Their Story, My Story: The Culture of Disbelief
In his book, The Culture of Disbelief, Stephen L. Carter impressively examines the relationship between religion and state in the USA. While he called himself the big supporter of the separation of church and state, he voices some concerns related to the clarity of this separation. To some extent, he believes that the government seems to trivialize the role of religion in many life aspects for example in politics, education, and public life in general. He supports his claim with strong and practical arguments taken from his personal experience as a devoted Christian.
In brief, I capture two important points from his book related to how he assesses the actual implementation of state and church separation. First, he argues that the separation concept is unclear since it tends to repress the religious role from the public life. It is true that the first amendment vividly guarantees the free exercise of religion. However, the amendment also diminishes any religious influence from government administration and public interest. It seems the constitution is governed to set up a wall of separation between church and state. He claims that this situation resulted in religious trivialization since people treat religions and faith as unimportant and it is just merely arbitrary. Even, people avoid discussing religion in public since it will consider as bad and wrong to show religious devotion.
I assume that he is questioning the clarity of the separation whether the Church (and other religions) and state whether it should still be put separately and keep the religion away from the very public space or religion can still have a certain role in influencing the public life as the moral enforcement. The actual implementation tends to bring religion away from people living and eliminate any religion-related activities in public space. Religion is something private and it is only to practice in private space, not in public.
Second, he criticizes the use of religion for political interest. Even though religion should be only put in private life, many politicians essentially use it for their political agenda. It is an inevitable fact that half of the American people are religious people regardless of religion and state separation. Politics advocate seems to take benefits from the situation.
He made a very bold statement on this concern. He said, “…committed advocates across the political spectrum to treat Holy Scripture like a dictionary of familiar quotations, combing through the pages to find the ammunition needed to win political arguments (page 45).” To accentuate his argument, he also said, “” If the role of the religionist is first to make up his or her mind about which political position to take and next to search for religious arguments to support the already selected view, the idea of faith as the source of moral inspiration is trivialized (page 81)”
Reading the work of Carter is like reflecting my quest in the USA. I’ve been questioning this relation since I arrived in Minneapolis. As I hail from the country where religion significantly influences the nation establishment and principle, the information on the religion and state separation is interesting to understand. Prior to departing to the USA, I assume that religion, particularly Christian, greatly influences the government administration and public interest. Regardless of its democratic and secular system, I even misunderstand that Christianity enjoys a distinctive advantage. After experiencing several activities and reading this book, I think I need to amend my assumption about the nation where I am studying right now.
In my first semester at the University of Minnesota, I experienced three important moments that challenged my initial perception of the religion-state relation in the USA. First, I volunteered in Global Minnesota teaching Indonesian culture to elementary school students in the greater Minneapolis area. The organizer told me to be mindful of my words since the school is a religion-neutral arena i.e. avoiding the talk about religions in Indonesia and the use of religion-related terms in classroom activities. I found out later that public school is a religion-free zone where any religious teaching and religious practices are strictly prohibited.
Second, I had a discussion in a mosque managed by the Indonesian Moslem in Minneapolis. I was surprised by the fact that religious communities are all self-funded and community funded. I found later, and also from this book, that the first amendment separating church and state was designed to diminish religious influence in public space. Hence, any religious institutions were forbidden to receive any state funding due to its religious nature. Religion-related institutions are ineligible to receive state and federal funding.
Third, I sensed a different experience of Christmas eve celebration in the USA. It is more a cultural rather than religious festive. I captured that sense when a friend of mine invited me to celebrate Christmas. It was done in silence and it’s more a family agenda than public celebration. This fact is surprising me since I assume that the celebration would be as thrilling as in Indonesia. Even, congratulating ‘Happy Christmas’ consider as an offensive for certain people since not everyone believes and celebrates Christmas. Instead, people use the term ‘Happy Holiday’ more often.
In Indonesia, Christmas is celebrated in a very distinctive way. Even though Indonesia is a Moslem majority country, Christmas is greatly celebrated by the nation. I can feel the atmosphere and people even congratulated Christian friends for Christmas. Saying “Merry Christmas” is a way to respect the celebration. During Christmas, and other religious holy days, public spaces are liked occupied with the ornament and decoration of the celebrated day. It is easy to locate the banner, the words congratulating the celebration.
Reading this book also elevates my understanding of how the USA people treat religion especially in public space. It taught me to be more mindful of the differences. In Indonesia, religion considers as the most important element of people's life. It is no way that the government banishes and pushes away religion from public life. Religion and State administration are sitting side by side in people’s life. We are not an Islamic country nor a country based on specific religions, but we believe that God and religions are the two most important aspects of people’s life. Hence, when I experience a totally different atmosphere of religious life in the USA, I know I must read more, aware more, and adjust more to understand the actual condition of religion and people relation.
