Tempering the Rights of Man

Most Americans don’t realize that our preoccupation with individual rights (expanding or contracting those rights) makes us all liberals. The Enlightenment was liberal in its approach advocating the individual above the king. Americans took it to heart and overthrew their King and established a country ruled by law and by a representative democracy of individuals. This is all liberal; it is anti-caste. It advocates against entitled power. It advocates for each one making his or her own way as their ability dictates. No class or aristocracy will impede them.

Individuals who are free to follow enterprise, free to make their way by merit and skill, must of necessity be free to associate and assemble with others of like mind and to form alliances and allegiances but the founders of this country saw a problem in unfettered individualism. The problem was that alliances and allegiances can encompass a majority and that majority, just as a king, an aristocracy or a class system, can snuff out the freedom of individuals not part of the majority. This was the basis for our Bill of Rights: to ensure that a majority vote in representative government would be limited to prevent the majority from becoming the new entrenched power overrunning individual rights.

Conservatives defend the individual’s right to do as he or she chooses (restrained only from doing harm to others), to earn his or her own way and to form allegiances with whom the individual chooses. Liberals defend individuals’ rights by imposing limits on the extent of some individuals’ freedom to ensure that other individuals retain some basic rights. Both are championing the rights of individuals. Either stance will result in some limitation on individual freedom. Liberals, in choosing to limit those with allegiances in order to preserve basic freedoms for those who have no allies or other source of power, reveal an underlying pessimism about human nature and human motives.

This same dichotomy and liberal pessimism can be seen in our religious institutions. On the conservative side there is a defense of unfettered individualism by an emphasis on the Reformation dogma of “by faith alone,” “sola scriptura,” personal salvation and unmediated prayer and confession. These tenets carry the message that God accomplishes his will by working directly through the individual, speaking directly to the individual and motivating the individual to act. The avowed belief is that God will inspire the individual to care for the poor and tend to the needy. Organized social agenda are seen as suspect in that it might limit God’s inspired action through the individual and might lead the individual to rely less on faith and more on good works for their salvation. An organization and hierarchical priesthood is seen only as inhibiting individually inspired faith. It is not mere coincidence that it is within the conservative churches that the phrase “a personal relationship with God” is used. It is, in fact, a badge of one’s dismissal of liberal theology and the more liturgical denominations.

The liberal churches emphasize social justice, liturgical services, mediated intercession with God and books of common prayer. These emphases carry the message that God works through the church as a community, that individual motives and internal urgings are suspect. As a result, the liberal churches are more likely to believe that organized social action is necessary and that an organized priesthood or pastorate protects against individuals mistaking their personal motives as God’s will or God's voice. Jesus' example is sought more than his mystical inspiration. If there is a liberal counterpart to the conservative’s avowal of “personal relationship with God” it is probably “God works through his church” or “follow Jesus.”

This is the fundamental divide in American Christianity. Both conservative and liberal faiths believe God acts through individuals but one gives free reign to the internal inspiration received by the individual and the other sees a need to temper the individual more with a structured community of believers and established theological scholarship and tradition. It is the same dynamic as on the political stage: Can individuals be trusted to do good and take care of the less fortunate without regulation or restraint? The Bill of Rights, by its very existence, implicitly says, “No.” So does the Bible.