Clash of orthodoxies shows the faith-reason dichotomy

The First Amendment was designed to protect religion from governmental intrusion and also to protect religions in general from state-imposed dominance of one denomination. The framework of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was based on the notion that natural rights come from God and were discovered and not created by man.

Providentially, the founders were able to take the best parts of the Enlightenment heritage and meld them into a form of government that was informed by western religious traditions and protected but did not mandate religion. This theocentric religious worldview was at the heart of public policy and legislative developments until well into the 20th century. The Civil War and the dismantling of the terrible yoke of slavery were rooted in a religiously biblical worldview. Indeed, the modern civil rights movement also had its roots in a Christian worldview.

But what if that largely religious worldview changes? What if this natural law framework is challenged from outside the religious context altogether? That is, we are not wrestling over public policy decisions within a coherent, generally accepted worldview, but from a new worldview that is not only different but radically opposed to the very foundation of the religious view.

In "The Clash of Orthodoxies, Law, Religion, and Morality in Crisis," Princeton professor Robert P. George takes on this issue. George notes that the vortex of this clash of orthodoxies is centered around a number of public policy issues relating to abortion, euthanasia, sex, marriage and family life. "Underlying these disputes are profound differences regarding the source and nature of morality and the proper relationship of moral judgment to law and public policy."

Interestingly, George sees this issue as not necessarily one that pits religious people against nonreligious people but rather in the type of orthodoxy different groups embrace. "This clash of world views characteristically pits morally conservative Jews, Christians and other believers against secular liberals and those who, though remaining within religious denominations, have adopted liberal ideas about personal and political morality."

George notes, for example, that orthodox Jews, conservative evangelicals and faithful Catholics will have more in common with each other than "their liberal co-religionists who have joined forces with secularists of various stripes (who) support such things as legal and publicly funded abortion, physician-assisted suicide, (gay marriage) and other forms of nonmarital sexual conduct."