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3.NAPTS Bulletin 44.3 Bulletin The North American Paul Tillich Society Volume XLIV, Number 3 Summer 2018 Editor: Frederick J. Parrella, Secretary-Treasurer Religious Studies Department, Santa Clara University Kenna Hall, Suite 300, Room H, Santa Clara, California 95053 Associate Editor: Jonathan Rothchild, Loyola Marymount University Assistant to the Editor: Vicky Gonzalez, Santa Clara University Telephone: 408.554.4714 or 408.554.4547 FAX: 408.554.2387 Email: [email protected] Web: www.NAPTS.org/Webmeister: Michael Burch, San Rafael, Calif. ___________________________________________________________________________ In this issue: Wherever members of the North American Paul ❏ Dues are due. And Thank You! Tillich Society are this summer, they share some- thing in common: it is time to pay dues for the cal- ❏ “Should the Freedom of Expression of endar year of 2017. Please remit your check as soon Religious Beliefs Be Subordinate to as possible to: Civil Rights Laws?” by J. Kendrick Wells, III Prof. Frederick J Parrella ❏ “Raimon Panikkar and Paul Tillich: Secretary Treasurer/ NAPTS Variations of Difference” by Fred Religious Studies Department Dallmayr Santa Clara University 500 E. El Camino Real Words from the Editor on “You Santa Clara, CA 95053 Know What…” The amount is $60 for full-time membership, $20 for full-time graduate students. Those mem- Frederick J. Parrella bers of the society who are retired may pay according to their means. Here we are in the lazy, hazy days of summer, with If you have questions, please contact me by the dog days of August soon approaching. For email, text, or phone. some of you, it is time to enjoy the last of the Sum- Many thanks as always. mer weekends in the Hamptons, in one of the many lakes Minnesota, in that beach house some- where between Malibu and Monterey on the Pa- Please send your papers on Tillich for publi- cific, or, I left this out last year, that summer house cation in the Bulletin of the NAPTS to: in the Sierras, the Rockies, or, Truth and Conse- [email protected] quences, New Mexico Wherever you are now, I hope you have a good Please remember that you are helping to keep novel or some poetry you have been longing to Tillich scholarship alive and adapt it to new read among the academic books you have with you. generations of scholars. Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 44, no. 3: Summer 2018 2 New Publications (including its center, the Democratic National Anyone who has published an article or book on Committee); Liberals, who support Identity Poli- Tillich or related to Tillich, please send notice to tics but lack an organized center. “Identities,” the editor for announcement in the Fall Bulletin. which are contemporary political constructs de- fined by the Party. The term “Liberals” will refer Should the Freedom of Expres- broadly to those who aim to establish through gov- sion of Religious Beliefs Be ernment action a future society that elevates each Subordinate to Civil Rights Laws? Identity. Party policies change with the most influ- ential supporters, so Liberal ideology is not a per- J. Kendrick Wells, III manent feature. The literature refers to Liberals “ variously as “progressives,” “Identity Liberals,” Preface “new Liberals,” “left,” etc. Recently the term “pro- gressives” has been connected with followers of I am grateful to the North American Paul Til- Sen. Sanders. lich Society for the opportunity to provide this pa- per and to have presented a shorter oral version at Introduction the 2017 Annual Meeting. I appreciate the com- ments I received there and I have amended the pa- The story of conflict between government and per to include responsive material. the expression of religious beliefs is an old one, This paper examines the specific issue of indi- even in modern times. The Bolsheviks won the vidual religious liberty in contemporary (as of early Revolution in October 1917, and in January 1918 spring 2018) national politics but not the issues of the government began suppressing newspapers contraception or abortion. Although presidential and religious education by the churches. Govern- election campaigns have come to dominate the po- ment suppression of the expression of religious be- litical sphere of culture and push our perceptions liefs proved to be a hallmark of modern autocratic into opposite corners, the paper nevertheless at- government. tempts to provide a constructive nonpartisan the- While the United States prides itself in being a ological analysis of selected contemporary national democratic republic, under Liberal leadership the political activities. It provides constructive criti- Government in recent years has acted to subordi- cism focused on the most prevalent contemporary nate the expression of religious beliefs to legislated political phenomenon: Liberal Identity politics. rights for protected classes, such as the civil rights Partisanship is support for one party against the laws. During the administration of a Liberal Dem- other, and this paper does not support the Repub- ocratic White House, a Catholic charitable congre- lican Party or President Trump. The focus neces- gation dissented from a regulation requiring that it sarily includes the Democratic Party because Lib- provide contraceptive services insurance directly to erals are now its primary support group and its employees because compliance would have vio- election campaigns and government policies natu- lated the congregation’s religious beliefs. The Gov- rally reflect Liberal Identity policies. Sen. Bernie ernment demanded penalties that probably would Sanders and his supporters are the only major com- have been crippling to the charity. The Supreme peting group in the Party. The Republican Party Court brought the parties to an agreement that sat- would be a no less interesting field for analysis, but isfied the charity’s objections. that would be a separate effort. In U.S. law, the conflict between free individual Paul Tillich discussed political history with an religious expression and civil rights laws appears as emphasis on groups that have a centered power as an issue of whether the Government may enforce its subjects. Because political groups have different the text of a rights law absolutely or must grant an degrees of centeredness, it is important to specify accommodation (exemption or alternative compli- subjects and terminology. In US politics today re- ance). An affected individual may assert that the lated to the Democratic Party, the paper assumes laws would require violation of his or her sincerely that the principal actors are the Democratic Party held religious beliefs and request accommodation Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 44, no. 3: Summer 2018 3 with the law. The laws in question place duties on The phrases religious liberty and religious free- the public in favor of certain classes of people. dom will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so These laws are most notably civil rights laws, and as long as they remain code words for discrim- the paper will refer to all such laws as civil rights ination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homopho- laws. bia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any In the United States, this conflict is a matter of form of intolerance. Religious liberty was never national politics. The Society’s Call for Papers, by intended to give one religion… a veto power referring to the Bolshevik Revolution and the over the civil rights and civil liberties of others. Reformation, correctly applies Tillich’s theology to (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights 2016, 29) national and international political history and its In part, the chairman was protesting the Su- organizations and processes. In Theology of Culture, preme Court’s decisions in a 2016 case, Little Sis- Tillich stated, “the presupposition…is that in every ters of the Poor Home for the Aged v. Burwell, 136 cultural creation—a picture, a system, a law, a po- S.Ct. 1557 (2016), and in a precedent case, Burwell litical movement (however secular it may ap- v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 134 S.Ct. 2751 pear)—an ultimate concern is expressed, and that (2014), where the freedom of religious expression it is possible to recognize the unconscious theolog- and civil rights collided. The Little Sisters of the ical character of it” (Tillich 1959, 27). “The princi- Poor Home for the Aged (“Little Sisters” in refer- ple of the consecration of the secular” is that the ence to the congregation) was (past tense in report- secular is open to the holy (Tillich, 1963, 247). ing a litigation) a Catholic congregation of nuns This paper will summarize several of Tillich’s that served the elderly poor but was not part of the themes and apply them as frames of analyses to Catholic Church. The U.S. government demanded contemporary U.S. political history. The themes compliance with Department of Health and Hu- will include ultimate concern, ontology (polarities man Services (HHS) regulations that required the and ambiguities), ultimate concern and idolatrous Little Sisters to provide insurance coverage of con- faith, the struggle between time and space, the “I – traception services, including abortion pills, to fe- Thou” relationship, and creative historical devel- male employees in its mandated insurance plan. opment in democracy. By including a number of The government previously had provided exemp- themes, I hope to marshal and apply a robust palate tions from the requirements to many employers, of analyses from Tillich’s theology. The paper will including all businesses with “grandfathered” follow Tillich’s methodology by first stating a situ- plans, small businesses, and many nonreligious ation to be analyzed (Tillich 1951, 3–4) based on charities. The ensuing litigation reached the Su- published accounts by sociologists and a historian. preme Court, where the Little Sisters asserted that A major feature of contemporary national politics “as [Little Sisters] have told the Government over is Liberal Democrat Identity politics, and the paper and over again, they do not claim that religious focuses on this.
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