{"id":65961,"date":"2023-04-04T06:00:36","date_gmt":"2023-04-04T10:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=65961"},"modified":"2023-03-28T17:14:36","modified_gmt":"2023-03-28T21:14:36","slug":"political-religion-vs-transcendent-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2023\/04\/political-religion-vs-transcendent-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"Political Religion vs. Transcendent Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The 18th<\/sup> century British statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke, considered the father of modern conservatism, observed that political religion has \u201cno efficacy,\u201d even to do what it intends. But transcendent religions do have \u201cefficacy.\u201d\u00a0 Though this is not their focus, they even have political efficacy, since they force human beings and their institutions to be humble, which is a prerequisite for ordered liberty.<\/p>\n

Thanks to John G. Grove for bringing out Burke\u2019s thoughts in his Law & Liberty<\/em> article A \u201cReligion of No Efficacy\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

He begins by citing a short statement in Burke\u2019s notebook from the first two years of his coming to England from Ireland, which was first published in the 20th<\/sup> century:<\/p>\n

If you attempt to make the end of Religion to be its Utility to human Society, to make it only a sort of supplement to the Law, and insist principally upon this topic, as is very common to do, you then change its principle of Operation, which consists on Views beyond this Life, to a consideration of another kind, and of an inferior kind.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Grove then unpacks that statement with the help of other writings from Burke.\u00a0 Here are some quotations from Burke, with summaries and commentary from Grove:<\/p>\n

The social benefits of religion come precisely because it is something that\u00a0transcends<\/em>\u00a0the political, and they depend on the manner in which religion is approached by the people. When we come to think that eternal rewards and punishments are aimed primarily at the immediate, political \u201cpurposes of a moment,\u201d they become less impressive to us: \u201cWe cool immediately, the Springs are seen; we value ourselves on the Discovery; we cast Religion to the Vulgar and lose all restraint.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As has happened today, with the politicization of religion, first from the Left in mainline evangelicalism and now from the Right, with Christian nationalist evangelicals.<\/p>\n

People see religion as just a way to enforce political control and thus discount it.\u00a0 In contrast, a transcendent religion, focused not on \u201cutility to society\u201d but on eternity and an infinite, supernatural God, has a different effect:<\/p>\n

Placing all human endeavors next to the sublimity of God, as he noted in his\u00a0Philosophical Enquiry<\/em><\/a>, has the effect of diminishing our opinion of ourselves and our capabilities: \u201cWhilst we contemplate so vast an object, under the arm, as it were, of almighty power, and invested upon every side with omnipresence, we shrink into the minuteness of our own nature, and are, in a manner, annihilated before him.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This mindset is important both for the people and their political leaders:<\/p>\n

Religion, then, could have the effect of dampening experimental and revolutionary fervor\u2014what reader of the Book of Job, for instance, could ever dare to say that \u201cwe have it in our power to begin the world over again\u201d? If political authority is seen as part of God\u2019s providential order, we will \u201clook with horror on those children of their country who are prompt rashly to hack that aged parent to pieces, and put him into the kettle of magicians.\u201d<\/p>\n

But importantly, it also ought to have the same humbling effect on those who\u00a0exercise\u00a0<\/em>that political authority: \u201cAll persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awefully impressed with an idea that they act in trust; and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to the one great master, author and founder of society.\u201d This manifested in \u201cpolitic caution\u201d and a \u201cmoral timidity\u201d (hardly the language of today\u2019s politics) when pursuing any great political undertaking. The one who exercises power must even \u201cfear himself.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Grove summarizes Burke\u2019s point: \u201cThe political benefits of religion, then, rely on the humility that true religion ought to produce. And, as the young Burke suggested, it could only come as a side effect of a religion that was\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0focused primarily on political and social affairs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the whole article.\u00a0 In our current debates about the relationship between Christianity and politics, we need to understand what Burke was saying and to see how his insights have been borne out in history.\u00a0 A politicized religion, almost by definition, is a secularized religion.\u00a0 We see this in the effect of liberal theology with its \u201csocial gospel\u201d on mainline Protestantism, which has shrunk to irrelevance even as it eagerly adopts every secularist cause.\u00a0 This is also what has happened to the state churches of Europe.<\/p>\n

What makes Christian nationalist evangelicals, Catholic integralists, Reformed theonomists, and Pentecostal<\/a> dominionists think that an established church that rules society would fare any better?\u00a0 There can be a secularism of the Right, as well as a secularism of the Left.<\/p>\n

Whereas the true church consists of people \u201cfrom every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages. . . crying out with a loud voice, \u2018Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!\u2019\u201d (Revelation 7: 9-10).\u00a0 And, ironically, that<\/em> kind of church will have the biggest positive impact on society.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Illustration:\u00a0 Portrait of Sir Edmund Burke (1750) by Sir Joshua Reynolds via Picryl, Public Domain<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to Edmund Burke, political religion has “no efficacy,” even to do what it intends. 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