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Democracy from page 33

instead. But "very few historians
would now portray religion as some
sort of cultural atavism:' said Jeffrey
Collins, a professor of intellectual his-
tory at Queen's University in Canada,
in an e-mail. "There is a new openness
to the importance of religious belief,
practice and theology in shaping the
fundamental propositions of liberal-
ism and democracy?'
Still, there is plenty of resistance.
Steven Smith, a political scientist at
Yale, suggested that he was not inher-
ently opposed to studying the role
religion might have played in shaping
political ideas. It's just that much of
the scholarship simply isn't good, he
said. "I recently was asked to write a
review essay for the journal Political
Theory of a number of these books:'
he wrote in an e-mail, but "most of
them were quite bad." And while he
did say that Nelson's book, which he
recently read, should be praised for
challenging the idea that modern
political thought was always in oppo-
sition to religion, he took issue with
many of the details.
Nelson, for instance, shows how
John Milton, writing in the mid-17th
century, argued that a republican style
of government (which today we'd
called "democratic") was the best form
in part because the Old Testament
said so. Using rabbinic commentary,
Milton described monarchial rule as
the equivalent of idolatry, and thus
sinful, Nelson writes.
Smith says that this reading is
"somewhat naive however. The
reason most early modern political
thinkers were engaged in seemingly
arcane religious thought was because
they had to formulate opinions in the
language their opponents understood.
"This is a long way from saying that
their thought was 'religiously inspired'
or that they attempted to derive tol-
eration and republican government
from Scripture Smith wrote.
And it is another matter entirely
as to whether 17th-century political
Hebraism has any relevance to the
foundation of American democracy,
established nearly a century and a
half later. Even Nelson is careful not
to push his case too far: "I do think
that Hebraic arguments, particularly
about monarchy, played an impor-
tant role in the ideological origins of
the American Revolution — most
spectacularly in [Thomas] Paine's
Common Sense," he said. "However,
these Hebraic elements certainly co-
existed with a whole series of other
traditions and arguments that were of

equal, and sometimes greater, impor-
tance?'
Other scholars have not shied
away from addressing the role reli-
gion has played in the formation of
American political ideas, either. Jack
Rakove, a leading historian of the
early American republic at Stanford,
said that the very idea of revolution
against the British was, at least in part,
premised on Christian "resistance
theory',' in which Christian Americans
believed they had a God-sanctioned
right to oppose tyrannical rule. But
resistance theory, like much of the
religious influences on American
politics, he added, has little to do
with other fundamental principles of
American democracy: "It doesn't say
much about whether you should have
one house of government or two?'
In fact, most of the Founding
Fathers turned away from religious
justifications for a myriad of other
reasons as well: because their own
convictions weren't terribly strong;
because the beliefs they did have
often conflicted with their compa-
triots'; because faith was a matter of
private conscience that would be den-
igrated by government imposition;
because they saw the government's
role as a limited one. Or, as Jefferson
wrote regarding that last point, "The
legitimate powers of government
extend to such acts only as are inju-
rious to others. But it does me no
injury for my neighbor to say there
are 20 gods, or no god. It neither picks
my pocket nor breaks my leg."
As for the role religion should play
in politics today, even scholars who
emphasize its historical importance
criticize those who try to politicize it
now When asked of his opinion on
the Texas Board of Education case,
Nelson made his position clear: "Any
scholarship that touches on [the role
of religion in politics] is liable to be
deployed in unsavory ways by one
group or another, but it seems to me
that we have to take that risk:' he said.
"Getting this right is just too impor-
tant, both because it's better to be
correct than incorrect ... [and] if we
fail to understand this history, we will
find ourselves condemned to a whole
series of philosophical confusions
and muddles."
Anyway, he added, even if Hobbes,
Locke, Milton and others relied on the
Hebrew Bible to justify their political
ideas, "it does not follow ... that they
should be justified that way in the
contemporary world." 17

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