Vol. 10 No. 4 (May 2000) pp. 318-322.

THE AMERICAN MYTH OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM by Kenneth R. Craycraft, Jr. Dallas, Texas: Spence Publishing Company, 1999. 202 pp.

Reviewed by Stephen M. Feldman, Professor of Law and Associate Member of

Political Science, University of Tulsa.

This book is enormously important, which is why it is so disappointing. Kenneth R. Craycraft holds a Ph.D. in theology, is a former Professor of theology at St. Mary's University in San Antonio, and is currently (as of the publication of the book) a law student at Duke University. He brings a distinctly theological perspective to his discussion of the constitutional concept of religious freedom in America.

Craycraft's basic argument is as follows. Contrary to one myth of religious freedom, the framing of the American Constitution did not support orthodox Christianity. Rather, the framers intended to encourage irreligion or secularism. Craycraft develops this position by first focusing on John Locke's political theory and by then explaining how the constitutional framers, particularly James Madison, implemented Lockean theory in practice. Despite the framers' intentions, though, popular sentiment at that time favored orthodox Christianity. Madison therefore had to be ironic in his language. He could not outright denounce Christianity, so he helped establish a regime that, over time, would undermine Christian commitment. The framers' crucial strategy was to claim to protect religious freedom, which is part and parcel of liberal democracy or liberalism. Liberal democracy claims to remain substantively neutral among competing religious viewpoints and to resolve disputes pursuant to neutral procedures "by which objective, universal judgments can be made" (p. 153). But the ostensible neutrality of liberal democracy contravenes the mission of the church and orthodox Christianity. "Religious freedom is not the freedom of the church to name and maintain its own mission. Rather religious freedom is a 'myth,' invented for the purpose of telling and sustaining the story of American liberal democracy. There is no such thing as 'religious freedom'" (p. 152).

Hence, when a committed Christian celebrates religious freedom, he or she supports liberalism but does not remain true to orthodox Christianity. Any church that accepts the religious freedom of liberalism is no longer free. The church necessarily becomes subordinate to the state. So what should an orthodox Christian do? Craycraft is explicit in his response: the orthodox believer should stop celebrating religious freedom and instead should seek to evangelize. Such evangelizing, in Craycraft's vision, is likely to offend supporters of liberal democracy, and if it does, then so be it. "The task of the church is to be faithful to its mission to evangelize the world, recognizing that the powers of this world are not supposed to be happy

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about this. The church's claim to truth is a resounding 'No' to all other rival claims of ultimate truth, including the liberal one" (p. 144). Yet, Craycraft does not call for some type of Christian revolution, for an overthrow of America's liberal democracy. "Is this a call, then, for a new confessional state? No. While I affirm ... that the legitimacy of such a state cannot be ruled out in principle, it is not a practical suggestion in the modern secular liberal context. Mine is the more modest call for Christians and other religious believers to have a more cautious and circumspect reading of the First Amendment in particular and liberalism in general than many today have" (p. 144).

I agree with much in this book, particularly many of its conclusions. For instance, I agree with Craycraft's observation that the Supreme Court shows special respect for religious beliefs that supposedly "are the product of unfettered choice" (p. 7). Those who do not subscribe to such an individualistic and voluntaristic notion of religion do not receive the same level of respect or protection from the Court in its interpretation of the first amendment religion clauses. I also agree with Craycraft's observation that American Catholics are likely to be troubled by some of the religious implications of the "American Founding" but are simultaneously unlikely to be able to change America significantly (p. 120).

Most important, Craycraft is correct when he concludes, "that there is no such thing as religious freedom, because there is no such thing as a neutral political or philosophical principle by which such a freedom can be judged. The establishment of religious freedom is necessarily the establishment of certain exclusionary claims about religion" (p. 27). This conclusion resonates with arguments recently made by Steven D. Smith, Stanley Fish, and myself. Smith has argued that the first amendment religion clauses do not embody any coherent principle of religious freedom (Smith 1995). Fish, while focusing on freedom of speech, has argued that the claimed neutrality of liberal political theory is impossible. Craycraft himself extensively and approvingly discusses Fish's critique of liberalism and freedom of speech. Indeed, Fish more recently has extended his liberalism critique to religious freedom as well (Fish 2000). Meanwhile, I have argued that the separation of church and state does not equally protect the religious liberty of all but rather is rooted in and predominantly protects certain Christian practices and beliefs (Feldman 1997). To be sure, then, Craycraft may not be the first to conclude that "insofar as liberals claim that all religious believers are granted equal liberty under the American regime, they make a claim that is simply not true" (p. 100). Even so, Craycraft's articulation of these views is still novel enough to be worth saying, especially as he brings a distinctively Roman Catholic perspective to the issue of religious freedom.

Why, then, do I find the book disappointing? For one thing, Craycraft too heavily blames American political theory and constitutionalism, based on Lockean theory, for undermining orthodox Christianity. He contrasts orthodox Christianity with "the American religion," which seems to encompass mainstream American Protestant denominations (p. 30). All of the elements of the American religion, "personal salvation through enlightenment, unmediated grace, autonomy of the soul and

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radical individualism, and the elimination of the church as necessary for salvation," Craycraft explains, "may be seen as a legacy of Locke'sphilosophy and political theology" (p. 34). This statement seems misleadingly extreme. In fact, Craycraft claims that Locke effectively invented a new form of Christianity by reducing true Christianity to "tolerance" or "toleration" (p. 43). Craycraft then equates this tolerance principle, as adopted by Madison, with a right to freedom of conscience.

Craycraft's views are wrong in numerous ways. For example, he confuses Locke's views on freedom of conscience and disestablishment. Locke's religious views emerged most clearly in his discussion of freedom of conscience, which was a distinctly Protestant concept that was most clearly articulated by John Calvin. From a Calvinist vantage, freedom of conscience entailed a freedom to follow the dictates of one's conscience to Jesus but did not, in any sense, connote an individual freedom to choose among different religions. Locke's emphasis on protecting freedom of conscience largely followed in this Calvinist tradition. In fact, even though Locke was more Anglican than radical Calvinist or Puritan, his political theory has been called "political Calvinism" (Hudson and Corrigan 1992: 95).

Both before and after Locke, Calvinist writers consistently advocated for the protection of freedom of conscience. Before Locke, though, freedom of conscience was understood to be entirely consistent with the official establishment of religion. Indeed, protecting freedom of conscience was a type of establishment because freedom of conscience was Protestant dogma. So, under a Calvinist approach, freedom of conscience precluded governmental and religious institutions - the state and the church - from coercing Christian faith (because genuine spiritual faith could not be compelled), but this-worldly restrictions associated with official establishments, such as demanding the payment of taxes to support a church, were permissible. Calvin himself went so far as to establish a despotic and theocratic regime in Geneva, Switzerland, and used his political strength to ensure the conviction and burning of a theological opponent.

Locke's most original contribution to the development of the separation of church and state was to combine freedom of conscience with official disestablishment (or at least, partial disestablishment). It was in his argument for disestablishment that Locke emphasized toleration for alternative religious viewpoints. Most important, then - and contrary to Craycraft's argument - Locke's argument for official disestablishment was a pragmatic and political one. That is, Locke did not invent a new Christianity focused on religious toleration. Rather, from a religious standpoint, he maintained the Calvinist stress on freedom of conscience, which did not encompass a freedom to choose alternative religions. He argued that toleration and hence disestablishment were necessary, not for theological reasons, but for the very practical reason of diminishing the likelihood of religious conflicts and wars that had been all too prevalent throughout Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Feldman 1997: 108-16). When Craycraft writes that "[f]or Locke, religion is a taste, or a sentiment" (p. 45), Craycraft is wrong.

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Craycraft ultimately does not acknowledge the degree to which Christianity was responsible for shaping political philosophy and practice. Religion and politics stand in a dynamic or dialectical relationship to each other; they both influence each other. This dynamic relation certainly is evident in Lockean theory. Craycraft sees only how Lockean political theory may have influenced Christianity, but he fails to acknowledge how Christianity may have influenced the political theory. Most specifically, Locke intended his TWO TREATISES ON GOVERNMENT to justify resistance to James II primarily because James attempted to force Roman Catholicism back onto the English people (Feldman 1997: 108-16).

Why does Craycraft fail to acknowledge the dialectical relation between political theory and religion? Perhaps, this problem arises because of his definition of Christianity. His view of orthodox Christianity apparently excludes many forms of Protestantism. Hence, to Craycraft, Calvinist Protestantism might not be Christianity and maybe might not be religion at all, but rather would be a perversion of Christianity and religion. It all depends on the definition of Christianity (and religion). Unfortunately, while Craycraft discusses "orthodox Christianity" throughout the book, he fails to expressly define this key concept. He equates it with "historical Christianity" (p. 12), and at one point, he refers to "orthodox Christianity (especially Roman Catholicism)" (p. 68), a phrase that suggests orthodox Christianity is meant to encompass Catholicism, most clearly, and perhaps some forms of Protestantism, maybe fundamentalist ones. Yet, Craycraft elsewhere suggests that fundamentalist Protestant denominations do not fit within his conception of orthodox Christianity (pp. 30-31). The closest that Craycraft comes to a definition is in his clear opposition between orthodox Christianity and "the American religion" (p. 30), which includes mainstream American Protestantism.

Craycraft's ambiguous use of the term, orthodox Christianity, has additional untoward consequences. For instance, he asserts that one myth of religious freedom "is that the American founding is essentially religious, and that it grants the highest possible respect and liberty to religious belief, especially to orthodox Christianity" (p. 23). If Craycraft's reference here to orthodox Christianity means Roman Catholicism, then he is clearly wrong. As far as I know, nobody has argued that the American founding was essentially Catholic or granted high respect to Catholicism; America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was unequivocally a Protestant nation with strong strains of anti-Catholicism.

If Craycraft instead meant to refer to Protestantism as it was then practiced in America (in the late 1700s) - mostly variations of Calvinism - then his concept of orthodox Christianity just does not fit. Insofar as Craycraft might be suggesting that the founding generation supported some type of fundamentalist Protestantism, history suggests otherwise. Both Richard Hofstadter and Theodore Bozeman have argued that Protestant fundamentalism developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in reaction against the spreading modernist strains of liberal secularism (Bozeman 1977: 172; Hofstadter 1963: 117-21). Moreover, those early Protestant fundamentalists were, not surprisingly, anti-Catholic (Stolzenberg 1993: 618).

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In a similar vein, when Craycraft contrasts "the intention of the Constitution" (p. 161) - supporting irreligion or secularism-with contemporary popular sentiment - supporting orthodox Christianity-precisely what type of Christianity is he referring to? It cannot be Catholicism, as I just discussed, but then what? Moreover, many constitutional scholars would argue that the meaning of the Constitution is determined as much by popular sentiments as by framers' intentions. Craycraft too readily assumes that the meaning of the Constitution is fixed by framers' intentions-in fact, largely by the intentions of a single framer, Madison-but this interpretive approach is highly controversial.

Ultimately, Craycraft's problem may be that he is fighting two battles at once. First, he aims to show that the framers were committed to secularism. Second, he is fighting a battle within Christianity; he champions Roman Catholicism and perhaps other unspecified forms of orthodox Christianity in opposition to many forms of Protestantism. These two simultaneous battles seem to get confusingly intertwined. Most important, Craycraft's characterization of the framers as irreligious is colored by his exceedingly narrow, albeit ambiguous, definition of Christianity. In sum, THE AMERICAN MYTH OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM is animated by an interesting theme but is unfortunately flawed in its execution.

REFERENCES:

Bozeman, Theodore Dwight. 1977.

PROTESTANTS IN AN AGE OF SCIENCE: THE BACONIAN IDEAL AND ANTE-BELLUM AMERICAN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Feldman, Stephen M. 1997. PLEASE DON'T WISH ME A MERRY CHRISTMAS A CRITICAL HISTORY OF THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE. New York: New York University Press.

Fish, Stanley. Forthcoming 2000. "Mission Impossible: Settling the Just

Bounds Between Church and State." In LAW AND RELIGION: A CRITICAL

ANTHOLOGY, ed. Stephen M. Feldman. New York: New York University Press.

Hofstadter, Richard. 1963. ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN AMERICAN LIFE. New York: Vintage Books.

Hudson, Winthrop S., and John Corrigan. 1992. RELIGION IN AMERICA: AN

HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN RELIGIOUS LIFE. New York: Macmillan.

Smith, Steven D. 1995. FOREORDAINED FAILURE: THE QUEST FOR A

CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM. New York: Oxford University Press.

Stolzenberg, Nomi Maya. 1993. "'He Drew a Circle That Shut Me Out': Assimilation, Indoctrination, and the Paradox of a Liberal Education." HARVARD LAW REVIEW 106:581.

Copyright 1995