Research On Religion » Everson v Board of Education

Mark David Hall on Religious Accommodations and the Common Good

tonygill — Sun, 03 Jul 2016 08:00:19 +0000

The issue of special exemptions to laws based upon a person’s religious views has been a hot topic in the news lately (e.g., Hobby Lobby, Little Sisters of the Poor, and Arlene’s Flowers). Prof. Mark David Hall, the Herbert Hoover Distinguished Professor of Politics at George Fox University and a senior research fellow at Baylor’s ISR, reviews the history of such religious accommodations to federal and state statutes. As an expert witness in the State of Washington vs. Arlene’s Flowers case, he began to study the depth and scope of exemptions to various laws based upon one’s conscience and published this as a separate paper entitled “Religious Accommodations and the Common Good” (Heritage Foundation’s Backgrounder). He explains the term “common good” and how it relates to religious accommodations, asserting that when we have “Americans at their best,” our nation is sensitive to the sincerely-held religious beliefs of religious majorities and minorities alike. Historically, America has grown more religiously free over time, leading to greater religious diversity. As federal and state government power has expanded, especially in the 20th century, the need for more religious accommodations has also grown, often in new areas. We step back in history to look at some of the policy areas where such accommodations have been made, including military service, the swearing of government oaths, mandatory school attendance, and vaccinations. Quakers, often (though not exclusively) known for their pacifism, have been at the forefront of many of these struggles for accommodations, and Mark reveals how various compromises were made to satisfy the “common good” and the specific religious interest. He notes that exemptions from combat service did not necessarily exempt one from military (or civil) service altogether, as many Quakers and other conscientious objectors were asked to take non-combatant roles (e.g., medics). Other religious groups such as the Amish, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Adventists have received similar accommodations on various statutes and the number of religious accommodations granted numbers over 2000 as of the mid-1990s. We briefly discuss whether and how such accommodations could be abused by individuals seeking to avoid various laws including military service and vaccinations, and whether this has been a major problem (which it appears not to be). Prof. Hall finishes with some observations on the contemporary legal landscape and where he thinks legislation and jurisprudence may be heading in the near future. Recorded: June 27, 2016.

Keith Pavlischek on John Courtney Murray and Dignitatis Humanae

tonygill — Sun, 28 Feb 2016 09:00:42 +0000

With the 50th year anniversary of Dignitatis Humanae three months past, the speedy staff at Research on Religion finally get around to celebrating this monumental document with Dr. Keith Pavlischek, a former Marine Corps officer and author of John Courtney Murray and the Dilemma of Religious Toleration. For those not in the know, Murray was an American Jesuit and theologian whose writings helped to set debate for the Vatican’s new direction with respect to religious freedom and church-state relations.

We begin with a summary of the importance of Dignitatis Humanae in Catholic history and Dr. Pavlischek notes that while it was not a radical disestablishmentarian document, it did bring Church thinking up to date with respect to civil liberties for religious minorities and began to recast how the Holy See would see the role of the state in promoting toleration of religion. We spend time discussing the notion of toleration and Keith reminds us that toleration is not about being forced into liking something, but rather being to live with others who have views you may not like.

Keith and Tony then jump into the history of John Courtney Murray, a Trinitarian theologian who is drawn into issues of religious liberty by a number of Supreme Court decisions in the 1940s, including Everson v Board of Education (1947) and McCollum v Board of Education (1948)that many Catholics saw as an affront to their ability to educate their children. Being a religious minority within a Protestant nation shaped the thinking of Murray on the issue of toleration. Interestingly, Murray’s thought takes a novel direction that argues against both radical secularists and conservative Catholics, forging a new stream of thinking. While he was regularly attacked in the pages of the American Ecclesiastical Review, Murray rose to prominence in Catholic thought earning a cover story in Time Magazine and an invitation to the Second Vatican Council.

Dr. Pavlischek lays out Rev. Murray’s “dilemma of religious toleration,” which revolves around how one can tolerate religious views that one considers to be demonstrably wrong. At the time, there were a few arguments favoring religious freedom including the “modus vivendi” approach and the “thesis-hypothesis” perspective. The former makes a pragmatic argument that in a diverse society it makes sense to accept differences of opinion so as to avoid social conflict. The latter “thesis-hypothesis” thesis was more favored by Catholic intellectuals who hoped that the Church could work to promote a more Catholic society and then eventually move towards having a state church when their faith prevailed. Murray sought to ground a permanent tolerance within a moral framework, relying upon medieval Catholic thought and arguing for the preservation of a broad moral (Christian) consensus within society. Murray concerned himself with the decline of a moral consensus within American society in the 1950s and early ’60s by people he called “barbarians in Brooks Brothers suits.” We discuss how the concepts of subsidiarity and Galician dualism form the basis for Murray’s thinking and how this then influenced the debate at Vatican II.

We finish with some of Dr. Pavlischek’s thoughts on what he learned in the process of writing the book and how he might have changed or amended it in the 20 years since it was published. This brings up a brief discussion of how Islam may have a problem with issues of religious toleration given its monistic (as compared to dualistic) theology. Keith also notes how Murray ended his life on a very pessimistic tone with cultural changes occurring in American society and how he might be very concerned about the direction of the US in contemporary times. Recorded: February 15, 2016.

Mark David Hall on Religion & the Founding Fathers

tonygill — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 06:30:49 +0000

Much ado has been made about Thomas Jefferson’s famous phrase “a wall of separation between church and state,” written in a letter to several Baptist ministers from Danbury, Connecticut. Aside from this statement, how did the Founding Fathers view the relationship between church and state, and religion and politics? How have the thoughts of the Founding Fathers (not just Jefferson) been used in modern church-state court cases? Mark David Hall, the Herbert Hoover Distinguished Professor of Political Science at George Fox University (Newberg, OR), talks with Tony Gill about the views of Founding Fathers such as James Madison and Roger Sherman. Hall elaborates on how the views of such men have been selectively used by Supreme Court justices. The podcast concludes with a discussion of current church-state controversies including the National Day of Prayer. Recorded: May 5, 2010.