“Getting to Know Your Church-State Jurisdictions” is Part One of this series and “The Biblical Model of Church and State” is Part Two. This third installment asks, What is civil government’s basis for morality?
Stanley Fish, writing in the New York Times,[1] describes the way various philosophical traditions understand the “role of religion and public life.” He begins by pointing out that under “Classical Liberalism,” not to be confused with a leftist political philosophy, “policy decisions should be made on the basis of secular reasons, reasons that, because they do not reflect the commitments or agendas of any religion, morality or ideology, can be accepted as reasons by all citizens no matter what their individual beliefs and affiliations.” Their reasoning goes like this:
