What does the battle over Terri Schiavo have to do with the Peace of Westphalia of 1648? The answer is: nothing and everything.
An event that occurred more than 350 years ago on another continent is certainly far removed in time and space from the human drama that played out in a Florida hospice. Yet, the furor over the decision as to whether to remove Schiavo’s feeding tube has implications that can be better understood in the context of that centuries-old event.
The Peace of Westphalia was a treaty that brought the Thirty Years War to a close and all but ended the incessant religious and political warfare that had racked Europe for over a century.
It resolved the titanic struggle between the Roman Catholic Church and the newer Protestant Church for universal control of the hearts and minds of the people of Europe, a struggle which symbolically began when Martin Luther nailed his daring “Ninety-five Theses Against Indulgences” to the church door of Wittenberg Castle in 1517. Instead of continuing to use force to try to impose adherence to a single faith, the contending churches and their political allies agreed that secular princes could determine the religion to be followed within their own domains. Some geographic regions were designated as Catholic, others as Protestant. Not all were happy with the compromise, but at least the bloodshed stopped.
The Peace of Westphalia did not introduce religious tolerance in a modern sense, since it contemplated state religion in which general taxes went to support the official church, and the state could still discriminate against followers of other faiths. Yet it paved the way for an increasingly tolerant attitude in the following century.
By the 1700s, it was generally accepted, at least among the intelligentsia of Europe, that, despite official church doctrine, there was ample room for personal choice regarding faith and morals and even a right to opt for skepticism, reason and natural law over theology and dogma. The power of traditional churches became almost anemic in comparison to the hold the Catholic Church exercised over the populace during the Middle Ages, when it could credibly threaten apostates with excommunication and eternal damnation. The philosophical movement advocating religious tolerance was part of what became known as the Enlightenment, and it counted among its leading proponents Locke and Voltaire.
In the United States, the Founding Fathers, among them Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, were very much men of the Enlightenment. They believed in a deity, but it was a gentle and detached one, who permitted people to work out their own moral dilemmas rather than requiring rigid, unquestioning adherence to unalterable divine edicts. Conscious of Europe’s long history of religious warfare and persecution, the Founders created the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, eliminating state-sponsored religion and, in effect, leaving religion to the conscience of the individual. Far from making the United States into a secular country, however, this constitutional provision led to the flowering of a myriad of churches and sects.
In the 1960s and 1970s, this very same religious freedom allowed many people, especially younger men and women, to stray from traditional churches in favor of personal spiritual quests. It was a generational change and not necessarily a bad one. The notions of love, peace and tolerance that epitomized the outlook of America’s youth of the period would have resonated with Jesus of the Gospels. However, the same era also brought excesses in personal behavior. It was the age of “drugs, sex and rock n roll,” not to mention self-absorption and rejection of personal responsibility.
As with most social swings, it was only a matter of time before the pendulum swung in the opposite direction.
The 1980s and 1990s saw a return not only to organized religion but to religion of the fundamentalist Christian evangelical sort, which believed that Scriptures were divinely inspired, immutable, literally true and not to be reinterpreted in light of changing social values or personal preferences. This self-styled “moral majority” expressed outrage at sexual license, pornography, overt homosexuality, abortion and euthanasia.
As religious fundamentalism gained adherents, politicians, opportunistic as ever, were quick to capitalize on its remarkable ability to mobilize the faithful to vote, especially in Republican primaries. An alliance of religious fundamentalists and elected politicians emerged and exercised increasing clout in congressional and presidential elections. President Bush probably owed his election in 2000 and 2004 to this group more than to any other segment of the electorate, and he repays his debt by repeatedly emphasizing themes and sponsoring policies that appeal to fundamentalists.
The absolute certainty with which this group pursues its agenda and its willingness and ability to wield political influence makes it a force to be reckoned with. Indeed, it has become almost the equivalent of a state-sponsored church. It does not need the official designation. All it has to do is to secure legislation that reflects its religious agenda. Once religiously inspired laws are passed, all citizens must abide by them regardless of their own religious views. If fundamentalist notions regarding the evils of abortion or gay marriage are enacted as the law of the land, then a particular religious sect has triumphed regardless of its lack of official status.
The problem is: Whose religious beliefs are being enacted into law? The traditional religions, let alone the nontraditional ones and the secular moral philosophies, have differing views about the perplexing ethical questions of life and death. When does life begin and end? Under what circumstances is it justifiable to take a life (as, for example, in self-defense, in war, as capital punishment or to end human suffering)? Instead of permitting broad tolerance and a diversity of views on these issues, the fundamentalists would use the political and legal process to impose their singular outlook upon the entire citizenry.
Thus, Terri Schiavo’s fate, which should have been determined by her next of kin (in this case, her husband) through consultation with her doctors, became a flash point for the religious right.
Fundamentalist groups were determined to press their agenda regardless of the anecdotal evidence of Schiavo’s personal wishes, her husband’s decisions, the findings of numerous medical experts and the orders of a bevy of judges. They believed they received their direction from God, who trumped all other grounds for decision making.
So perhaps we have not progressed that far, after all, from the Peace of Westphalia.
The religious truce and increasing tolerance heralded by that treaty, the gentle philosophy of the Enlightenment and the principles of spiritual freedom incorporated into our Bill of Rights may yet be reversed by the true believers in our society.
Using the weapons of political influence, relentless propagandizing and, in some instances, violence (such as occurred in the attacks against physicians working at abortion clinics), they have sought to impose their will upon us all. Little can be left to the individual conscience when a group that espouses the “one true faith” is able to manipulate the levers of power in order to carry out what it holds to be the divine will.
Elliott Epstein is a trial lawyer at Isaacson & Raymond in Lewiston. He also is currently teaching a U.S. history course as an adjunct instructor at Central Maine Community College.
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