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Chapter 8: Habermas, Religion, and a Postsecular Society
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8 Habermas, Religion, and a Postsecular Society On June 25, 1962, the Supreme Court of the United States issued an 8–1 decision, Engel v. Vitale, in which the high court prohibited prayer in public schools. Effectively the decision banned a practice that was still, at the time, widespread. Justice Hugo Black, writing for the majority, wrote,“It is neither sacrilegious nor antireligious to say that each separate government in this country should stay out of the business of writing or sanctioning official prayers and leave that purely religious function to the people themselves and to those the people choose to look to for religious guidance.”1 This separate and, ostensibly, equal understanding of the functions of government and religion in a civil society stipulated that government does well to remain in its own sphere of competence and influence. Now over forty years later, the decision stands as, for the most part, an uncontroversial articulation of the separation of church and state as expressed in the first amendment of the United States Constitution. The separation is understood to be advantageous for both realms: each can function best within its proper domain of competence. But one wonders why there is no suggestion that the government might, in some cases, itself benefit from involvement with religious practices or that religious persons might find support from the government in carrying out their religious duties. 217 Such a decision was for the most part not heralded as a bolt out of the blue, but as a decision whose time had come. The separation-ofchurch -and-state clause in the First Amendment, initially crafted to prevent an established church, has slowly evolved to reflect the drift of cultural and economic development towards a greater separation of the respective functions of the state on the one hand and all religious institutions on the other. Such secularization was not intended to undermine religion as much as it was to purify government of the need to make decisions that “belong” in the religious realm—particularly given the increasing plurality of religious denominations, beliefs, and practices. In his lone dissent in the Engel case, however, Justice Potter Stewart argued that such functional separation of church and state could come only at a price. He wrote, “I cannot see how an ‘official religion’ is established by letting those who want to say a prayer say it. On the contrary , I think that to deny the wish of these school children to join in reciting this prayer is to deny them the opportunity of sharing in the spiritual heritage of our Nation.”2 Stewart assumes that religion speaks to a part of us that has relevance to our citizenship. Moreover, schools impose many other activities, such as physical education, the study of poetry, or mathematics, that are not ostensibly related to citizenship but nonetheless contribute to civil society. Why should these be imposed while prayer is not even allowed? It does not, however, take a great deal of reflection to realize that Justice Stewart’s alternate understanding of the relation of church and state demands further specification. What exactly is the “spiritual heritage ” of a nation, particularly of an ethnically, racially, and religiously pluralistic nation like the United States? Who decides what the precise understanding of this heritage is if no agreement exists as to what it means? Could such a spiritual heritage hamper impartial democratic will formation? Even more critically, does a secular state even need such a continuing heritage? Couldn’t such a heritage, such as it was, possibly become obviated in the course of the state’s evolution and progress? It is to these general concerns of how a secular political order understands its relationship to religion—and vice versa—that this paper is addressed. Secularization can be analyzed historically, psychologically, sociologically,and,of course,theologically.But here I will examine some 218 James Swindal recent philosophical analysis that, I would submit, can contribute significantly to the understanding of the role of religion in a secular state. I shall proceed by analyzing the phenomenon of secularization, and then present some of Jürgen Habermas’s highly theoretical analysis of it. Habermas has, however, somewhat modified his view on secularization recently, and even engaged in a somewhat uncharacteristic yet quite harmonious interchange on the matter with then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Both think that we live now in a“postsecular”society that demands new ways of understanding the relation between politics and religion . I will close with...