Many Christians lament the fact that their religion and their religious beliefs no longer dominate culture and politics in America. The fact of the matter is, though, that no other outcome should be expected in a free democracy. Pluralism is inevitable and with pluralism comes ideological competition. Are Christians afraid of a little competition?

In Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, John Rawls writes:

[W]e assume the fact of reasonable pluralism to be a permanent condition of a democratic society. ... To elaborate: the diversity of religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines found in modem democratic societies is not a mere historical condition that may soon pass away; it is a permanent feature of the public culture of democracy. Under the political and social conditions secured by the basic rights and liberties of free institutions, a diversity of conflicting and irreconcilable yet reasonable comprehensive doctrines will come about and persist, should it not already exist. This fact about free societies is what I call the fact of reasonable pluralism.

A second and related general fact is that a continuing shared adherence to one comprehensive doctrine can be maintained only by the oppressive use of state power, with all its official crimes and the inevitable brutality and cruelties, followed by the corruption of religion, philosophy, and science.

Unfortunately, quite a few Christians are more than willing to employ coercive state power in order to enforce obedience to their religious doctrines. These Christians are known as Christian Reconstructionists, followers of Dominion Theology, a theological perspective that has a disturbing amount of influence with the “mainstream” Christian Right.

Faced with the fact of reasonable pluralism, and granted that, on matters of constitutional essentials, basic institutions and public policies should be justifiable to all citizens (as the liberal principle of legitimacy requires), we allow the parties the general beliefs and forms of reasoning found in common sense, and the methods and conclusions of science, when not controversial. The principle of legitimacy makes this the most appropriate and perhaps the only way to specify the companion agreement.

So we say the parties have that kind of general knowledge and they use those ways of reasoning. This excludes comprehensive religious and philosophical doctrines (the whole truth, as it were) from being specified as public reasons. The same holds for elaborate economic theories of general equilibrium and the like, if these are in dispute. If we are to speak of public reason, the knowledge and ways of reasoning — the plain truths now common and available to citizens generally — that ground the parties’ selection of the principles of justice must be accessible to citizens’ common reason. Otherwise, the political conception does not provide a basis of political legitimacy.

This does not mean, however, that reasonable comprehensive doctrines cannot be introduced and discussed in public reason. People are in general free to do this. It has the advantage of citizens informing one another where they come from, so to speak, and on what basis they support the public political conception of justice. All this may have desirable consequences and may strengthen the forces working for stability. It is also less restrictive and gives citizens a deeper understanding of their several points of view. Nevertheless, though we can introduce our comprehensive doctrine, the duty of civility requires us in due course to make our case for the legislation and public policies we support in terms of public reasons, or the political values covered by the political conception of justice (or one of a suitable family of such).

So it’s valid for religious believers to bring up their religions and discuss their religious beliefs, but not for them to base public policy on their religious doctrines. Consider, for example, the question about welfare. A Christian might think that strong welfare programs are very important for religious reasons. In fact, they might believe that every facet of their religion compels society to go to great lengths to help the poor.

If this is what they believe, that’s fine — and if they wish to share these beliefs with others, that’s also fine. What can’t happen in a free, democratic society, however, is that the actual welfare laws be based upon these religious doctrines and on this religion. However important welfare might be to adherents of this religion, the welfare laws must be based upon arguments and ideas that are accessible to everyone rather than merely those who accept the premises and truth of Christianity.

We can repeat the same argument for a whole host of issues: abortion, gay marriage, teaching evolution, and so on. There is nothing wrong with people sharing with others their religious reasons for holding particular positions on such issues, but there is a great deal wrong if everyone in society is forced to conform their behavior to certain religious propositions.

 

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