King and Huck

Last updated on: January 15, 2008 at 11:11 pm by Fred Clark

King and Huck 2008-01-15T23:11:48-05:00 Fred Clark

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Today would have been the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 78th birthday.

That honorific — “reverend” — refers to King’s vocation as an ordained Baptist minister. He was the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala. But King believed his ministry extended beyond his congregation. He believed that God had called him to work for justice not just in the hearts and lives of the believers at Dexter Avenue, but in all of Montgomery, in all of Alabama, in all of America and even, ultimately, in all of the world.

And today, on what would have been the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 78th birthday, I read this MSNBC account of recent comments by another Baptist minister, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee on “The Constitution and God’s Standards” (thanks, mmackmcc and Tonio, for the tip):

“[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that’s what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards,” Huckabee said, referring to the need for a constitutional human life amendment and an amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

It’s nice to hear Huckabee concede that same-sex marriage is, in fact, constitutional, and thus that outlawing it would require a constitutional amendment, but that’s not the main point here.

The main point here is sweet fancy Moses this guy wants to rewrite the Constitution to align it with his idea of “God’s standards”!

So, OK then, here’s one Baptist minister who sets out to change America, leads a march on the nation’s capital, and succeeds in changing the law of the land. And here’s another Baptist minister who has set out to change America and to rewrite the laws of the land. So what’s the difference? Why do I admire and honor the former while mocking the latter as a theocratic goof? Is it just because one was a liberal and the other a conservative?

Actually, the difference between the two cases is huge. One could almost say these two cases are opposites. King offered secular arguments in sectarian language. Huckabee is offering sectarian arguments in (mostly) secular language.

I mention their use of religious language here because that’s what quite a few people get tripped up on. Religious or sectarian language is not itself the issue. Religious language can be a stumbling block in the secular realm of politics because it is not a universally shared language. King’s language was steeped in religion. Quotations and allusions from the Bible, from Christian hymns and gospel songs, infused all of King’s public speech. Huckabee simply can’t compare. Like most of the leaders of the religious right and most of the politicians who court their favor, he is far more likely to talk about the Bible than he is to quote from it. Yet while Huckabee’s use of religious language is both rarer and shallower than King’s use of such language, it stands out more. It stands out because, as Huckabee uses it, it is exclusively sectarian language. He does not, as King always did, translate that language into shared, nonsectarian principles* because unlike King he has no shared, nonsectarian argument in mind, and unlike King he is not employing this language in service of a shared, nonsectarian agenda.

King’s biblical oratory and Huckabee’s bibliolatrous babble serve very different arguments. King’s argument was ultimately a secular one: a call for justice in accord with the biblical prophets but also, even more so, in accord with the rights guaranteed in the Constitution. Huckabee’s argument is ultimately a religious one: a call for the Constitution to be re-written in accord with the (alleged) fiats of his faith.

Those are very different. It is in no way inconsistent to endorse the former while opposing the latter. In fact, it would be inconsistent not to.

Ira Chernus explores this in a Common Dreams essay, “Faith and Politics: Rules of the Game. Chernus asks what we mean when we object to someone “trying to impose their religion” on us:

Was Dr. King trying to impose his religion upon the southern racists when he demanded integration because blacks, too, are “children of God”? More recently, progressive faith-based coalitions have won living wage campaigns. The small businessmen who must pay their help higher wages may well feel that their freedom is curtailed due to someone else’s religious beliefs. Is it fair to complain that “they’re imposing their religion on us” when gay marriage is banned, but not when racial integration or a living wage is required? We need to think this through carefully.

The real conflict between religion and politics in a democracy comes not from what people say or do but how they talk about it and the authority they invoke for it.

The underlying premise of democracy is that we human beings get to choose our laws and policies, not discover them inscribed in the cosmos. The rules a community lives by are produced by that community, and by no one or nothing else. Any law or policy is fair game, as long as it is constitutional and achieved through the democratic process.

… Any belief, statement, or action can be religious if it claims some transcendent or supernatural authority for its truth. Believing in life after death or giving alms to the poor is no more intrinsically religious than praying for a million dollars, dancing around a tree, or robbing a bank. As long as you say “Hey, I didn’t just think this up on my own. I know it’s right and true because some eternal transcendent authority told me so,” it’s religious. And that means it can never be challenged or change.

But challenge and change is the essence of democracy. The only valid authority for political values is the truth discovered by human thought, which is always open to challenge and change. Democracy requires that all the people (either directly or through elected representatives) be thinking and debating about their laws and policies, constantly and endlessly. Every claim made in the political arena must be open to debate without limit.

And the debate must be open to everyone. No one’s ideas can be excluded. So everyone must have equal access to the terms of the discussion. No special terms, like the words and symbols of a particular religion, can be privileged, because that would exclude all the people who don’t find those words and symbols meaningful. The terms have to be secular.

Those who base their political values on their religion have to translate faith statements into value statements that non-believers can evaluate and debate in rational terms. That’s what Dr. King did. …

The majority of people who bring their faith into politics, on the right as well as the left and center, translate that faith into statements of value couched in more or less secular terms. The critical question is whether they allow open-ended challenge and debate, or whether they claim “Hey, you can’t challenge this because we didn’t make it up. It comes from a transcendent authority than can never change and never be challenged.”

If you hear that, it’s fair to say “Religion out of politics!” Because at that point the only response adherents of another faith or none at all can make is, “I don’t believe you.” Then there’s nothing more to say. The conversation comes to a dead end. And that means the democratic process comes to an end.

Huckabee fails Chernus’ “critical question.” By stating, explicitly, that he wants “to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards” he is saying, precisely, “You can’t challenge this because it comes from a transcendent authority that can never be challenged.” His approach is defiantly unconstitutional and profoundly undemocratic. To accuse him of endorsing theocracy here is simply to quote him accurately.

The problem with Huckabee’s statement is not that I disagree with him about same-sex marriage. The problem is that Huckabee doesn’t care if I, or you, or anyone else, disagrees with him. His approach does not allow disagreement — indeed, he says, to disagree with him is to disagree with God.

Most opponents of same-sex marriage will try at least to present an argument that relies on something other than their personal conviction that they have heard the voice of God and must impose the divine sanction upon the rest of the world. They will argue, for instance, that same-sex marriage would have bad consequences. By somehow eroding the Institution of Marriage or undermining The Family: Building Block of Society, they argue, same-sex marriage would lead to harmful consequences for society (dogs and cats … mass hysteria, etc.). Whether or not those arguments make perfect sense, or are consistent with the facts, or bear any relation to the actual consequences, the point here is that those arguments are not sectarian. I think they’re wrong, but I do not think they’re illegitimate.

Huckabee’s argument is illegitimate. He explicitly — and proudly — seeks to impose his religion on the rest of us. That’s out of bounds. That is theocracy, not democracy. King knew the difference. Huckabee doesn’t.

– – – – – – – – – – – –

* King was southern and Baptist, but he was not a Southern Baptist, so unlike Huckabee he was accustomed to viewing the Bible in terms of its larger themes and moral principles. Huckabee comes from the evangelical tradition of “literalism,” which thinks primarily in terms of discrete precepts and propositions and has a very hard time discerning larger themes or principles. This is a serious handicap for evangelicals in the public sphere. They’re equipped to prooftext, but not well-equipped to formulate arguments basic on overarching principles, and almost wholly incapable of translating such arguments into secular language or of basing them on shared, nonsectarian principles.

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