Moral Issues And The Secular Church Argument

[Stone holm]

Elder Neal Maxwell made a fairly famous sermon about the rise of the "Secular Church" and his perception of the relative decline in respect given to the religious in their arguments as to proper standards of human conduct, in other words morality. He used a phrase from the civil rights contentions of the 1960's which pertained to Rosa Parks deciding one day to no longer sit at the back of the bus. He built on that phrase an argument that religion was being relegated to the back of the bus in discussion of morals, and expressed distress at the thought of what that might mean. There is a rather famous clip now accessible on the itnernet which displays this sermon accompanied by shots of the various Founding Fathers of the Nation including especially the painting of George Washington kneeling in prayer. This seems to be an increasingly common viewpoint amongst Mormons. I have spent some time contemplating this and my thoughts are contained in the following article.

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474981866922

It would be nice if we could discuss this more or less in the abstract regarding morality, what it means and where it comes from instead of it becoming too overtly political as it would be nice to see some earnest discussion before the thread gets locked.

[CASteinman]

Elder Neal Maxwell made a fairly famous sermon about the rise of the "Secular Church" and his perception of the relative decline in respect given to the religious in their arguments as to proper standards of human conduct, in other words morality. He used a phrase from the civil rights contentions of the 1960's which pertained to Rosa Parks deciding one day to no longer sit at the back of the bus. He built on that phrase an argument that religion was being relegated to the back of the bus in discussion of morals, and expressed distress at the thought of what that might mean. There is a rather famous clip now accessible on the itnernet which displays this sermon accompanied by shots of the various Founding Fathers of the Nation including especially the painting of George Washington kneeling in prayer. This seems to be an increasingly common viewpoint amongst Mormons. I have spent some time contemplating this and my thoughts are contained in the following article.

http://www.gather.co...281474981866922

It would be nice if we could discuss this more or less in the abstract regarding morality, what it means and where it comes from instead of it becoming too overtly political as it would be nice to see some earnest discussion before the thread gets locked.

so weird. The threat to you is not from the amoral and secularists but those who are trying to follow God.

[Stone holm]

so weird. The threat to you is not from the amoral and secularists but those who are trying to follow God.

Not necessarily the argument in the article the argument actually has to do with the effect of cherry picking what issues are moral, and its impact on whether people look to religion. Did you read the link?

[TAO]

Well, there is some truth to that, but anyone watching American politics closely for the last thirty or forty years might well question as to whether the real issue is that religious arguments aren’t always granted priority and automatically given the front seat of the bus anymore. Measured in relative volume, they certainly seem to be ever present.

Eh... this is kinda begging the question, in a sense. I'd say 'back of the bus' and 'front of the bus' are degrees of perspective, persay; what is 'back of the bus' to one, is 'front of the bus' to another.

A decent article though.

[Storm Rider]

Elder Neal Maxwell made a fairly famous sermon about the rise of the "Secular Church" and his perception of the relative decline in respect given to the religious in their arguments as to proper standards of human conduct, in other words morality. He used a phrase from the civil rights contentions of the 1960's which pertained to Rosa Parks deciding one day to no longer sit at the back of the bus. He built on that phrase an argument that religion was being relegated to the back of the bus in discussion of morals, and expressed distress at the thought of what that might mean. There is a rather famous clip now accessible on the itnernet which displays this sermon accompanied by shots of the various Founding Fathers of the Nation including especially the painting of George Washington kneeling in prayer. This seems to be an increasingly common viewpoint amongst Mormons. I have spent some time contemplating this and my thoughts are contained in the following article.

http://www.gather.co...281474981866922

It would be nice if we could discuss this more or less in the abstract regarding morality, what it means and where it comes from instead of it becoming too overtly political as it would be nice to see some earnest discussion before the thread gets locked.

PNot adding yet to the discussion, just a correction. I think you meant to say "William Cullen Bryant" not "William Cunning Bryant" in your article in the fifth paragraph.

[Storm Rider]

I don't think religious people wake up and decide to choose what topic to discuss. The agenda is set by those who want the current morality to change, to adapt to their preference. Religious people respond to what is being assailed in in media, in protests, in court cases, every facet of life. To then condemn religious people for not having a broader agenda seems to beg the question. Morality does not stop being concerned with honesty, chastity, truth, charity, etc. because there is behavior that has long been considered a perversion and now is demanding to be considered normal, healthy, and spiritually edifying. We respond to those that demand to call evil good and good evil. It would seem a little silly not to respond to a fire with a fire truck, rather to begin singing Cum-by-yah while watching the building burn.

[CASteinman]

Not necessarily the argument in the article the argument actually has to do with the effect of cherry picking what issues are moral, and its impact on whether people look to religion. Did you read the link?

Yeah... the argument in the article is that religious people are bad in society. But the secularists and atheists -- they are OK or at least harmless (because it seems? God will somehow invoke power to turn them back?) You may dress it up however you want, but that is what you are arguing. And you do this after expressly referencing the directions from the Apostles that religious morality is important to the creation of laws.

Its just a weird position to take for someone who is religious.

Here for example you claim : "My concern is that the religious themselves, who are God’s normal (but not exclusive) spokespersons have taken it upon themselves to limit God’s message with respect to morality."

But couldn't an argument be well made that you should be more concerned that you have such a narrow and harsh view of religious people's intelligence? Because after all, we do not know for sure if your view about them is right, but we do know for sure (because you present it) that you have that really unkind view of your co-religionists.

Ahhh..that self exam is the hard road though. The thing about pointing out the mote in other peoples eyes, especially the anonymous "them" is that its not really too hard...It makes for easy bloggin'

[Stone holm]

Yeah... the argument in the article is that religious people are bad in society. But the secularists and atheists -- they are OK or at least harmless (because it seems? God will somehow invoke power to turn them back?) You may dress it up however you want, but that is what you are arguing. And you do this after expressly referencing the directions from the Apostles that religious morality is important to the creation of laws.

Its just a weird position to take for someone who is religious.

Here for example you claim : "My concern is that the religious themselves, who are God’s normal (but not exclusive) spokespersons have taken it upon themselves to limit God’s message with respect to morality."

But couldn't an argument be well made that you should be more concerned that you have such a narrow and harsh view of religious people's intelligence? Because after all, we do not know for sure if your view about them is right, but we do know for sure (because you present it) that you have that really unkind view of your co-religionists.

Ahhh..that self exam is the hard road though. The thing about pointing out the mote in other peoples eyes, especially the anonymous "them" is that its not really too hard...It makes for easy bloggin'

What does intelligence have to do with narrowing the range of issues? That sounds a bit too defensive to me.. The argument suggests that the religious are being too narrow in their or self limiting in their employment of religion.

[CASteinman]

What does intelligence have to do with narrowing the range of issues? That sounds a bit too defensive to me.. The argument suggests that the religious are being too narrow in their or self limiting in their employment of religion.

Uh huh. Who are you, really, to say this? Where did you get the moral authority to limit their views?

[Stone holm]

Uh huh. Who are you, really, to say this? Where did you get the moral authority to limit their views?

Not sure where I am limiting their views or at least their expressed views they tend to do that themselves .

[CASteinman]

Not sure where I am limiting their views or at least their expressed views they tend to do that themselves .

well, this is your claim. With no evidence. and contrary to my personal experience.

If you had said, instead, that absolute purist bibliolaters have a literal view of the Bible that is not in harmony with the way most people think about our society, then I might agree that this has support.

But that is not what you have said. You have created a lump. Of Religious People. And declared the to be, in essence, narrow minded social simpletons. Of course, I am cutting to the chase and avoiding the wordiness.

Edited April 6, 2013 by CASteinman

[DH]

Unfortunately, the link to the article doesn't seem to be working for me. But I will put in my $0.02 worth that from my experience, religion is most certainly NOT being relegated to the back seat in discussions of morality in the U.S. Maybe some religious people think that's the case because there are others who assert that religion is not the last or only word on morality, but the mere existence of another point of view does not mean religion is in the back seat.

[Stone holm]

well, this is your claim. With no evidence. and contrary to my personal experience.

If you had said, instead, that absolute purist bibliolaters have a literal view of the Bible that is not in harmony with the way most people think about our society, then I might agree that this has support.

But that is not what you have said. You have created a lump. Of Religious People. And declared the to be, in essence, narrow minded social simpletons. Of course, I am cutting to the chase and avoiding the wordiness.

That was not my intent there is a difference between limiting the range of religious morality and narrow mindedness and nothing was said about social simpletons. I think , however, Elder Maxwell may have been excluding a lot of people from among the religious and assigning them to the large and spacious building mob, but I didn't take aim at that issue. What I was musing about is if he is correct that religious arguments are being relegated to the back of the bus, an opinion that I am not sure is correct, why is that occurring?. For example there was a leadership issue that arose recently with some national Evangelical Conference, I forget the name but it was one of the larger and more powerful ones, and the minister who was the heir apparent to assume the helm felt that the Evangelicals needed to start addressing issues outside the somewhat circumscribed confines of the "family values" agenda. He got rejected on that idea. That is the type of self limitation that I am talking about. Now it is true that not all religions have limited their political voice in that manner for examples: the Catholics, the Unitarian Universalists, the Buddhists, the Bahai, and the Muslims have not.

[CASteinman]

That was not my intent there is a difference between limiting the range of religious morality and narrow mindedness and nothing was said about social simpletons. I think , however, Elder Maxwell may have been excluding a lot of people from among the religious and assigning them to the large and spacious building mob, but I didn't take aim at that issue. What I was musing about is if he is correct that religious arguments are being relegated to the back of the bus, an opinion that I am not sure is correct, why is that occurring?. For example there was a leadership issue that arose recently with some national Evangelical Conference, I forget the name but it was one of the larger and more powerful ones, and the minister who was the heir apparent to assume the helm felt that the Evangelicals needed to start addressing issues outside the somewhat circumscribed confines of the "family values" agenda. He got rejected on that idea. That is the type of self limitation that I am talking about. Now it is true that not all religions have limited their political voice in that manner for examples: the Catholics, the Unitarian Universalists, the Buddhists, the Bahai, and the Muslims have not.

I think you are misrepresenting Elder Maxwell, and perhaps misunderstanding him. For example, you say "Elder Maxwell may have been excluding a lot of people from among the religious and assigning them to the large and spacious building mob". However, he was not really removing them from among the religious he was including them as part of a secular religion.

Also, he did not say that "religious arguments are being relegated to the back of the bus". Instead he said: " we shall see in our time a maximum if indirect effort made to establish irreligion as the state religion. It is actually a new form of paganism that uses the carefully preserved and cultivated freedoms of Western civilization to shrink freedom even as it rejects the value essence of our rich Judeo-Christian heritage." And so there can be on answer as to why it is being relegated to the back of the bus, but his statement does answer a question that might be something you had in mind -- "Why are Religious Arguments being Rejected?". It seems to me that this is at least indirectly answered by his quote:

"What the secularists are increasingly demanding, in their disingenuous way, is that religious people, when they act politically, act only on secularist grounds. They are trying to equate acting on religion with establishing religion. And—I repeat—the consequence of such logic is really to establish secularism. It is in fact, to force the religious to internalize the major premise of secularism: that religion has no proper bearing on public affairs."

It is - again -- weird to me, that you would blame the victims for the effects of this attack on them and their beliefs. But maybe it is not so weird. Maybe you have bought into that premise I underlined above.

[Stone holm]

Okay, let's back up and state the point another way. Let's hypothetically say that a Church has announced that it is going to be neutral in partisan politics, but reserves the right to express its opinion on moral issues. Then, let's say that hypothetical Church exists in a democratic society which is confronted with important issues A, B, C, D, and E. All five issues have very important consequences as to the standards the society will be governed by. This hypothetical Church then decides to be vigorously politically active on issue B, but not very active or completely silent on issues A, C, D and E. Now that has a variety of consequences. One it tends to consolidate and concentrate the political resources of the Church on that particular issue to an extent that would not be able to do if it tried to address all five issues. It also has other consequences. For example it may be more able to attract allies if it aims solely at one issue, who it might alienate if it addressed all of the issues. On the other hand, it can send a message to the ultimate target, namely the people who are actually in a position to affect the issue -- the message is, be with us on this issue and you can do as you please with respect to the others. It also is sometimes construed by the Church's faithful that the Church only views issue B as important and critical, so all I have to do in casting my vote is look to see whether to support a political or corporate leader who supports the Church on issue B and i don't have to fret about the other four issues or the leaders stance on them, in fact I can ignore them altogether. It may also be construed by a smaller group of the faithful, that since the leader is dead-on on issue B, he must be right on the other four issues -- and in fact, it may lead people to spin religious reasons why the leader is correct on the other four issues. There is, however, another possible consequence which I think goes directly to Elder Maxwell's complaint about the bus seating arrangement. It may be that people who are confronted with a bewildering range of issues on which the religion is providing no moral guidance that they start looking to other sources for making the moral judgment calls on the issues, and after awhile they cease to pay any attention to religion on issue B as well. If that happens, then the Church will eventually find itself at the back of the bus. Is my reasoning faulty here? If that is the case, yes secularization has occurred, but it is because religion has compressed its definition of morality into a very, very tight range of issues and outside that range everything is up for grabs.

[CASteinman]

Is my reasoning faulty here? If that is the case, yes secularization has occurred, but it is because religion has compressed its definition of morality into a very, very tight range of issues and outside that range everything is up for grabs.

Very convoluted hypotheticals. The minute I try to discuss this, I run smack dab into the face of they imaginary issues and Church.

But I think it gets easier if I point out this: Your definition of what is narrow and their definition of what is narrow may not match. Whose definition wins?

But this all leads me to wonder Are you calling for more activism by Churches in political areas? That is, instead of just B they should do ABCDEF?

[Stone holm]

Very convoluted hypotheticals. The minute I try to discuss this, I run smack dab into the face of they imaginary issues and Church.

But I think it gets easier if I point out this: Your definition of what is narrow and their definition of what is narrow may not match. Whose definition wins?

But this all leads me to wonder Are you calling for more activism by Churches in political areas? That is, instead of just B they should do ABCDEF?

How are they defining narrow

[CASteinman]

How are they defining narrow

I don't know. They are hypothetical. We can't actually get to specifics.

Still, it seems to me that your argument is: Religions need to expand their political activism. When they do that, religious morals will not be sent to the back of the bus.

Edited April 6, 2013 by CASteinman

[Stone holm]

I don't know. They are hypothetical. We can't actually get to specifics.

Still, it seems to me that your argument is: Religions need to expand their political activism. When they do that, religious morals will not be sent to the back of the bus.

Yes. That is the argument, either all in on a multitude of moral issues or all out. The cherry picking is distorting the dialogue.

[CASteinman]

Yes. That is the argument, either all in on a multitude of moral issues or all out. The cherry picking is distorting the dialogue.

But what if the cherry picking as you call it is all that they are interested in with regard to politics? How is that a distortion? Is that you WANT them to be concerned about things that they are not concerned about?

Edited April 7, 2013 by CASteinman

[Stone holm]

But what if the cherry picking as you call it is all that they are interested in with regard to politics? How is that a distortion? Is that you WANT them to be concerned about things that they are not concerned about?

Yes. That is a possibility that the only moral issues that they are sufficiently concerned about are sexual morality issues, which would be an ironic twist regarding Freud would it not that all human behavior or rather misbehavior is sexually related, a morality which is primarily about sexual relations? So if the public morality concerns more than those issues religion is then left voiceless?

[CASteinman]

Yes. That is a possibility that the only moral issues that they are sufficiently concerned about are sexual morality issues, which would be an ironic twist regarding Freud would it not that all human behavior or rather misbehavior is sexually related, a morality which is primarily about sexual relations? So if the public morality concerns more than those issues religion is then left voiceless?

I don't see any irony, though I don't agree with freud.

I also do not see why it would be voiceless.

Are Union's voiceless when they only worry about self protection and preservation and nothing else? Are minorities voiceless when they only focus on issues of concern to them?

Its a silly idea.

[Stone holm]

I don't see any irony, though I don't agree with freud.

I also do not see why it would be voiceless.

Are Union's voiceless when they only worry about self protection and preservation and nothing else? Are minorities voiceless when they only focus on issues of concern to them?

Its a silly idea.

I don't agree with Freud either. Are churches only worried about self protection and preservation and nothing else then? I would hope not, and though I don't always agree with Unions, I don't believe they are either.

[CASteinman]

I don't agree with Freud either. Are churches only worried about self protection and preservation and nothing else then?

No, that was Unions. You seem to be trying to side step the point. Your logic was that narrow focus was leading to a loss of voice. So I gave examples of narrow focus and yet no loss of voice. The point being -- your thesis is not supported by evidence that is contrary to it.

[Stone holm]

No, that was Unions. You seem to be trying to side step the point. Your logic was that narrow focus was leading to a loss of voice. So I gave examples of narrow focus and yet no loss of voice. The point being -- your thesis is not supported by evidence that is contrary to it.

Possibly. As I indicated there are a advantages to be gained by concentrating on only a few political issues. But, there are risks associated as well. Especially in a society where 70% or so of the news is political.