So, say you are a Christian politician who believes in something genuinely radical by today’s standards, like abortion is always wrong or Sundays should be a day of rest. How would you go about convincing your parliamentary colleagues?
This is the kind of question that lurks beneath the surface of Religious Voices in Public Places, a collection of twelve essays whose origins lie in a colloquium held in June 2003 (the academic world turns slowly on its axis. although, in fairness, the essays were clearly written or revised in 2008/09). The answer we have been led to expect (largely by tolerant liberal commentators) is that the aforementioned Christian will quote the Bible, or say ‘the pope says so’, or simply bypass the need to argue anything and bully or bomb their way to victory.
The reality is, of course, different. Britain’s first evangelical MP, Sir Richard Hill, regularly quoted from the Bible at length in the Commons, only to be reprimanded firmly and publicly by one of his constituents who told him, “You were not chosen by the freeholders to preach the Gospel, but to attend to their interest….Drop the language of the tabernacle, and assume that of a Senator and a Gentleman.”
Hill was an exception even in the 1780s but the perception that religious people are incapable of engaging moderately and reasonably in public debate is stubbornly persistent. Religious Voices is an attempt to counter that perception. It is haunted on almost every page by the ghost of John Rawls, the American philosopher whose arguments on public reasoning dominate academic discussion. Although, like Jürgen Habermas, the other philosopher with whom the volume engages at length, Rawls changed his opinion over the years, he remained suspicious of religion’s ability to engage profitably in public debate. (Actually he talked about ‘comprehensive moral doctrines’ rather than religion per se but as Nigel Biggar observes, he repeatedly illustrated his points by reference to religion rather than, say, Marxism or neo-liberalism: there’s no doubt who is the enemy here.) In order to merit a seat at the table, Rawls contended, religious arguments need to be translated into public reason – arguments that “reasonable people” can understand and agree on – or, at least, be accompanied by “properly public reasons.”
The contributors to Religious Voices dissent from this view for a variety of reasons. The first three essays adopt a philosophical line of enquiry, with Nicholas Wolterstorff kicking off proceedings by asking “Why can’t we all just get along with each other?”, a title that is rather more straightforward than the answer he gives. The second set of three take a theological approach and include a particularly fine essay by Luke Bretherton on how the Christian idea of hospitality offers a theologically authentic, philosophically reasonable and socially realistic model for how we may live together in a plural society.
Section three moves on to public policy issues, specifically euthanasia, education and human rights. Nigel Biggar’s essay on the first of these is the volume’s longest and best contribution, revising his theologically-rooted arguments against euthanasia (first articulated in his book Aiming to Kill) and then assessing how they measure up to the criteria laid out by Rawls, Habermas and the political philosopher Jeffrey Stout.
The final section is the least obviously homogenous, turning its attention to national contexts, but as it is also the most concrete it is the easiest to read. Stilner and Michels’ essay on the religious rhetoric deployed (or not) by US presidential candidates in 2007-8, and Cesari’s on the different European and American political contexts and their impact on Islam are particularly informative.
In as far as the volume has a conclusion (Nigel Biggar sums up admirably in a 20-page summary), it is that the theoretical restrictions placed on religious participation in public debate, although well-meaning, are themselves unreasonable. As Biggar point out, “what matters is less the language of public discourse than the manner of its conduct – and the regard, the motives, and the intentions that drive it.”
Thus, if you are campaigning against abortion or Sunday trading, it is less important what terms of argument you adopt – although you would be daft to talk about the judgement of God or the Ten Commandments – as how you deploy them. If you want to win someone round to your point of view, you are more likely to succeed if you express your opinion in language and logic they recognise. But if you do not succeed, you explore why and try again; and then again. That’s how life works.
As this comes perilously close to the common sense approach adopted by most British Christian politicians since the time of Richard Hill, you may wonder what the point of this whole exercise is. The answer is that given that the weight of political philosophy remains wedded to the idea that religious arguments are inherently unreasonable and therefore inadmissible in public debate, not to mention the hysterical reaction of tolerant liberal commentators whenever anyone religious disagrees with them, such arguments are sadly very necessary. Religious Voices in Public Places is a welcome contribution to the on-going debate.
Religious Voices in Public Places by Nigel Biggar and Linda Hogan (eds.) is published by Oxford University Press (2010)
This review first appeared in Third Way Magazine.
