. An example is Sam Harris’s recent effort to prove
“scientifically” that freedom of the will is an illusion.xxxii Humans’ sense that they are
making autonomous decisions, says Harris, is belied by the fact that such decisions
are influenced or determined by factors beyond their conscious control and
knowledge – for example, by genetic propensities and neurological states. This
conclusion is said to be based on scientific evidence. But what Harris has done is to
replace an alleged illusion with a mystery. Why do we feel that we are making
choices with some degree of freedom? What, precisely, is responsible for these
choices if it is not us? How do genetic propensities or neurological states cause us to
choose one way rather than another? How are we to weigh such determinant
factors against each other? Harris freely admits that nobody knows. The matter
remains mysterious, which means that, to an undetermined extent, the sensation of
choosing freely may have some basis in reality. Yet he asserts that science proves
that this cannot be the case!
The typical progressive response, “We are scientific; you are superstitious,”
misses the point that humanism is also a value-based ideology. The meaningful
answer to a charge of heresy or false doctrine is not that the accusation is
meaningless; it is that the ideas you call false and destructive, I consider true and
beneficial. At the point that this issue is joined, the fused nature of the dispute
announces itself, and doors swing open to possible conflict resolution.
21
Disputes that raise closely associated theological and ethical-political
questions collapse three types of ideological disagreement – clashes over the
definitions of goodness/truth and evil/falsity (call them Type A disagreements),
clashes over the relative causative power and moral responsibility of social systems
and individual wills (Type B disagreements), and clashes over the personal and
social consequences of stated beliefs and actions (Type C). The fusion or close
interconnection of these types presents us with a paradox. On the one hand, as we
saw earlier, fusion creates conflicts that are typically difficult to resolve. On the
other hand, to the extent that the conflict raises political issues that can be
recognized as such and makes appeals to evidence that is open to observation and
analysis, it provides a basis for communicative dialogue and, possibly, for methods
of de-fusing the conflict.
Current disputes over crime and punishment furnish an example. Many
Christians committed to the doctrine of the Fall of Man view crime as the product of
an ineradicable human tendency to make lawless, self-centered choices (Type A).
Since, for them, crime is the product of an individual propensity to do evil, it must be
dealt with by forceful deterrence, the removal of wrongdoers from society, and the
administration of corrective punishment (Type B). By contrast, many humanists
who believe in a naturally beneficent or ameliorable human nature consider the
same behavior the result of socio-cultural limitations on and distortions of human
development: in particular, persistent poverty, inequality, militarism, and the
glorification of individual acquisition (Type A). For them, individual responsibility
for crime is mitigated by collective conditions, and appropriate responses are to
22
eliminate these conditions and to equip wrongdoers with the skills and attitudes
needed to cope with them (Type B).
So far, so bad. But now let us recognize the dispute’s Type C dimension. To
what extent will one ideology or the other, or some other ideology, produce
individually and socially beneficial results now and in the long run? If crime is to
some extent environmentally generated, as even most conservatives concede, what
sort of changes in the social environment will reduce bad behavior, and how are
they to be implemented? If lawbreaking is to some extent a product of human
weakness and deformed character, as most progressives will concede, what will
bring about beneficial characterological changes? No one can deny that prisons
reproduce criminals. How, then, can wrongdoers be rehabilitated and the public
protected? Clearly, such questions involve contentious issues of interpretation.
Answering them generates rather than closes off debate. But that is really the point.
Recognizing that these arguments are ideological, and that there is no objective test
capable of proving or disproving Type A or B assumptions, opens the door to
meaningful discussions, at least with regard to Type C issues. In time, such
dialogues, properly conducted, may contribute to the formation of a social
consensus, as Habermas suggests in his Theory of Communicative Action.xxxiii
Focusing on Type C issues may also help the parties to the culture wars to
kick the useless and destructive habit of characterizing their behavior, and that of
their opponents, in terms of aggression and defense. It is a truism in conflict studies
that parties in conflict tend to consider their own behavior defensive while
23
characterizing their opponent’s activities as aggressive. To characterize a position
or action as an act of self-defense justifies it by portraying it as a response to some
external threat rather than as a product of any self-determined or willful impulse or
strategy. In addition, the modern doctrine that self-defense is a sacred right
(perhaps even a duty) frees parties in practice to act according to the maxim, “The
best defense is a good offense,” thus obliterating the original distinction in action
and making each party even more certain that its own posture is purely
defensive.xxxiv
Where theo-political disputes are concerned, one sees the same dynamic in
play. Religious conservatives view heresies like radical humanism as expansionist
doctrines that, over time, threaten to turn orthodox beliefs into legalistic dead
letters. The humanists’ aggressiveness and their own defensive posture seem
obvious to them, given the revolution in mores associated with the 1960s-1970s,
which continues in the form of efforts to legalize domestic unions, abortion,
marijuana use, and same-sex marriages, as well as in increasing rates of pre-marital
sex and high rates of divorce. Even more profound, perhaps, is the forward motion
of individualism, which leads modern people generally to demand that their needs
be satisfied regardless of the repressive strictures of older collective traditions. The
humanists, for their part, have an equally sharp, “self-evident” impression of
conservative aggression. This is based, among other things, upon the dramatic rise
of evangelical influence in the Republican Party, the tendency of culture-war
differences to divide formerly united churches and strengthen “fundamentalism,”
and a string of conservative political victories, especially at the local community
24
level, in a wide range of issue areas. Even a brief glance at left-wing journals and
websites reveals a profoundly defensive mentality based on the belief that the
Religious Right is making significant gains in influencing public opinion and passing
legislation favorable to its cause.
How to evaluate these competing claims? As illogical as this may seem, both
sides are probably right! Each has reason to fear the other’s passion and
momentum. Radical humanism still possesses a dynamism capable of altering
popular mores, changing laws, and inspiring public discussions about the virtues of
social equality, the rights of women, children, and sexual minorities, the validity of
the “new atheism,” and more. The appearance of the Occupy movement in 2011
suggests that the impetus imparted by the ideological explosions of the
Enlightenment and the failures of late capitalism has not yet run its course. On the
other side, religious conservatism seems equally dynamic, as demonstrated by
increased church attendance, political influence, and cultural assertiveness in the
United States, not to mention the revival of religious traditionalism since the 1970s
on a global basis. There is really no way to distinguish defenders from aggressors in
this sort of conflict (as in a great many others). The most that one can say is that the
rhetoric of self-defense on both sides is a symptom of intensifying polarization in a
context of unpredictable social change.
Even so, people do seem to learn from experience, and the question of what
is to be learned is one that even those committed to radically different ideologies
can discuss. The prolegomena to decent discussion, I believe, is a recognition of the
25
ideological nature of the opponent’s views and one’s own perspective. Religious
conservatives can learn to recognize humanists as ideologues with whom they
disagree, not sinners driven by insensate pride and desire. Allegations of heresy,
derived from the days when the Church aspired to act as a world-encompassing
cultural and political unifier, are poisonous to discussion, for reasons noted at the
start of this essay. Radical humanism was once a Christian heresy. It survived,
however, and must now be recognized as another faith – a “civil religion,” as some
say. Faiths compete, of course. One can always make the case that one’s own views
of human nature and social potential are superior to those of one’s opponents. But
the charge of heresy assumes orthodox hegemony and views any opposition as both
a misrepresentation and an insult. One does not dialogue with heretics. One can
engage in serious discussion with those representing a different church.
By the same token, humanist progressives need to become more conscious
of their own ideological traditions and the political implications of these beliefs.
Stop hiding behind claims of common sense and scientific truth, one wants to urge
them. Go back to the sources of your ethical and political commitments: the
prophets of the two Testaments, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment, and later
thinkers from Marx to Gandhi. Recognize that your beliefs, like those of your
opponents, involve a faith in the possibility of the radical improvement of human
society. Study, revise, and become more active in promoting your own views. Take
advantage of every opportunity to dialogue with conservatives, since both struggle
and dialogue are needed to prevent religious fundamentalism from morphing into
fascism. Searching for common ground is not the name of this game; you may well
26
discover more differences than commonalities. But genuine differences recognized
and analyzed can spark creativity on both sides of an ideological divide. Both sides
may then recognize that the good society they seek to build does not yet exist – not
even on paper – although it is within their collective power to conceive and create it.
V. Mitt and Jesus: Reprise
We return to the questions that began this exploration: the sources of the
recent “theological turn” in American politics and the possibilities of averting
potentially violent conflict. It is now widely understood that the “sacralization” of
politics and social conflict is a global phenomenon of several decades duration, not
just a recent development in U.S. political life.xxxv In many conflict situations, four
factors seem particularly potent in promoting the religious framing of political
disputes. First, the social problems generating the conflict remain unidentified or
unsolved. The conflict therefore becomes protracted, and its outcome is thrown
into doubt. Second, secular leaders are discredited by their inefficacy, corruption,
and/or inability to maintain morale. Third, military or political reverses compel the
group’s members to choose between surrender, agreeing to a disadvantageous or
shameful compromise, and “keeping the faith” in an eventual victory. Fourth,
religious allies produce much-needed financial, logistical, and moral support for the
struggle, inspiring combatants to reaffirm their religious identities.
All these factors seem operative in locales like post-1973 Israel/Palestine,
Bosnia, Chechyna, Sri Lanka, India, Yemen, and Somalia, where conflicts that
27
originated as secular were later conceptualized and organized as religious struggles.
Although socio-cultural conflicts in the United States remain largely nonviolent, the
same four conditions generate sacralization here as well, to wit:
(1)
Unidentified or unsolved problems (e.g., persistent poverty, job
insecurity, wage stagnation, environmental destruction, and
growing social inequality) discredit the corporate elite, public
officials, and other secular leaders. Related social ills such as
crime, addiction, the collapse of families, and the decline of public
education proliferate in working class and middle class
communities as well as among the deeply poor, but existing elites
and the media refuse to recognize their socio-economic sources.
Instead, they are framed as the result of faults of individual
character and secular thinking.
(2)
Not only do rival political parties fail to find solutions to these
problems, they checkmate each other. Politicians transparently
corrupted by money, privilege, and power bring the processes of
parliamentary democracy into disrepute. Religious leaders seem
to many people to possess the vision, militancy, discipline, and
relative purity of character that most secular politicians lack.
(3)
Each side in the “culture wars” feels threatened by its opponents’
aggressive pursuit of cultural hegemony and state power. Each
worries that cherished values and practices, and a vision of the
nation based on these praxes, are in danger of extinction should
the other side succeed in gaining hegemony/power. This tends to
produce a “last chance” desperation sometimes related to
apocalyptic hope – a state of mind that, pushed to the extreme, can
incubate violence.
(4)
Each party considers membership in a group of like-minded
believers necessary to satisfy a need for communal solidarity that
the broader society seems determined to ignore. As it continues,
this sectarian communalism further decreases the national
community’s social coherence and tends to reduce the nation to a
merely legal category. Furthermore, like narrow nationalism, it
functions as a “false satisfier” of a basic human need. I have
28
argued elsewhere that such false satisfiers tend to generate
aggressive ideologies and political violence.xxxvi
As mentioned earlier, the presence of these “sacralizing” factors in American
politics has not yet produced violent politics on a large scale. The question that
remains is whether the upsurge of theo-political discourse is a long-term
development with the potential to generate extremist political organizations and
activities, or whether it reflects merely the sentiments of marginal groups which the
U.S. two-party system typically isolates or co-opts. With the presidential election
campaign of 2012 in full swing at this writing, most groups lumped under the
heading of the Religious Right were supporting Mitt Romney, whose vicepresidential nominee reflected their views, while most secular and religious
progressives remained, however reluctantly, in the Obama camp. Political analysts
generally expected the election to be close, reflecting the more or less even split
between voters that has characterized most national elections since 1992. Whoever
wins, however, theo-political conflict seems likely to escalate. A Romney victory will
raise high expectations on the Right, and an Obama victory will energize the Left,
while each side’s opposite numbers mobilize against the “tyrant” in power. If
underlying social and economic problems remain unsolved, the frustration level will
soar, exacerbating the four conditions for sacralization earlier noted and increasing
the likelihood of militant activities, nonviolent and violent, outside normal political
channels.
29
Is such a conflict resolvable, in the sense that tendencies toward a potentially
violent confrontation can be reversed? Yes – but resolution will depend upon the
elimination or mitigation of the causative factors discussed earlier. The systemic
problems whose persistence discredits existing political leaders must be identified
and a credible start, at least, be made toward dealing with them effectively. This
effort will very likely require mass-based political mobilizations and actions outside
the current two-party framework. Ironically, but not uniquely, the resolution of a
serious ideological dispute may depends upon the escalation of previously
suppressed social conflicts. Once this process (launched initially by the Tea Party on
the right and the Occupy movement on the left) resumes, the door may be open for
meaningful dialogue between forces representing the religious and secular Right
and the religious and secular Left: the forerunners, perhaps, of a potential four-party
system in the United States.
Dialogue of this sort, I hasten to add, is not an alternative to political combat
but a process to which combatants can resort in order to clarify their aims and
methods and to keep their struggle nonviolent. Another way to describe this
interaction might be to christen it social-constitutional dialogue, since the chief
questions to be explored are systemic or constitutional in the broadest sense of the
word. Some examples:

What systemic changes, socioeconomic, political, and cultural, are
needed to prevent sharp, value-based differences of perspective and
opinion from becoming lethal?
30

What sorts of institutional and personal transformation must take
place to permit us to consider alternative ways of organizing our
existence in order to deal with recognized social problems?

How can we satisfy our needs for community, not by embracing
false satisfiers, but in the sense indicated by Martin Luther King
when he declared, “Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe,
our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world
perspective"?xxxvii
Most conflict resolution theorists and practitioners have not yet focused their
attention on the urgent need for new types of communication designed to facilitate
the creative reconstruction of dysfunctional, crisis-prone social systems. Some
attention has been paid to the need for new systems in failing states, but more
established states have largely been exempted from this sort of inquiry. In fact,
while constitutional dialogue has become a recognized topic for research among
legal scholars (who tend, naturally, to focus on legal constitutions in divided
societies) one can search the pages of most textbooks and journals in our field
without finding references even to legal constitution-making, much less to a
broader, social-constitutional dialogue.
In order to maximize their potential effectiveness in the short run, many of
our colleagues accept existing social institutions as practically unchangeable, or else
hope to alter them piecemeal through discrete individual interventions. The shortrun strategy is well-intentioned, since it aims at remedying immediate suffering, but
31
the result has been to subordinate the prevention of conflict to post-conflict
interventions. I would urge co-workers in the field of conflict analysis and
resolution to consider the need for a broader, more direct approach that recognizes
the sacralization of conflict as a product of failing social and political systems. Our
job is to prevent the culture war from becoming Holy War. Now, while theo-political
disputation in the United States still remains largely nonviolent, now is the time to
develop the theory and practice of social-constitutional dialogue.
\
ENDNOTES
Those commonly called Mormons are members of the Church of the Latter Day
Saints. I use the terms interchangeably. Pastor Jeffress’ views on the Mormon “cult”
are reported in The Wall Street Journal, October 7, 2011. Rev. Graham’s views were
expressed on the MSNBC television program, “Morning Joe,” on February 21, 2012.
For Bryan Fischer’s statements, see
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/topics/mormonism.
ii Sir Isaac Newton apparently adhered to this view, as did several German sects.
iii The Arian controversy is discussed in detail in Richard E. Rubenstein, When Jesus
Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity in the Last Days of Rome (Harcourt,
2000).
iv See Philip Jenkins, Jesus Wars (HarperOne, 2011).
v There are Evangelical Protestants who oppose Trinitarian doctrine and consider
themselves “Biblical Unitarians”; see, for example, Anthony F. Buzzard, Jesus War
Not A Trinitarian (Restoration Fellowship, 2007). And (based on the author’s
experience in addressing mainstream Protestant congregations), there are many
i
32
nominally Trinitarian Christians, especially in churches considering themselves
progressive, who have serious doubts about Jesus’ equality and identity with God.
vi David S. Reynolds, “Why Evangelicals Don’t Like Mormons.” New York Times,
January 12, 2012. http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/whyevangelicals-dont-like-mormons/
vii Caroline May, “Evangelicals Will Vote for Mormon Mitt Romney, Says Southern
Baptist Leader.” http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/11/land-romney%E2%80%99sfaith-to-have-minimal-impact-on-evangelical-vote-in-the-general-election/
viii See, e.g., John C. Green, The Faith Factor: How Religion Influences American
Elections (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2010); Jeff Manza and Clem Brooks,
“The Religious Factor in U.S. Presidential Elections, 1960-1992.” American Journal of
Sociology 103 (July 1997): 38- 81.
ix See Lewis Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict (New York: Free Press, 1964)
x From “Mormons in America,” The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, poll
taken January 12, 2012. http://www.pewforum.org/Christian/Mormon/mormonsin-america-politics-society-and-morality.aspx
xi See Frank Newport, “Americans’ Views of the Mormon Religion,” March 2, 2007.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/26758/americans-views-mormon-religion.aspx
xii These implications are systematically explored in St. Augustine’s City of God
(Hendrikson Publishers, 2009)
xiii See, e.g., Richard S. Dunn, The Age of Religious Wars, 1559-1715. 2d Ed. (W.W.
Norton, 1979). Classic discussions of the relationship of religious to non-religious
issues include Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
(CreateSpace 2010); Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside-Down: Radical Ideas
In the English Revolution (Penguin, 1984); and Christopher Hill, The Century of
Revolution, 1603-1714 (Routledge, 2001)
xiv See, e.g., Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside-Down: Radical Ideas During
the English Revolution (Penguin Books, 1984)
xv See Louis Althusser, On Ideology (Verso, 2008). See also the useful summary of his
views at
http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/marxism/modules/althusserideology.
htm
xvi Cf. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and
Spread of Nationalism (Verso, 1991)
xvii Lewis Coser, op. cit., 114-115
xviii The literature on religion and conflict makes frequent references to the
differences between theologically-based conflicts and others. See, e.g., Mark
Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence
(University of California Press, 2000), with its discussion of “cosmic war.” I remain
convinced that a conflict such as World War II, relying on intensely held secular
ideologies, was as “cosmic” as any religious struggle.
xix See, e.g., Gallup Poll of December 11, 2009, “Religious Intensity Remains
Important Predictor of Politics.” http://www.gallup.com/poll/124649/religiousintensity-remains-powerful-predictor-politics.aspx
33
Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, “Trends in Party Identification of
Religious Groups,” January 2, 2012. http://www.pewforum.org/Politics-andElections/Trends-in-Party-Identification-of-Religious-Groups-affiliation.aspx
xxi See, e.g., Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, American Grace: How Religion
Divides and Unites Us (Simon & Schuster, 2012)
xxii Santorum also criticized Obama’s requiring religiously-affiliated hospitals to
offer contraceptive services under the Affordable Health Care Act. See Felicia
Sonmez, “Santorum stands by statement that Obama’s theology not based on the
Bible.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/santorumstands-by-statement-that-obamas-theology-not-based-on-thebible/2012/02/18/gIQAfXGAMR_blog.html (February 18, 2012).
xxiii B.R. Rees, Pelagius: Life and Letters (Boydell Press, 2004); Robert F. Evans,
Pelagius: Inquiries and Reappraisals (Wipf & Stock, 2010)
xxiv The locus classicus is Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of
Political Ideas in the 1950s (2d Ed., Harvard University Press, 2000). A later
restatement was Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (Free Press,
2006).
xxv For an interpretation of the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah emphasizing the
“natural” consequences of individual and social corruption, see Richard E.
Rubenstein, Thus Saith the Lord: The Revolutionary Moral Vision of Isaiah and
Jeremiah (Harcourt Books, 2006), 105-106. Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas’ use of “natural
law” to explain the mediation of the divine will by (divine) creation.
xxvi See Napp Nazworth, “Did Rick Santorum Equate Homosexuality to Bestiality?”
Christian Post, May 6, 2012. http://www.christianpost.com/news/analysis-did-ricksantorum-equate-homosexuality-to-bestiality-67049/.
xxvii This seems to be one of the conclusions of Martin E. Marty’s and R. Scott
Appleby’s five-volume Fundamentalism Project. See Vol. V, Fundamentalism
Comprehended (University of Chicago Press, 2004)
xxviii For the “free will is illusion” argument, see Sam Harris, Free Will (Free Press,
2012). For implications of free will in religious doctrine from an evangelical
perspective, see R.C. Sproul, Willing to Believe; The Controversy Over Free Will (Baker
Books, 1997)
xxix For an article on the Catholic Worker movement by Jim Forest and a
bibliography, see http://www.catholicworker.org/historytext.cfm?Number=78
xxx See the discussion of “boundary management” as a form of conflict management
typical of the United States in Manfred Halpern’s important essay, “A Redefinition of
the Revolutionary Situation.” Journal of International Affairs, 23:1 (1969), at 64-65
xxxi See Judith Butler, Charles Taylor, et al., The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere
(Columbia University Press, 2011)
xxxii Sam Harris, op. cit.
xxxiii Jurgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action: Volume 1, Reason and
Rationalization of Society (Beacon Press, 1985)
xxxiv I have discussed this in terms of U.S. foreign policy in Reasons to Kill: Why
Americans Choose War (Bloomsbury Press, 2010), 29-59
xx
34
See, e.g., Richard E. Rubenstein, “Religion, Violence, and the Ethics of Peace,”
Peace in Action (Summer 2006),
http://promotingpeace.org/2006/2/rubenstein.html; Emilio Gentile, Politics as
Religion (Princeton University Press, 2006)
xxxvi Richard E. Rubenstein, “Basic Human Needs: Beyond Natural Law,” in John W.
Burton, ed., Conflict: Basic Human Needs (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press, 1990)
xxxvii Martin Luther King, speech in Atlanta (1967), now inscribed on a wall of the
Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington, D.C.
xxxv
35