Political Theology

The Cato Institute has up a set of essays on political theology in the United States and how our concept (or lack of) clouds our interactions with other societies. The opening essay is by Mark Lilla. I take his point that some of our conceptions of government and democracy hinder our ability to understand much of the Middle East. At points he seems to making the argument that Islamic society is either incapable of or not ready for democracy.

In [political theology], arguments about authority and legitimacy, or rights and duties, travel up and down a ladder connecting human reasons to divine ones. Making those connections and developing a comprehensive account of God, man, and world simply is what it is to think politically for political theologians.
. . .
The world had seen exterminating violence before between peoples committed to different gods, but not the self-immolation of a civilization divided over how to picture a god they all worshipped. Only Christians managed that feat, and it was the death knell of Christian political theology.

The first response by Damon Linker disputes Lilla's assumption of the how secular U.S. society actually is. This is much of my concern about our current politics. As much as I'm known to make statements that the world would be much better off without religion I have no concept that it should be forcibly removed. Ulitimately, live and let live is my guiding principle. But millions in the Religious Right movement don't want to grant that to me. They want to impose their beliefs and morals on me. And this is what I can't and won't tolerate.

[I]f the rise of the religious right over the past thirty years has taught us anything, it is that there is a third category of citizens in the contemporary United States: those who passionately defend American constitutional principles and political institutions but who also interpret these principles and institutions in explicitly theological terms. According to this theological interpretation, the American constitutional framers were religious believers out to create a political system based on the Christian idea of equal human dignity.

The next response if from Phillip Jenkins, a professor of history and religion. He questions the validity of the historical facts that Mark Lilla lays out in the opening essay. If I understand the point of what he's writing he seems to be dismissing all of what Lilla writes because of his (many) factual errors.

The last response if from Andrew Sullivan. He seems to be taking a bit of middle ground between Lilla and the first two respondants. Essentially he is saying that we are a very religious society with a very secular base of governance (The Constitution). Fair enough. And, like me, Sullivan doesn't dismiss the dangers of the Religious Right. He wrote a book about its malignancy.

One thing that none of the responders addresses is the U.S.'s difficulties in addressing Islamic societies, a major point of Lilla's article. They spend their time quarreling about the religiousity of U.S. society. In Jenkins case, if he is completely dismissing Lilla's essay I suppose he can ignore that. I would have liked to see more thought on this foreign policy failing from them though. And Lilla's seeming implication that Islamic society cannot (yet) handle democracy needs addressing.