U.S. unlikely to become theocracy, educator says

Despite warnings from the political left and urging from the evangelical right, America isn't likely to become a theocracy, says professor Alan Wolfe.

America's relationship with religion is too complex for that, Wolfe told his audience at Westminster College earlier this week. Wolfe is director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College and chairman of the American Political Science Association's task force on religion and democracy in the United States.

Yes, there are some "things to worry about" when it comes to the increased influence of religion on politics, he said. He cited allegations of religious intolerance at the U.S. Air Force Academy, the "effort to substitute religious belief for science" in some public schools, and President Bush's assertion that he got help from a "higher father" in his decision to invade Iraq. "If foreign policy is being made by a president who thinks he's carrying out the will of the Lord, this is a dangerous development," Wolfe said.

Still, he says, the idea that evangelical Christians have become powerful enough to create a Christian Republic "strikes me as an exaggeration."

The U.S. Constitution, which does not mention God, was designed to prevent the establishment of a state church — a First Amendment guarantee that was revolutionary. "It had never been done before in the world," Wolfe said, and in "every country where there is an established state church, religion is dead."

The separation of church and state allows religions to flourish, he said. "Establishing a theocracy in this country would be bad for religion."

And if we did try to establish a theocracy in the United States, which religion would we choose? "There is no one religion in America," he noted. Catholicism is the country's largest religion, but it makes up only 25 percent of the U.S. population that identifies itself with a particular religion.

"The one thing that everyone in the United States who's religious has in common is that they are all members of a religious minority." America's religious pluralism "is a moral insurance policy against bigotry."

Finally, religion in theory and religion as it is practiced in America are very different things, Wolfe said. In practice, Americans often tend to think of their religions in terms of how much they like the pastor or the music or the congregation. "Most people's beliefs are sort of a hodgepodge," he said.

"I have no doubt we'll remain a religious country," Wolfe concluded. "But we're also a very modern country." And when religion and American culture come into conflict, culture usually wins, he said.

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