Religious intrusion into politics is nothing new. For over 600 years, the Catholic Church ruled over the conglomeration
of countries now known as Europe. In the Middle East today, and into the distance past, the current unrest is nothing more than
a battle of religious ideologies and their desire for political power. These ideological battles for political power have often
been defined as political battles in the name of religion, but if history is to be used as a gauge, this is simply not the case. It is (and continues to be) ideology that defines the politician, just as it was the Catholic Church that defined western Europe for
so many years. Politics is a power-based endeavor, and it is power that religions need in order to fulfill their particular
goals. “The Wedge” of ID is simply the newest lie proposed by the latest religious proponents to achieve their goals of gaining
political (and hence ideological) power in America.
The current move by the Discovery Institute and its “scientific theory” of ID is
to gain access to political power and in doing so promote their goal, the nationalization of the doctrine of Christianity. Because
they cannot justify their political move legally, their intentions are to try to somehow justify their ideology in order to gain political
access by gaining public respect. This idea of a nation promoting religious doctrines is nothing new: it is commonly known as
manifest destiny. However, good governments by definition are not supposed to be the puppets of any ideological belief. Rather, they are to be bodies of officials that organize and administrate societies in a fair and charitable way. But this is
precisely the reason that groups such as The Discovery Institute desire access to politics and politicians: to organize and
administrate societies. Such governments are known as theocracies, and they are neither fair nor charitable.
While many theologians
in America argue that the USA is a Christian nation, it was not set up to be such by the founding fathers. Thomas Jefferson
wrote of “building a wall of separation between church and state” in a letter to a Baptist church. Furthermore, the United States
Bill of Rights clearly makes the separation between church and state the intentions of the founding fathers in two clauses: the establishment
clause and the free exercise clause. This being so, many theologians continue to argue that because most of the founding fathers
were Christian, it was their purpose and hope that the USA would be a Christian nation. While it may be true that many founders
of the United States were Christian, it does not necessarily follow that their purpose and hope was to create a theocracy. This is
dubious reasoning given that it was freedom from religion that they were in part trying to establish in founding the United States
in the first place. But, for the sake of argument, given that the founding fathers were mostly Christian and wanted the USA
to be a Christian nation, such a nation is not necessarily the best kind. There are at least three reasons that this is so.
First,
theocracies tend not to be tolerant of other beliefs because other beliefs tend to be detrimental to the agenda of the governing belief
itself. This is because contradicting one belief system brings doubt into the heads of those who accept that belief system. Religion is not based on healthy skepticism but rather on blind faith. Promoting a belief system by blind faith is the only
method that an otherwise contradictory and vague theology such as Christianity can be accepted. Also, theocracies tend to be
fascist because of their authoritarian natures. The Christian religion as well as its sisters Judaism and Islam is based on
the authority of God and the prophets that they accept. To not accept the authority of each respective prophet is to sin against
that particular religion. Authority always plays an important role in religious belief because without an organized group headed
by a particular authority a defined goal is not possible. Finally, theocracies tend to be dogmatic both religiously and politically
speaking. The acceptance of any religion negates the possibility of certain truths which are not considered conducive to that
religion. If there are those who claim that these certain truths are in actuality true, then the authority and respect that
the theocracy so desperately clings to is lost.
So, even given that
the founding fathers were mostly Christian and wanted the USA to be a Christian nation, it is not necessarily the best thing for any
nation to become a theocracy. First, theocracies are intolerant of other nations and peoples which have different belief systems. This has been and continues to be a leading cause of the downfall of nations and wars across the globe. Secondly, theocracies
are authoritarian. Authoritarian governments do not allow for the questioning of their authority, but rather expect that its
authority be accepted unconditionally. This leads to political corruption, the slow degradation of social faith in the government,
and the eventual downfall of those societies. Without the ability to decide, question and choose autonomously, societies deteriorate. Thirdly, theocracies tend to be dogmatic in their belief that God has condoned their existence. Manifest destiny has been used
to justify unjustifiable acts of war as well as unjustifiable acts against the societies that are governed by theocracies. Even
if the founding fathers were mostly Christian and desired the American government to be theocratic by nature, it is surely not a good
decision to do so.
Nevertheless, religious organizations such as
The Discovery Institute want nothing less than a theocracy while claiming that it wants nothing more than to be accepted as a viable
scientific theory. But, ID adherents must rely upon access to politics because of their utter lack of scientific evidence and
warrant. Bruce Chapman, an ID adherent was quoted as saying “We are not going through this exercise [condoning ID] for the fun
of it. We think some of these ideas are destined to change the intellectual-and in time the political-world (emphasis added).”[1] If
it is indeed the goal of ID to “change the intellectual world”, the intellectual world awaits for any knowledge that would do so from
the ID camp. Up until now, none has been given. Rather than viable scientific evidence, ID only offers up political controversy
based on public ignorance and religious ideology. In Creationism’s Trojan Horse, Forrest and Gross write, “The ID movement has
little to do with the advancement of science. Phillip Johnson admitted as much in 1996: “This isn’t really, and never has been,
a debate about science…It’s about religion and philosophy”. No area of any science has as yet been affected significantly by
ID claims.”[2]
Given the dubious motivations of religion and the seemingly inevitable
consequences of theocratic governments, it would seem to be in the best interest of every individual if religion was unconditionally
refused access to political power of any kind. Adherents of religion argue that this is disregards their rights as individuals,
but it does not. As individuals they are free to worship if they choose, but they do not have the right to make worship the
law of the land. Their faith in their religion does not give them that right nor does it make it the ethical choice for politicizing
any belief system. The efforts of religious people to erase any separation between church and state cannot be upheld legally,
and so many use the façade of ID to gain access to politics through the auspices of scientific education. But like their political
efforts, ID is nothing more than a thin disguise for their true goal: to allow a hypothesis that is in no way scientific to be considered
as scientific proof for their beliefs in order to gain political (and hence ideological) power.