[Buddha-l] On being Buddhist in a secular state

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Thu, 2005-06-30 at 22:34 -0600, Richard P. Hayes wrote:

> Very well, I concede the point. The United States is a Protestant nation
> in which Roman Catholics are barely tolerated, and women and native
> Americans have no right to vote, and the economy is based on slave
> labor. Thus it was for most of our history, and thus it ever more should
> be, because that is the kind of nation the Founding Fathers wished to
> have.

As I have mentioned several times before, I am (slowly) making my way
through Ahlstrom's wonderfully researched and written <cite>Religious
History of the American People</cite> (by which he means mostly the
religious history of the United States, although he does have quite a
bit to say about Canada and Mexico, but not Venezuela). His discussion
of religion during the 17th century is quite interesting. In those days
90% of the immigrants from Europe were Protestant, and of those the vast
majority were Congregationalists who had a deep suspicion of any kind of
centralized religious authority. Rome, of course, was their paradigm of
institutional evil and the Pope was identified by many as the anti-
Christ. 

To be a considered a Christian by the vast majority of immigrants in
those days one had to belong to a Protestant church, and most Protestant
churches would accept people as members only if they could give a
detailed account (time, place and circumstances) of their being called
by God to a life of holiness AND if they lived in full accordance with
biblical teachings. Adulterers, fornicators, alcohol drinkers and
tobacco smokers were perceived as not living in accordance with
Christian principles, as were cheaters, liars and thieves.

The majority of Protestant sects in those times rejected all creeds,
such as the Nicene creed, and all sacraments except baptism. Many sects,
most famously the Quakers, rejected even baptism. 

If the clock were turned back to the ways of the Europeans who are now,
somewhat inaccurately and romantically, credited with founding the
United States, the country would be living under religious laws not so
different from those in Saudi Arabia and Iran. So when I say that we in
the 21st century need not be bound by all the principles that guided the
Europeans who set the tone of the new nation (quite a number of whom
were my ancestors, so my disagreement with them is really nothing but a
little family squabble), I mean that we have no choice but to use what
Catholics call discernment. We have to pick and choose, and we have no
choice but to interpret old principles in the light of current
realities. We need not, thank God, be stuck with all the attitudes of
those who condemned witches to death and regarded Roman Catholics as
enemies of God.

To my way of thinking, the best thing that has ever happened in the
United States has been the steady and inevitable drift toward secularism
(a movement in which I include Buddhism). The country is still far
behind most of Europe and Canada in this respect, but it is at least
heading in the right direction. There have been, to be sure, setbacks
along the way. We are experiencing one now. If, however, I may borrow a
piece of reasoning from the Bush administration, which sees every
devastating attack on the US military occupation as proof that the enemy
is on the run, I think we can see the desperate bid of the religious
right to control the course of American politics as a sign that they
know they have all but lost the battle against secularism. 

Needless to say, as a Buddhist secular humanist I am quite happy for
every human being (and dog and cat and cockroach) to practice his or her
own religion in the privacy of the home or in privately owned buildings
of worship. What I will always oppose is the intrusion of any religious
doctrine into the public sphere to the exclusion of others. Justice
O'Connor has articulated what seems to me a reasonable principle to
follow: whenever any public manifestation of religion, including the
formulation of new laws based on religious dogma, has the effect of
making some law-abiding citizens (whether they be Muslims, Jews,
Buddhists, homosexuals or communists) feel marginalized, then those
manifestations should be opposed.

This is, of course, just my opinion. I am curious how many other Western
Buddhists (or Asian Buddhists who have taken up residence in the West)
would agree with me in these matters.

-- 
Richard Hayes
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes