Berkley Center

I am a Christian. First and foremost, of my many personal and socially-assigned identities (woman/Asian/middle-class/heterosexual), I identify as Christian, because I love God, and my religion has played the biggest role shaping me - my ethics, my decisions, and even my social circles and activities. However, I strongly disagree with this statement ["Faith the only sure foundation for values in personal and public life"]. I wouldn’t dare iterate it in front of my non-religious friends for fear of coming off as privileged, condescending and condemning. The statement reads as very Rick Perry-esque in its assumption that faith is the only “right” way, which, of course, cannot be empirically proven. Thus, all that is left is a dangerous risk of discrimination against agnostics and atheists, some of whom I have known to be the best social activists, ethics professors, and difference-makers. An atheist can abide by an unspoken “treat others as you want to be treated” value just as much as I can abide by Matthew 22:39.

And as for me, I am violating my faith and not loving my neighbor as myself if I dare to utter such a judgmental remark as the above statement. If values are determined socially, culturally, psychologically, and religiously, how can anyone pick only one formation model as valid, when the three interact so much that they are impossible to tease apart? We can look at the psychological support for Kohlberg’s theory of moral development and see that, regardless of religious identity, children progress through similar developmental stages of moral processing, beginning with only an understanding of rewards/ consequences, and progressing with age to altruistic decisions. If faith were so essential to this moral growth, then shouldn’t the religious children have made different moral justifications than the non-religious children? They did not, so then one would one would have to argue that children cannot have faith, which would also be false according to the Bible. Even though I am a Christian, my values are still heavily influenced by other factors, such as my Asian cultural upbringing, my experiences growing up in America, my social interactions with others, and my psychological development over time. Yes, faith is one source of values in personal and public life, but it is not the only valid one.