abstract: Based upon the response to Secretary Paige's comments, all is to be permitted in the name of pluralism; all, that is, except for Christian morality, which is the only system not permitted under this version of pluralism. This pluralism is not a true pluralism but a false pluralism.

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by John Fielding

Recent days have witnessed a chorus of attacks from the usual suspects against two conservative politicians for "committing a truth."

In the first instance, Secretary of Education Rod Paige was attacked for suggesting that things might be better for society if Christian values were inculcated in the public schools. The "Reverend" Barry Lynn of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State (or A.S.S., for short; see Judges 15:15-16), among others, attacked him for not committing himself to the reigning paradigm of "pluralism."

In the second instance, Senator Rick Santorum simply echoed Justice Byron White's reasoning in the U.S. Supreme Court case Bowers v. Hardwick regarding consensual sexual relations between homosexuals. Senator Santorum stated essentially that if privacy could be invoked to prevent the government from interfering with such consensual relations, then it could be similarly invoked to prevent enforcement of laws against adultery, incest, and bestiality [Already in the November - December issue, Fielding exhibits examples of this in action.]. The aforementioned usual suspects began, once again, whining and wailing about the Senator's lack of liberality and lack of acceptance of "alternative life-styles" by his comparing homosexual relations to incest and bestiality.

Skipping for the moment the obvious rejoinder that there is nothing more "alternative" as a life-style of incest or bestiality, there was a time in this country when there was enough of a universal understanding of right and wrong that no less a historical figure than Thomas Jefferson saw no peculiarity in equating homosexual practice and the practice of bestiality. In fact, bestiality was considered less injurious to society as a whole than homosexual practice. Unfortunately, that "universal understanding" was mistakenly considered to be open and obvious to all, a natural law, Enlightenment, perspective.

While the political chorus decried Santorum's moral equation of homosexual practice, bestiality, and incest, there is no reason morally or logically why it should not be so. Based upon the response to Secretary Paige's comments, all is to be permitted in the name of pluralism; all, that is, except for Christian morality, which is the only system not permitted under this version of pluralism. This pluralism is not a true pluralism but a false pluralism.

True pluralism results in what Gary North has designated "political polytheism." This is a phenomenon that, as North points out, is inherently unstable because a unitary society cannot assimilate a welter of competing, incommensurate moral claims. A friend of mine who is the former chairman of the Berks County Libertarian Party never tired of trying to get me to leave the Republican Party and run for office as a Libertarian. One of my excuses for not doing so was protesting that I was pro-life. My friend would tell me that he, too, was pro-life. I would then ask what the position of the Libertarian Party was on the subject. He responded that the party left it up to "liberty of conscience." Of course, the nature of the Libertarian Party is such that "liberty of conscience" is virtually its answer to every position, a state of "true pluralism" if ever there was one. How does one govern a nation based upon 260,000,000 versions of "liberty of conscience" regarding morality and law? A nation cannot survive with multiple notions of competing morality. Eventually, one will win out.

One has. As the "Reverend" Lynn has stated, the conservative Christian position is beyond the pale of "reasonable discourse." All that is left is humanism and scientific naturalism in all of its competing variety. Thus, the "pluralism" bruited about today is a false one, simply being comprised of competing manifestations of the same humanist hegemony. Sadly, many churches have signed on to this debate, thus failing to confront the world with a distinctly Christian theory of government and politics. While Christian politicians and legislators may be able to arrest the slide of the culture to the bottom of the abyss of the application of humanist principles, it is the church's job to formulate and confront the citizenry and government with such a theory. Certainly the church in its wider manifestation is attempting to educate cultural leaders in these matters through the Center for Cultural Leadership and the National Reform Association. There needs, however, to be a wider and deeper engagement of the church in the real issues of today rather than settling for a seat in the back of humanism's bus.

After all, we see what has happened when Secretary Paige and Senator Santorum dared to suggest an alternative understanding of morality. Having gotten the Christian understanding of morality down and jumped on its chest, the humanists are not about to allow it any breathing room. We need a better understanding of the war we are in, and we need to join it.

John Fielding (M.A., M.Div., J.D.) is the president of the National Reform Association. He is active in politics and practices law in Berks County, Pennsylvania. He can be reached at fielding@talon.net.

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