http://theroadtoemmaus.org/EM/Fox/LtEd/WT%2003h30%20EthMonoth.htm
In this particular essay, Mr. Fox attempts to show why the Christian faith is the basis of the American legal system and why it should stay that way. His points, as I understand them, are as follows:
- The Christian God is the sole source of morality.
- Secular law without God is coersion only, with no moral legitimacy.
- Because secular law has no moral legitimacy, it has to resort to coersion, and is inherently unworkable.
There is a plain and obvious problem with Mr. Fox's essay, however. While I understand that Mr. Fox is a devout Christian, not everyone is. I understand that Mr. Fox believes in a sovereign Christian God, and if one were to assume the Christian God exists, his viewpoint might have merit. However, that assumption is not an easy one to make, and not one that I ever would. Not only do you have people like me who would never make such an assumption, you have others that have made other assumptions that are not compatible with Mr. Fox's beliefs.
Mr. Fox's essay actually accentuates the problem of religion in politics, and it does it very well. Imagine if we were to replace Christianity in this essay with Islam, and replace God with Allah, and change the author to someone with a Muslim name; the logic is identical, but instead it advocates for an Islamic based system instead of a Christian one, and it works within that context because Muslims believe that Allah is sovereign and the sole source of morality. The end result is different, but the rationale is exactly the same, and this becomes illogical because a valid argument cannot support two opposing premises.
The root of the problem here is faith. Faith allows Mr. Fox to make claims about the Christian God and his sovereignty, just as it would allow a mullah to make claims about Allah and his sovereignty. Likewise, I can also claim faith in a completely made-up deity, and claim that he/she/it also has sovereignty with just as much validity. Of course, for the exact same reasons that Mr. Fox can dismiss my faith, I can also dismiss his. Whatever can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
The end result of faith in government, is that it strives to subvert democracy. Democracy thrives when the populace is educated, and open to honest discussion. This means that people need to be able to change their minds when presented with a better argument. However, people who truly believe that their god is only true unquestionable arbiter of morality are rarely open to discussion. Mr. Fox's essay is a prime example of this; he asserts that the only valid government is a Christian government, everyone else be damned. When you have a society filled with these kinds of people, democracy devolves into a struggle to hit your oppenents over the head with your "indisputable" faith.
It is in this case that law becomes coercion of the worst kind; instead of coercion of a government accessible to the people, Mr. Fox wants to offload that to a coercion by a God that nobody can talk to or reason with, and which not everyone believes. Democracy at this point is dead, and only Theocracy remains. The Founding Fathers understood this; this is why the Constitution was designed for a government representative of all peoples, partially by excluding a religious test for public office.
Mr. Fox says, "The secularist who wants the ordered freedom of a democratic republic, a society based on self-government, a society able to choose (or unchoose) its own leaders, is thus in the unhappy position of wanting something he cannot have except at the price of something he is not willing to grant." No, Mr. Fox, we cannot have it so long as the faithful throw away democratic principles in favor of an invisible tyrant.
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