I’ve always had kinship with “separation of church and state” - especially when it came to organized religion which gets messy, self-interested and mortal at times.
As a country we’ve always had this “God” thing going on. I mean it’s on the currency, it’s in the (old) pledge of allegiance and our president is sworn in on a copy of the Bible. That’s pretty vivid. For the record I still prefer E Pluribus Unum which was replaced with “In God We Trust” in 1956.
The operating manual for the United States is the Constitution, not the bible. The Constitution has evolved with us through amendments and legal interpretations by the Supreme Court. It’s not perfect and will continue to require attention but it’s widely acknowledged as the best thing out there.
This week I listened in on a Q&A with Letitia James who is the AG for the State of New York. She’s been in the news because she’s had success going after Amazon, Tether, Governor Cuomo and of course, Donald Trump.
She talked about all the normal AG stuff and she’s clearly earnest and good at her job. What really caught my attention though came at the end and had to do with her beliefs.
The US Constitution is not a religious document but it can be viewed that way. You could imagine a God who wants us all to live in harmony and when we disagree have enlightened and open discussion that might precede a vote on deciding what we collectively feel is right.
Once done that same God wants us all to follow what is spelled out. It’s a base agreement on what is right and wrong. We’re not going to put pre-marital sex rules in the constitution - that’s where your religion and beliefs come in. But things like free speech and the right to own property, yes.
We have people in positions to enforce it. But what if they don’t believe in any God? What if they don’t have a moral compass? What if they just want to appeal to lobbyists and/or achieve something for themselves? In those cases the guardians of our Constitutions might fail us.
Many of us take for granted that justice is being served and we are being protected from bad actors flouting our laws to serve their own ends. But this doesn’t happen by magic.
Letitia is bringing justice to powerful organizations and people in cases where they have hurt the people of the State of NY. This is really hard to do - their wealth of resources and lawyers are stacked against her.
What she said at the end of her call is that she felt that her faith gave her something unique and powerful in carrying out the responsibilities of her office and using the law to enforce the rules against those that would stop her from doing so.
I’ve always been a bit more focused on individual character of a Quaker/Stoic even Lutheran flavor and it has created for me a firm ethical foundation.
But maybe when you are working on a bigger stage against much broader and more powerful players a bigger faith in a more powerful God enables you to serve the office fully and realize the grand aims of our country and the Constitution.
Religion is tricky and filled with all kinds of nonsense but at a very high level of ethics and oath of office it may me something we need more of.
I think it might be good if morals and ethics play a bigger role in governance and policy in the country - feels like it’s been too long given over to monied special interests and people getting ahead rather than taking their oath of office seriously. (Don’t even get me started on all the insider trading going on with political types that have inside information. Jeez. Oops!)