In God’s Rule: The Politics of World Religions, edited by Jacob Neusner, William Scott Green writes:
Religions exhibit a tendency to totalize, to extend their reach to all dimensions of experience. The religions discussed in this volume come to expression not only in speech and writing, but also in art, music, and dance, in smell and taste, in ethics and intellect. They have cosmologies (stories of the origin of the world) and eschatologies (stories of the end of the world), theories of nature, birth, morality, sexuality, marriage, suffering, and death. The comprehensiveness of religion allows it to touch all the transition points of life, both collective and individual, and thus to make definitive claims on the total human being.
Because of such totalization, problems which exist in any human belief system tend to be magnified when it comes to religious systems. Any belief system can encourage irrationality, discourage skepticism, or serve as a foundation for prejudice and bigotry. With other belief systems, however, it can be easier for a person to separate themselves from it and conceive of themselves as having an identity absent that religion.
Not so with religion — religion is so totalizing, that a person’s very identity and sense of self can be completely wrapped up in it, making it difficult or impossible to imagine being without it or separate from it. This creates a block to any evidence or arguments that might challenge those beliefs — sometimes with disastrous results.
The totalizing nature of religion clearly has implications for politics:
Because religion is comprehensive, it is fundamentally about power; it therefore cannot avoid politics. Religion has the ability to ground the use of force in a cosmic and moral order; therefore, religion constitutes the ultimate legitimation of any political system. Overtly and covertly, religion influences political structures and activity by encouraging and enforcing some attitudes and behaviors by discouraging and disparaging others. It articulates frameworks of values and truth that ground and inform a society’s sense of destiny, leadership, community, and individuality.
This is why some people object to the separation of church and state by insisting that people cannot leave their religions at the door when it comes to voting or expressing a political position. There is a valid point to be made here, but not the one which opponents of church/state separation wish to make.
The totalizing and absolute nature of religion is a reason why people cannot ignore their religion and religious beliefs when it comes to developing political positions. That does not, however, entail that religious and civil authority cannot be separated. The fact that people cannot ignore their religion when making decisions about taxes does not, therefore, entail that the tax system should be structured according to religious doctrines. People who have ideas about the way taxes should be structured may be inspired by their religion, but they must reach beyond their religion in order to reach other citizens — and to construct valid civil laws.
Indeed, the totalizing nature of religion is actually one reason why civil and religious authority need to be separated. When religion is private, then people must voluntarily submit themselves to a religion’s doctrines and demands — however much a religion imposes on or requires from a person, it will be because it is their choice and, if they choose otherwise, they have the option to leave it behind.
When religious and civil authority join together, however, all of this is lost. People cannot choose not to submit to particular religious authorities without leaving the country and renouncing their citizenship — assuming the religious authorities even permit that option. Civil authority has at its disposal tools of violence and force which may be necessary for the enforcement of civil laws, but which should never be made available for the enforcement of any religious doctrines.
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