In the previous mere Christendom thread, an important question was asked about my willingness to work together with secularist conservatives in pursuit of shared “common sense” goals. And the answer is that I would be fully willing, sure — if the secularists get spooked at the size of the national deficit, and turn off the spigot, they can count on my support. And if the Mormons in southern Idaho got a pro-life referendum on the ballot, I would cheerfully vote for it. That part of life is simple. Allies, cobelligerents, all that.
The complicating factor is that of oaths, and the rendering of unlawful allegiances as the price of admission to their game. One of the myths that has been spread about religious conservatives is that they don’t know how to bend or compromise (this being the supposed source of their propensity to violence), and the corresponding myth on the other side is that secularists are calm, cool, and collected, and ever ready to make adjustments as the demands of the present reality dictate.
But our secularists are actually hard line sectarians. They will brook no compromise on these issues. We do not have a parliamentary system, where a secularist party can form a coalition with ultraconservatives with funny hats. We have a winner-take-all system, and the absolute demand that secularists place on religious conservatives is a demand of stated allegiance to the secularist arrangement. They make us take these oaths so many times and in so many ways that we scarcely notice them anymore.
Say that a controversy arises over a cross in a county seal, or a Christmas tree on the county courthouse steps. The conservative secularists will bend far enough as to say that the cross or tree should be allowed to stay, just so long as everybody involved in the support of such symbols promises that they don’t mean anything by it. If there were any indication that these religous symbols were being taken seriously, the whole coalition would blow apart. They will allow us certain things for the sake of our nostalgia, but nothing else. As we move to their secularist paradise across the ocean, they will allow us to take a few trinkets to remember the old country by, and they do this because they know those trinkets are going to wind up in a shoebox in the attic.
All I am saying is that while I am willing to work with them, I will not do so on their terms, and I won’t take any of their oaths. Jesus is Lord, and I want Him to be acknowledged as such everywhere and by everybody. They have no response to this other than to accuse me of being an extreme member of Reformed Taliban, eager to start setting IEDs by the side of Highway 95. These guys are a hoot. But I am a Burkean conservative, and don’t want to achieve any of my socio-political goals by revolutionary means. The church, Christopher Dawson wrote, lives in the light of eternity, and can afford to be patient.
But the church also lives in the light of the holiness of God, and cannot afford to be dishonest.
The issue cannot be avoided, because every time a relevant controversy arises, the accusations of church and state relations arise. If some secularist politico sap forgets himself, and prays at some event in Jesus’ name, the cry goes up. “Constantinianism! How dare he!” All I am saying is that such a moment is supposed to be our cue to rush in there, saying, no, no, nothing of the kind, and that we should simply refuse to take our cue. See what happens. I can assure you that lots of interesting things will happen.