Secular Oaths

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“I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States,” so begins the story. With President Obama’s second inauguration so fresh in the public mind, an article in the Sunday New Jersey Star-Ledger raised the question of using Bibles for taking this secular oath. As A. James Rudin points out, not every president has laid a hand on the Bible to take the oath—John Quincy Adams preferred a law book to do the job. Rudin points out that commentators have started to question the practice of using any religious book for taking a vow for a government position. As I read this article I had to pause for a thought. It was the particular turn of phrase “the Bible, and by implication all other religious writings,” that stopped me at this brain crossing.

Washington's_Inauguration

Anyone who has taken time to study the phenomenon of religion seriously (admittedly not a large cohort) has stumbled upon the blue whale in the room: what exactly is religion? We all know, but nobody really knows. Many scientists equate religion with superstition and claim that we are evolving out of it, but we still seem preternaturally powerfully attached to it, if that’s the case. While religious writings have been around for ages, the idea of a sacred book seems to have its origins in the societal reception of the Bible. There are older religious books, but the Bible seems to have defined the category. What’s running rampant in my mind is where the line is drawn between a religious and a secular book. For some, it would seem, Fifty Shades of Grey, or Twilight would fall into that category. Some thinner, more glossy and heavily illustrated literature favored by teenaged boys might also qualify. What makes a book religious?

In current understanding, religion is a matter of belief. Not all religions insist on belief, but in the United States, in any case, it’s not properly religion without it. In our secular society belief is atomized into millions of varieties, even within the same religious family. Step outside the church, synagogue, or mosque, and the sheer varieties of religious experience would make even William James blush. “All other religious writings.” Those might include just about every pen stroke on paper (or electron on whatever it is that I’m typing this into). Those of us who venture to write know that at some level it is a sacred activity. I would swear it with my hand on my dissertation. (At graduation at Nashotah House students are hit on the head with a Bible. Perhaps this might be more appropriate to swearings in?) We lay our hands on that which is sacred, otherwise there’s no vow involved. Whether it be Bible, law book, or saucy literature, we pledge on it because all books are religious, regardless of definition.

Inauguration

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Religion is an all-consuming beast. I suppose that goes with the territory of making universal claims. In the light of the already ponderous influence religion has had on the selection of presidential candidates this year, I recently re-read Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address, delivered not long before his assassination. The Civil War was not yet quite over, and Lincoln knew the horror of the situation. He famously said:

Both [sides in the conflict] read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!”

Lincoln, never a regular church member, knew his Bible but also knew the soul of his country. A century later Bob Dylan would compose “With God on Our Side,” in protest to another war where divine backing was assumed. When a major undertaking is launched, the Lord is always on the guest list. The problem is, God can’t sit on both sides of the table.

The religicizing of politics is a dirty business. Religion plays so heavily on the emotions that it is, as history has shown, a truly unstoppable force. Even so great a conservative as Barry Goldwater felt this mixing of religion and politics an unholy cocktail. “I am frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are?” (The Congressional Record, 16 September 1981). So here we go again.

Religion and politics are a dangerous mixture. In a culture as religious as that of the United States, the potential for (and realization of) disaster is great. Think of the lives lost based on the religious outlook of our last president! Over the past few decades we’ve witnessed a parade of preachers, Fundamentalists, believers in New Religious Movements, and quasi-certifiable candidates march across our political stage, and yet our doors are closed to those who refuse to make public statements about their intimate relationship with an ancient savior. For the Bible tells us so. If we believe the preachers. Those of us who don’t will be putting on our Bob Dylan records and reading the wise words of Abraham Lincoln.