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possible into the foreground." In making that point, Weber knew Amer–
ican history better than most American politicians as he tried to teach
us of the deep tensions between politics and ethics.
Today it is widely assumed that the idea of the separation of church
and state was simply a coincidence of a clause in the Constitution that
was drafted in 1787. The impression is that the doctrine of separation
was meant to keep religion out of politics; actually, it was the other way
around . To the Puritans as well as to the Founders, the mingling of
church and state "stank in the nostrils" (Roger Williams) because poli–
tics is, by definition, as distracting as it is corrupting, and hence a threat
to the spiritual aims of life. Thus even an agnostic like myself is appalled
to see a sentiment that is a mystical treasure su lli ed by a modern poli–
tics of fund raising and accusation, with no trace of love and friendship,
and instead fueled by the emotions that Henry Adams saw as the very
definition of politics: "the systematic organization of hatreds." It may
well be, as George Santayana observed, that religion is better served by
those who deny it, or by those who, like Lincoln, confess their own
bewilderment before an enigma that refuses to reveal its reasons, than
by those who believe it, or profess to believe it for political purposes.
W E MOUR N TH E I'ASSINC O F
LIONEL ABEL
1911-2001
AN EARLY CONTRIUUTOR AN I) FRI END
