The second model of the relation
between religion and politics is that proposed by Ken Grenawalt in his Religious
Convictions and Political Choices. Kent Greenawalt holds that all religious
convictions are important to politics and therefore he rejects the idea that
citizens in liberal democracy should resolve both values and factual questions
that are relevant to justice without relying on particulars religious
convictions.[1]
The
main concern is the proper character of citizenship; the question is whether
the reliance on religious conviction is consistent with a model of good liberal
citizenship. To Greenawalt good citizens may both affirm the religious freedom
and rely on the religious conviction in their political decision. He
acknowledges that there is a distinction between personal grounds for decision
and public justification, but the line between the grounds of decision and
stated justification is not explored by the theorists who propose the exclusion
of religion from political morality.[2]
The citizens must be allowed to embrace the ways in which they justify to
themselves the political position that they take, as well as the reasons that
they communicate to others. Then it means that the citizens both affirm the
religious freedom and rely on religious convictions in their political
decisions.[3]
In
this discussion, by the citizens Greenawalt has in mind those of the United
States of America and the by the idea of liberal democracy he means as “the
form of government whose premises includes “indirect, democratic governance,
extensive individual liberty”[4]
and first amendment’s guaranty of religious liberty and disestablishment. Given
the present degree of diversity and belief, he then accepts the principle of
“non-sponsorship as the proper understanding of relation between the government
and religion in the liberal state; in the sense that the government in the
United Stated should not support religion or religious ideas, however broadly
conceives.
With
the understanding of “liberal democracy”, the limit of “the publicly accessible
reasons” and “religious convictions” Greenawalt proposes the thesis as follow:
When
people reasonably think that shared premises of justice and criteria for
determining truth cannot resolve the critical questions of the fact,
fundamental question of value, or weighing of competing the benefits and harms,
they do appropriately rely on religious convictions that help them answer these
questions.[5]
The thesis demonstrates that
reliance on religious convictions is warranted only when shared premises and
publicly accessible reasons are inconclusive. This also identifies the sense in
which religious conviction is politically important. Greenawalt, therefore
affirms, “a constrained of commitment to shared premises and ways of reasoning”
[6]
and advocates that “a good liberal citizen must remain open to publicly
accessible reason”.[7] This commitment, however, is limited
precisely because it does not completely exclude the political relevant of
religion.