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The Founding Fathers knew that the maintenance of domestic tranquility was essential if citizens were to be free to exercise their rights. They also knew that religious wars in Europe deprived many citizens life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Even on our continent, Puritans had banished dissidents Roger Williams and Ann Hutchinson and their followers. Reasonable men couldn’t argue with opponents whose claims were based upon revelations. To keep the peace, the state would need to guarantee freedom from religion. The fathers agreed to let the religious zealots settle their own disputes (freedom of religion), hoping to free themselves to get on with the business of building democracy. The problem was more complex.

Our Abrahamic religions are patriarchal and often deprive women and children of their rights. They also encourage passivity as in “Let go. Let God,” “turn the other cheek” or Inshallah. While the results of social reformers’ actions may be imperfect, democratic citizens can’t shrug their responsibility to try to shape events to their liking. Religions divert reformers’ energies into charitable programs designed to relieve human suffering rather than using that energy to attack the causes of that suffering.

The Abrahamic religions are essentially incompatible with and enemies of democracy. This does not prevent failing democracies from seeking political support from religious institutions or failing religious institutions to look to the state to confirm their moral authority. If moral authority exists, it emanates from the collective human conscience often invoked as our better angels or our souls.

While capitalism provides important technological progress, it has no answer for the collateral damage it inflicts on our planet or on our souls.

John E. Gibson

Owatonna