Christian Morality
Christian morality is mainly apparent not from the explicit inclusion of theological aspects of Christianity in code but the implicit inclusion of Christian standards of conduct, locations of social strife, and specific anxieties. Christian morality is not necessarily vastly differentiated textually form, say, Jewish morality or Muslim morality, but it is different hermeneutically and socially. Various interpretations and histories affected what issues were anticipated and targeted as sites of discipline and scrutiny during the formation of United States law. The presence of laws that paid attention to these anxieties manifested in increased policing and cultural tension and thus a continuation of these issues on a new continent, in a new country.
Colonial and contemporary Americans tend to assume Christian morality as the standard moral code of the country. We have seen this in our class as references to the United States as a “mostly Christian” or “practically Christian” county. This sentiment is echoed throughout US history. Christian rhetoric and references have been utilized to make political points from across the political spectrum. Shifts in popular theological understandings have a reciprocal relationship with larger cultural shifts. For example, before the Civil War Northerners concerned about Slave Power and Southerners trying hold together patriarchal chattel slavery both cited Christian morality as a foundation of their social and political beliefs in newspapers, speeches, and manifestoes. Although today it is argued incessantly if the Founders meant for Christianity to be at the center of political life in the United States, 19th Century Americans of every stripe mostly argued about what sub-genre of Protestant interpretation was the correct one to use as a guideline to establish American law.
Texas’ declaration of secession from the United States proclaims that abolitionism was “a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law” (Texas). Similarly, a Northern newspaper commented on the Dred Scott Surpreme Court case: “… the barbarism of the blow which annihilates the citizenship of all the Free colored people in the United States, has fallen with a stunning force on all who have been taught that justice is obligatory on man, and that Christianity is the social law of Humanity” (“Half a Million Citizens Disfranchised”) Despite different interpretations, both sides conceived of slavery as a religious issue and a legal one simultaneously. Despite Church being “separated” from state, political issues were still being navigated through the language of Christian belief. The foundation of our laws in Christianity does not simply disappear over time, even though the language used is gradually made less explicitly religious.
Besides explicit references to Christianity in the language used in the discussions that brought our current laws to life, we can also find evidence of Christianity as the basis of our laws in the types of laws we have concerning what. A great example of this is the manifestation of Christian anxieties over male homosexuality throughout American law. Janet Jakobsen and Ann Pelligrnin’s book Love the Sin excellently lays out the ways in which moral, religious concerns about the moral corrupting forces of sodomy gradually became a generally American, and even secular, concern. Despite our new-found love of a particular, monogamous, well-off image of lesbian and gay relationships, most states had anti-sodomy laws on the books until the 1990s, and some still do today. The 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick Surpreme Court case in which two male partners were indicted on felony sodomy charges for consensual, adult sexual conduct in their own home for were made without any explicit references to Christianity or God but with many appeals to a general “morality” and concern for public welfare. As Pellegrini and Jakobsen argue, Christianity did not need to be explicitly invoked in this case because it was already, and had always, been assumed to be the basis from which all American citizens derived their moral agency. One could argue that homophobia can be found in a variety of religious contexts and traditions, and this is true, but Christianity traditionally displays an aggression and obsessive seeking out of homosexual conduct that, until recently, was not present in other Abrahamic traditions. Furthermore, the fact of the matter is that Christians, of all kinds, established American laws, and so while there are theological and moral similarities to other religious traditions of all kinds, American law continues to give preference to and manifest in American culture the particularities of Christian morality.
Colonial and contemporary Americans tend to assume Christian morality as the standard moral code of the country. We have seen this in our class as references to the United States as a “mostly Christian” or “practically Christian” county. This sentiment is echoed throughout US history. Christian rhetoric and references have been utilized to make political points from across the political spectrum. Shifts in popular theological understandings have a reciprocal relationship with larger cultural shifts. For example, before the Civil War Northerners concerned about Slave Power and Southerners trying hold together patriarchal chattel slavery both cited Christian morality as a foundation of their social and political beliefs in newspapers, speeches, and manifestoes. Although today it is argued incessantly if the Founders meant for Christianity to be at the center of political life in the United States, 19th Century Americans of every stripe mostly argued about what sub-genre of Protestant interpretation was the correct one to use as a guideline to establish American law.
Texas’ declaration of secession from the United States proclaims that abolitionism was “a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law” (Texas). Similarly, a Northern newspaper commented on the Dred Scott Surpreme Court case: “… the barbarism of the blow which annihilates the citizenship of all the Free colored people in the United States, has fallen with a stunning force on all who have been taught that justice is obligatory on man, and that Christianity is the social law of Humanity” (“Half a Million Citizens Disfranchised”) Despite different interpretations, both sides conceived of slavery as a religious issue and a legal one simultaneously. Despite Church being “separated” from state, political issues were still being navigated through the language of Christian belief. The foundation of our laws in Christianity does not simply disappear over time, even though the language used is gradually made less explicitly religious.
Besides explicit references to Christianity in the language used in the discussions that brought our current laws to life, we can also find evidence of Christianity as the basis of our laws in the types of laws we have concerning what. A great example of this is the manifestation of Christian anxieties over male homosexuality throughout American law. Janet Jakobsen and Ann Pelligrnin’s book Love the Sin excellently lays out the ways in which moral, religious concerns about the moral corrupting forces of sodomy gradually became a generally American, and even secular, concern. Despite our new-found love of a particular, monogamous, well-off image of lesbian and gay relationships, most states had anti-sodomy laws on the books until the 1990s, and some still do today. The 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick Surpreme Court case in which two male partners were indicted on felony sodomy charges for consensual, adult sexual conduct in their own home for were made without any explicit references to Christianity or God but with many appeals to a general “morality” and concern for public welfare. As Pellegrini and Jakobsen argue, Christianity did not need to be explicitly invoked in this case because it was already, and had always, been assumed to be the basis from which all American citizens derived their moral agency. One could argue that homophobia can be found in a variety of religious contexts and traditions, and this is true, but Christianity traditionally displays an aggression and obsessive seeking out of homosexual conduct that, until recently, was not present in other Abrahamic traditions. Furthermore, the fact of the matter is that Christians, of all kinds, established American laws, and so while there are theological and moral similarities to other religious traditions of all kinds, American law continues to give preference to and manifest in American culture the particularities of Christian morality.
Discussion Question
Many past laws (i.e. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, Prohibition on Alcohol, Illegal to privately gamble) are based in religious morals, do you think that this is a violation of the First Amendment and against the separation of church and state? Can you think of any current Bills or Laws, local or Federal, that have religious morals as the basis for them? Do any of these laws show favoritism to Christians or non-Christians?
Citations
"Confederate States of America - A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union." The Avalon Project. Yale Law School, n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2017. <http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_texsec.asp>.
Gallup, Inc. "Muslim Americans Exemplify Diversity, Potential." Gallup.com. N.p., 02 Mar. 2009. Web.
“Half a Million Citizens Disenfranchised,” Albany, New York, Evening Journal, March 10, 1857. http://history.furman.edu/editorials/see.py?sequence=dsmenu&location=Dred%20Scott%20Decision&ecode=nyajds570310b
Jakobsen, Janet R., and Ann Pellegrini. Love the sin: sexual regulation and the limits of religious tolerance. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2004. Print.
Gallup, Inc. "Muslim Americans Exemplify Diversity, Potential." Gallup.com. N.p., 02 Mar. 2009. Web.
“Half a Million Citizens Disenfranchised,” Albany, New York, Evening Journal, March 10, 1857. http://history.furman.edu/editorials/see.py?sequence=dsmenu&location=Dred%20Scott%20Decision&ecode=nyajds570310b
Jakobsen, Janet R., and Ann Pellegrini. Love the sin: sexual regulation and the limits of religious tolerance. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2004. Print.