Blog

Religion is an indispensable component of the public square.[1] Since the public square is encapsulated by the ideas of human beings, and since religion is an idea at the forefront of man’s mind,[2] any suggestion to the contrary would necessarily entail the public square ceasing to be the public square. Stated differently, you can’t have the public square without human ideas, and you can’t encounter human ideas apart from engaging with religious inquiry. Indeed, religion is at the center of any culture; religion is entwined with the public square.[3]

It was 31 years ago when James Davison Hunter published Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America, a book-length treatment devoted to exploring how the American public square has been molded by the likes of religion, family, education, politics, and entertainment. Despite being a relatively unknown Professor of Sociology and Religion at the University of Virginia in 1991, Hunter’s treatise has since left an indelible mark on early twenty-first century considerations of American culture.[4] Perhaps the most noteworthy characteristic of the volume is its remarks surrounding the prominence that religion enjoys in the public square of any civilized society, as well as the ensuing influence that religion levies in the private lives of individuals.

[According to Hunter], at the heart of culture… is religion, or systems of faith. And at the heart of religion are its claims to truth about the world… The struggle for power [in the public square] is in large part a struggle between competing truth claims, claims which are by their very nature “religious” in character if not in content… Faith and culture, then, are inextricably linked. By elucidating a broader cosmology or world view, faiths not only link the symbols of public culture with the symbols of private culture; they also infuse the symbols of each sphere with universal if not transcendent significance…    Despite the constraints modern societies have placed upon more traditional religious    authority to remain sequestered in the private sphere, the impulse to synthesize and universalize public and private experience remains one of the central and unchanging features of religion in the modern world.[5]

When viewed from a sociological perspective, it is easy to concede the validity of Hunter’s observations. By definition, religious convictions are metaphysical in nature; they are truth claims about reality that directly impact the worldview associated with a given religion. Such truth claims carry transcendent significance, and they can rarely be confined to one’s private manner of thinking. In other words, religion in the public square will organically produce disputation on what religious beliefs are true, and what religious beliefs are false. Moreover, the trajectory of one’s life, and the method by which one interacts with society, will inevitably reflect one’s most deeply held religious commitments. Hence, what Hunter deems as a struggle for power in the realm of the public square is ultimately an acknowledgement of antithetical ideas vying for religious persuasion within a civilization. Consequently, struggles for power—both real and perceived—tend to ensue.

But is there more to the story than what can be deduced from the surface? Are ideological tensions in the public square merely explainable by concerns for power, self-seeking privilege, or the advancement of tribal agendas? While such motives may certainly undergird proponents of all world religions, it is my contention that biblical Christianity—as reflected in the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (2LBCF)—is not characterized by such distinctives.[6] In fact, as will be argued throughout the forthcoming articles in this series, Christianity’s “concern” for its place in the public square is motivated by two prevailing factors. The preliminary factor is epistemological, and the ancillary factor is ethical: (1) Epistemologically speaking, if Christianity were not true, then one would not be able to possess epistemological certainty about anything regarded as true in the cosmos; (2) Ethically speaking, without exposure to the truths of Christianity, a society will lose all objective grounds for identifying and safeguarding moral absolutes.

The remainder of this series will employ a four-pronged approach to demonstrate the legitimacy of the aforementioned propositions. However, prior to elaborating on those particular arguments, the next installment will be focused on honestly engaging with the notion that Christianity has sought eminence in the public square for disingenuous purposes. After methodically addressing those allegations, the third and fourth installments will be specifically oriented toward unpacking both propositions cited above; article three will center on proposition one, and article four will concentrate on proposition two. Lastly, the fifth and final blog in this series will feature concluding thoughts for how Christians can effectively champion the necessity of having their faith in the public square. Upon doing so, the people of God will not only grow in their awareness around the importance of defending Christianity’s place in the public square, but also in their diligence to consistently live out their faith before a watching world (Titus 2:14).

[1] Throughout the duration of this blog series, the designation public square will be defined as “the sphere of public opinion.” This definition is derived from “Public Square Definition & Meaning,” Merriam-Webster (Merriam-Webster), accessed November 15, 2022, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/public%20square.

[2] For a book-length, scholarly treatment on man’s natural religiosity, see Timothy Samuel Shah and Jack Friedman, eds., Homo Religiosus?: Exploring the Roots of Religion and Religious Freedom in Human Experience (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2018). Although there are a variety of perspectives communicated in this work regarding human religion, the overwhelming consensus is that mankind is naturally religious.

[3] Richard Neuhaus, “Religion and Public Life: The Continuing Conversation,” Christian Century 107, 21 (11-18 July 1990): 672.

[4] It is widely recognized that the label culture wars was originally codified by James Davison Hunter, as a direct byproduct of publishing Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (New York, NY: BasicBooks, 2001).

[5]  Hunter, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America, 57-58.

[6] Throughout the duration of this series, all references to Christianity will have the theological tradition reflected in the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (2LBCF) in mind. It is the conviction of the author that the doctrine espoused in the 2LBCF is the most faithful representation of Scripture. To access an online copy of the 2LBCF, see Brian Malcolm, “The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith,” The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, June 2, 1970, https://www.the1689confession.com/.