New Political Choices

It is time for a new constitutional ideal in the US. Something that looks beyond truth as a battle between faith and reason. The Wall between church and state has become a wall between states.

Constitutional change is not an easy topic but it is time to start discussing some of the limitations that come with such a divisive view of the future. What if secularization is not possible as has been assumed since the enlightenment.

Harvey Cox after all predicted the demise of religion as the private fetishes in the 1960s. Clearly not the case. Reason must have missed something. Maybe reason is unable to know certain truths, maybe reason needs more time to catch up to the wisdom buried in our religious inheritance. Do we want to be limited to the truths that we can only know by reason? I think we should be but only so that it creates social pressure on those who know truth by another means to find the hard proof that their view of truth is right. They need to have more faith in their religions - that they can stand up to tests of reason.

It is time to consider the costs of the American constitutional ideal, not as a means of going backwards to the days of justifying patriarchal privilege but to consider if the neat separation of ourselves into public material beings and private spiritual beings is helpful. Are there not public spiritual issues? How do they get a place in American society?

It is a time of hope that I hope translates into some creative, progressive thinking as the world tackles a daunting set of problems. We need the faithful, the rational and the poet to unite their energies to tackle the political issues facing the US and the rest of the world.