The Politics of GodMark Lilla is professor of the humanities at Columbia University. He notes that, after centuries of strife,
the West has learned to separate religion and politics — to establish the legitimacy of its leaders without referring to divine command.
However, Lilla argues, there is little reason to expect that the rest of the world — the Islamic world in particular — will follow.
We were not founded as a nation that cut off people with religious beliefs from having influence in government.
The U.S. Constitution only prohibits establishing a state religion with absolute power over government and all citizens (absolute power as the Roman Catholic church had in continental Europe, and the Anglican church had in England) to the exclusion and persecution of all other denominations.
But it was the clear intent of the U.S. founders, that Christianity and the Bible would provide an essential support to our social structure and government.
I dislike the suggestion that a national conscience based on Christian thought is somehow ignorant and backward, and something to be overcome by any state that is truly civilized and modern.
The last century is testament to the unsurpassed body-counts and mass graves of these "enlightened" and "progressive" post-religious states: The Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Red China, Cambodia, Cuba...
The world is still unearthing the mass graves and genetically identifying the remains of those deemed inconvenient to these enlightened and modern states.
