A rchive Date
[ 03-09-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/mansur_london.html
Delicate balance of church and state
SALIM MANSUR, For the London Free Press
2003-09-03
The Ontario Court of Appeal's judgment on same-sex marriage predictably opened doors to a range of issues, such as the place of tradition in a modern democratic society and the status of common law in a political system shaped by the requirements of a written constitution.
These demand careful considerations, and by the tenor of the debate among our elected representatives we have heard so far, we are unlikely to get any sober deliberations on an issue that cuts to the heart of our society: the values by which we invest our personal lives and relationships with meanings above and beyond gross calculations of benefits and costs.
Any attempt to address these issues in a single column would be a mockery. But the debate needs to be joined, issues explored and space permitting more than one column devoted to the subject at hand. Here is my first instalment.
One of the issues that has surfaced is about the separation of church and state in our society and constitutional system of government. The subject is of fundamental importance, and the delicate balance of who we are and how we conduct ourselves in private and public affairs rests on how we view this matter.
There should be no surprise that an overwhelming majority of religious institutions in Canada have indicated their opposition to the court-driven reformulation of marriage as "the voluntary union for life of two persons to the exclusion of all others."
In response, we hear a chorus of voices insisting that, in a secular democracy such as ours, the separation of church and state demands religion must not influence politics.
The principle of maintaining church and state separate is as old as Christianity. The New Testament informs us of the advice Jesus gave to the Pharisees: "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's."
When church appropriates the realm of Caesar, it inevitably sets the conditions for corruption of faith, as happened in the long history of pre-Reformation church, or as we witness in the inquisitorial faith of those who now rule Iran.
Similarly, when the state silences the church, or denies the church's role in influencing human affairs, it invariably prepares the conditions of emptying the public realm of sacredness by which people enhance the meaning of life. The diminution of the meaning of life was starkly illustrated in the former Soviet Union, where the church was silenced.
Life in its wondrous diversity is exuberantly full of paradoxes. The preserving and enhancing of life rest on the quest for balance, and not on flattening its paradoxes.
In the evolution of our democracy, and even more so in our neighbour's great republic, the separation of church and state has been a constitutional device for balance, instead of building walls of exclusion between the two realms Jesus acknowledged.
There would be no need to speak about separating church and state if either one or the other were non-existent.
Politics is driven by public opinions, and is subject to change and expediency.
In this realm of constant ebb and flow, there is also a requirement for balancing the ephemeral and transient by affirming what is outside the realm of change.
Churches affirm the sacred and preserve what is immortal, or timeless. It is through reverence for what churches affirm that people enhance the meaning of life and, thereby, find solace facing their own mortality.
Any diminution of the role of church in democracy, any interpretation of the separation of church and state as being mutually exclusionary, would be contrary to the quest for balance so essential for preserving the meaning of life as sacred.
Hence, it is odd to hear voices admonish a church for speaking out on an issue so vital as the meaning of marriage in our lives, and as an institution in our democratic society.
We may disagree with the church, yet we must listen to its concerns even as politics may direct us differently.
Salim Mansur is a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario. His column appears alternate Wednesdays. Copyright © The London Free Press 2001,2002,2003
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