"He That is Not With Me is Against Me"?

Friday Freethought Perennial #11 Neutrality Impossible? 31 March 2023 CE

About the Friday Freethought Perennials in general: This subset of my blog is to answer questions, nearly always already answered by me and by many others but posed again and again—over many years and in many places—on freethought, atheism, secular humanism, secularism/church-state/”This is a Christian Nation,” and similar topics. These answers are mostly not intended to be original analyses, breaths of fresh air, so much as just putting a whole series of things on the record (I’d say “forever,” except I know better). One source for many of these answers is the 2012 Prometheus Books book by me and my son (Michael E. Buckner), In Freedom We Trust: An Atheist Guide to Religious Liberty. It’s available in many libraries and pretty readily in the used book after-market. I’ll cite writings of others that answer these things in more depth if I’m aware of them when I post these.

Is Neutrality Even Possible—if a Government Isn’t Favoring a Religion, Isn’t it Therefore favoring Atheism?

One of the more unfortunate and unreasonable things Jesus ever reportedly said was “He that is not with me is against me.” (Matthew 12:30). This denial of even the possibility of neutrality (as at least some interpret it) has caused so much trouble, especially with Christian nationalists, that my son Michael and I devoted a whole chapter to the subject in our 2012 book, In Freedom We Trust. Most of today’s “letter” is based on that chapter (though for documentation and footnotes, you’ll need to go to the book).

One thing that was not mentioned or discussed in that chapter, even though it could have been, is a book by a fellow atheist, S.E. Cupp—Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media’s Attack on Christianity (2010)—but only because no one brought it to our attention. Atheist though she claims to be, Cupp apparently fully accepts the alleged words of Jesus on neutrality. She is also profoundly ignorant, like many of her Christian nationalist fans (Mike Huckabee wrote the Foreword to her 2010 book; Sean Hannity wrote a blurb for it), about American history and the US Constitution. The actual history completely supports the idea of separation of church and state—and I’ve written about that history often and likely will again. But for today, neutrality is the subject.

Cupp, who even quotes me (accurately but not fairly—I may address her book more generally in a future “letter”—see p. 17 of her book for the Ed Buckner quotation) in her book—repeatedly (deliberately? dishonestly?) confuses any effort to defend neutrality to protect religious liberty with attacking Christianity. Like her Christian nationalist allies, she—wittingly or unwittingly—sacrifices truth for political gain, appearing to back conservative causes by badly misrepresenting what “the liberal media” is doing.

Only if we can have real neutrality about religion can we hope to have real religious peace. Religious conflict about truth, however true it actually is, is never really resolvable. When leader A of religion X tells leader B of the Y religion that one religion has it wrong, simple logic or authority can never settle the matter. And it’s not just a major religion like Christianity versus another major religion—this problem applies when one branch or sub-sub-branch of Christianity declares some important difference with another group. Both sides can say “God” has told them what is what and neither side can prove it. Emotions rapidly become part of it, and some can even be convinced that any violence applied is justified because “God” directed it. Adding the power of government into the mix makes the danger far greater.

Secularism (and the separation of church and state) is, despite repeated false and hysterical claims to the contrary, not anti-Christian, in intent or necessarily in effect. The idea of a “Christian Nation” is an obvious threat to those of us who are not Christians, but it is also a trap for those who are. In a “Christian Nation,” even Christians will not be free; their faith will become a political question, and their consciences will be subject to the dictates of those who hold political power. Every Christian, like every other “person of faith,” should contemplate whether he wants a school board member or county commissioner—or legislator at any level—to vote on any religious issue, whether in someone’s opinion a “minor” matter or one so momentous that not correctly understanding it or obeying it will cause one to “lose one’s soul.” If we cannot have neutrality on the part of government agents, when they act as agents, the only alternative is to empower religious or political leaders to make society-wide decisions about how best to interpret religious rules. A Muslim may well want an imam she trusts to advise her on how best to follow the Quran’s teaching. But if she cannot accept neutrality on such matters from government agents, no peace is finally possible unless everyone with power agrees with her. This is no less true if it is a Christian citizen who seeks guidance from the Bible, a preacher, a bishop, or an archbishop.

Neutrality can sometimes be difficult to achieve in actual cases—is teaching evolution a matter of giving students sufficient understanding of the scientific process or is it, somehow, a religious indoctrination? But neutrality must be accepted by all as the ideal, and it must be actively sought.  Irresolvable conflict is the only alternative.

A free country—where each citizen is free to follow his or her conscience on questions of religion, and the state must remain secular—allows both Christians and non-Christians to follow their consciences. In one of the great apparent paradoxes of American history, this freedom has demonstrably benefited rather than harmed the flourishing of religion even as it has afforded liberty to people who are not persuaded by any specific religion. Whether the freedom in question is viewed as a valuable end in itself, as an ultimate value, or only as a means to a greater end, it is impossible without government neutrality. This view, this support for secularism, is not pro-government; it is rather the result of profound distrust for governmental power. It not only treats individual liberty as worthwhile; it opposes the arrogance of anyone—atheist, Christian, Muslim, or Wiccan—who is so sure he is right about ultimate questions as to demand government support for imposing them on all. One of the great values of avoiding pretensions of certainty, as Cullen Murphy has noted, is that “Doubt can be a bulwark.”

A “Christian Nation” is actually hostile to Christianity, if Christianity is understood to be a religion of individual conscience and free commitment, while the United States as a free country has demonstrably allowed Christianity to flourish as a faith freely chosen by millions of Americans. The apparent paradox—that a non-Christian nation can actually be good for the Christian religion—is partially resolved in terms of a religion’s ability to do well, or at least survive, without government’s help. Neutrality by the state in matters of religion is not Christian but does allow any religion to compete freely in the public sphere.

Only those who follow a religious or atheistic philosophy in which they hold no real confidence should oppose governmental neutrality. As the elderly Benjamin Franklin noted in a 1780 letter, religions (or by implication, anti-religious philosophies) that are so weak that their followers insist on government support for them are not well founded.

Houses of Worship in a Secular Nation?

Beyond any reasonable doubt, the national organization best suited to present the facts on what the relationship between religious bodies—“houses of worship”—and the federal government is and should be in the US is Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Their web-site, www.au.org, and literature available from them are comprehensive, specific, and accurate.

A summary of the relationship is that each must not unduly tread on the other’s turf, though precise definitions of where the boundaries are can be tricky. The general “bargain” arrived at is that “churches” (and mosques, synagogues, temples, etc.—all such terms are equivalent in this discussion and “churches” should be read in this essay as including them all) are not to engage in electoral politics in exchange for which they will avoid having to pay taxes on, or even having to account for, their income. When churches break the rules of this bargain, they can lose their tax exemption and suffer financial penalties. And that is, according to Americans United, not an empty threat, since some have had such penalties applied.

Churches must, like every other sort of organization, nonprofit or otherwise, collect (by withholding) income taxes on clergy and other staff members, match portions of payroll taxes, and report on withheld taxes, etc. Churches do have some tax benefits not available to nonreligious nonprofits. Some of these are subtle, related to how a religious leader’s benefits (housing or travel allowances) are taxed or reported, but may nevertheless be quite valuable financially to clergy. One advantage that churches have over nonreligious nonprofits is massive and by its very nature unknown in size: only churches do not even have to account for their income. Organizations as disparate as American Atheists and the American Red Cross can achieve 501(c)(3) status as nonprofits—and thus gain tax advantages for supporters who donate to them. But, except for churches, these 501(c)(3) nonprofits do have to file forms describing where the money came from and how it is spent. This total lack of accountability for churches is, we argue, dangerous, unnecessary to protect religious liberty, and imposes a strong disadvantage on those of us without religion.

To the occasional religious leader of any sort who chafes under the restrictions that come with the “bargain” mentioned above—who wants, in other words, to freely endorse candidates or back political parties and to lobby in more than general ways—the bargain requires agreement from all. Any church that wants to be political in these ways can eschew the advantages of nonprofit status and have at it.

Property or real estate taxes are the perquisites of state and local governments, and they are imposed quite differently in different areas. Churches get quite unreasonable and unnecessary advantages over nonreligious nonprofits in many but not all jurisdictions. This means in effect that those who do not support the main religious organizations in many areas—atheists and followers of minority religions alike—are forced to subsidize the Catholics or Baptists or whoever predominates. After all, churches and their members rely on public streets, fire and police services, an educated citizenry, and much else that is financed with real estate taxes. As I wrote nearly three decades ago,

treating all nonprofit nonresidential property alike, with neither preference nor penalty assessed in the name of religion . . . is the only way to insure that all governments, county or federal or others, avoid making any religious decisions for citizens, which is the fundamental purpose of First Amendment protection of religious liberty.  

Are Christians PersecuTed in Secular America?

There are in the US Christians and even some non-Christians like S. E. Cupp who claim that this is a Christian nation, that the vast majority of Americans are Christian, and that Christians are “persecuted” in the US. Aside from the bizarre image this brings to mind of hordes of people being picked on by elites and unable to defend themselves, it simply is not true. This is a free society, because it is secular, and one price of a free society is that everyone and every organization can be the object of satire or ridicule (justified or not). When writers like David Limbaugh (brother to the late right-wing radio talkmaster Rush Limbaugh) produce book-length compendiums of Christian grievances, they apparently count on selling books by discussing “persecution.” Limbaugh’s  PersecuTed: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity (and yes, the special cross-like “T” in the title is similar to the one, in red, on the book’s cover) is a heavily footnoted 350+ pages of whining. Many of the examples Limbaugh cites are of comics and others failing to be sufficiently respectful to the faith. But many—perhaps most—are examples of American secularism at work in support of all faiths, including Christianity. Limbaugh distorts, misrepresents, and exaggerates with abandon, and he accepts discredited “quotations” from Washington, Jefferson, and others without even acknowledging any possible problems with the quotations. Many of the examples Limbaugh cited are quite likely to be circumstances where Christians were denied the “right” to enlist government as an agent for promoting their religion. He does not present even one case that is a convincing example of a government agency depriving a Christian of religious liberty. What Limbaugh fails utterly to understand is that if such cases did exist, secularists like those in Americans United (attacked at length in his book) and like the author of this “letter” would work to support the Christians, not the government. What Limbaugh did not do, despite insisting that he did, is explain how the US Constitution is based on Christian principles. He also failed to show that in fact Christians are in any meaningful sense persecuted in the US.     

If fundamentalist Christians want to abide literally by Jesus’s reported words and biblical principles—“He that is not with me is against me” (Matthew 12:30)—or if Muslims insist on living in a society governed throughout by quranic principles, secularism and neutrality will not be possible. But then, neither will a modern, progressive, or free society be possible.

And a disturbing and persistent risk of carrying on as the Christian nationalists do is that denying neutrality as even a possibility makes a self-fulfilling prophecy more likely. People—voters and leaders—who are not persuaded of the great “truths” of Christianity are thus seemingly forced to consider being anti-Christian and supporting a government that is. We—all Americans—are best served by a scrupulously uninvolved government when it comes to religion and not an anti-Christian or anti- any other position on religion.

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