On the Church and State War: Dr. Richard Land’s “The Divided States of America?”

 Dr. Richard Land’s The Divided States of America? What Liberals and Conservatives are Missing in the God-and-Country Shouting Match! is an attempt to answer the question: “What does God have to do with America?” (7), seeking to clarify the issue of Church and State in light of today’s ever-divisive.  Before Dr. Land explores the answer to his question, he first sets the record straight on where both liberals and conservatives have missed the point on this issue.

For the liberals, Dr. Land summarizes their view as: “Separation of Church and State means that God shouldn’t have anything to do with American politics and public life, so we need to take God out of this country – and keep it that way.”[1]  Liberals miss the point when:

• 1. Liberals in general assume that their positions are the norm and that conservative positions are the extreme (22).
• 2. Liberals in general assume relativity in all issues, that there is no clear right and wrong. “Almost anything is permissible given the right circumstances in a world of peace and love” (29).
• 3. “Liberals too often miss the fact that America has always been a profoundly religious country and that religion has always played a significant role in our history.” In doing so, they “too often go overboard in disavowing any kind of Christian heritage” (31).

Lastly, Dr. Land accuses liberals of hypocrisy, for though they decry any Republican invoking the name of God or mentioning faith in the public square, they themselves find it acceptable to invoke the name of God or Jesus Christ when they see fit.  Dr. Land points to Nanci Pelosi and Jimmy Carter as glaring examples of such hypocrisy (see page 23 for Pelosi and 20-22 for Carter).

Dr. Land summarizes the conservative position as: We’ve been taking God out of this country, and we need to put Him back in – where He’s always been before we headed down this godless road,” (12) and, “God made this country great, and as long as we are a Christian nation, God is on our side” (37).  His assessment is as follows:

• 1. For a Christian to state that God is on America’s side is idolatry, for it places patriotism before God (37).
• 2. The tendency “to merge God and country as if they are virtually inseparable.” One must not presume that America’s policies serve the purposes of God (37).
• 3. Some conservatives have the tendency to perceive America as God’s chosen people and America as the new Israel. America is not “a privileged nation with a special relationship with God” (42).
• 4. In regards to the conservative’s argument to bring God back into America through such means as prayer in school:

“Any attempt to restore government-sponsored religious observances, such as if the government were to mandate Christian prayer in schools, would inevitably lead to violations of individual freedom and freedom of conscience.  That’s the problem with saying, ‘We have to bring God back into the schools.’”  We may need to get God back into this country, but the government cannot and should not be the means to do so.  “To get God back into America, you need to get an acceptance of God back into individual Americans’ hearts” (43).

Though Dr. Land seeks to provide a balanced answer to the issue of Church and State, he responds primarily to secularists’, and liberals in general, charge that God has no place in the public square.  The bulk of Dr. Land’s book shows how God does play a part in America’s political arena, for the majority of Americans believe in God and in the role that faith plays in informing one of his political values.   Dr. Land spends two chapters providing a quick glance through America’s history – from her beginning to the present – as support for his argument that, though America was not founded as Christian nation, it was founded by those who held to Judeo-Christian values and the Enlightenment value of self-government.  Thus, by virtue of their Judeo-Christian values, they believed in the “divine foundation of human quality and freedom” for all mankind, not just Christians and Americans (75); hence, the establishment of religious freedom in America and the lack of a state-approved/preferred religion.

This religious freedom, given by God should drive America to continue to adopt the position of “accommodation” in regards to Church and State, where the government recognizes all religions as equal, with no one religion being favored over others.  Thus, any person should be free to allow his faith – whether it be Buddhism, atheism, Christianity, whatever – to inform his political values without any censorship, discrimination or persecution.  Any attempt by conservatives to have prayer allowed back into schools would lend towards the State’s preference of Christianity in a religiously pluralistic society.  On the flip side, any attempt to have the government avoid religion completely in the public arena would lead to a relativistic, a-moral society.  America, therefore, must always strive for a healthy pluralism to avoid such extremes as a theocratic society and a secularist society.

Though Dr. Land seeks to answer the misgivings of both conservatives and liberals on Church and State, it seems that lying just below the surface is a secondary, but very important, purpose for his book – to answer the charge of secularists that faith, especially Christianity, should have no part whatsoever in the public arena.  Throughout his book, Dr. Land makes clear his complete abhorrence of a theocratic society in America (even one that favors Christianity), yet he also calls on liberals (especially secularists) to quit discriminating against people of faith and to allow them to have an equal voice in the public arena.  The charge by liberals that conservatives are trying to legislate morality is a non-argument: “Somebody is going to be imposing somebody’s moral values on somebody else.  That’s what public policy is all about.  Telling people of religious faith to keep their moral values to themselves is like requiring them to take off their helmets before they step on the playing field” (182).  In other words, everyone imposes their moral values – religiously informed or not – in the public arena; therefore, there should be a level playing field for all people of all religious/non-religious backgrounds.  Implied in Dr. Land’s secondary purpose for his book is the idea that it is liberals (secularists in particular) who are impinging upon the freedoms of others more than those conservatives who hope for a Christian America.  Liberals who say that bringing faith into politics infringes upon others’ rights, actually infringe on others’ rights by refusing people of faith to allow their faith to bear upon their political values; thus accusing them of doing that which they charge against people of faith.  In America, a religiously pluralistic country, no one should feel discriminated against because of their faith and how it informs their political views.

Unlike most books, I completely agree with Dr. Land’s premise and argument proposed in his book.  As I stated in an earlier post, Dr. Land verbalized what’s been on my mind since I began to reflect upon the Church and State issue.    Christians have a right to cry foul when they are excluded or discriminated against in the public square; however, they need to be careful in not going to the extreme opposite of their liberal counterparts.  The solution to a godless government is not to impose Christianity upon public policy (such as pushing for prayer being allowed in school, etc.).  What Christians should do is to not succumb to the pressure of divorcing their faith values from their political values – this would be impossible – and to allow all people of faith (whatever it be, even atheism) to have a say in public policy.  This is how America was founded – a land of complete religious freedom for all mankind – and this is how it should continue to be.

Dr. Land’s closing statement in chapter one serves as an excellent summary to his book and to this post:

What’s God got to do with America?  Well, not everything…

   but far more than liberals think,

   and a lot less than conservatives may assume,

   in much different ways than either side acknowledges,

   and for far more important reasons than you might imagine.

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[1] Richard Land, The Divided States of America? (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2007), 12.

written by Danny McDonald  © 2007 Musings of a Wannabemuser blog