William Mcclay's Special Status

In the course of American history, we have never had such a more diverse set of religions than we do today. Which has brought of the question of how do we treat the differing religions in the realms of American politics, do we as the American people treat those who’s religions can grant problems or do we force said people to adhere to universal laws. Our first task is to first define what ‘special status’ is. For that we will look to the works of William McClay in ‘On Religious Liberty and Its Special Status in American Life’ as was written in a book that carries a collection of political writings ‘Liberty & Equality’ which was compiled by S. Adam Seagrave. The ‘special status’ in question is where religious organizations essentially get a …show more content…
For this case McClay makes it clear that the informal establishments are the religious establishment that are not really affected by the laws that our government creates that could influence the organization, but the organizations needs don’t directly affect how the government makes laws. An example McClay mentioned is the many religious communities such as the “Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Sikhs, and so on.” (McClay 208). Even more informal establishments that McClay had mentioned such organizations include those of the Christian faith, specifically the Catholics. As the Anabaptist faith in McClay’s …show more content…
This very concept goes against McClay’s arguments. Specifically, by finding weakness in his stance on anthropological argument. The weakness comes from when he speaks about civil religion with the argument that “Civil religion can, of course, be extremely dangerous, a form of playing with fire, and is viewed with understandable suspicion from all quarters” (214). For those who do not know the concept of civil religion, it is a concept where religious values are accepted as a nation. Such examples of civil religion are; “One Nation Under God” being printed on the dollar bill, as well as national monuments, or cemeteries. In most cases with civil religion the symbol or memorial tends to be accepted by a large majority of people in the country, as these acts allow for a concept that many religions want in all the people of the word and that’s tolerance of each other. When you go to a cemetery or a national monument, the first thought is not of which religion does this symbol cater to, instead the symbol allows we the people to feel a sense of pride and joy that we live in a country, a country that doesn’t carry weather or not you believe in a higher being. Rather it’s a country that goes out every day to fight for the protection of the ideas of its