Last week, Professor Sherman Jackson delivered a lecture on the possible role of Islam in American society, offering nuanced opinions on how to balance religious principles and priorities with the interests of fellow citizens who follow entirely different faiths, if at all. Particularly striking was his vision of how religious groups could act politically outside the traditional model of liberalism. Since the Enlightenment, most Western though tends to treat religion as a personal choice that is to be confined to the personal realm. Such a perspective may fend off any theocratic impulses, yet it also can obfuscate the communal aspects of religious behavior.

This reminds me of Saia v. New York, a court case concerning whether Jehovah’s Witnesses had the right to project their sermons to the public with the audio equipment tied to their cars. It was almost frustrating reading the legal discourse between the Witnesses and the state, as the mainline Protestant perspective of the latter could comprehend the view of religion held by the former. Time and time again, a state lawyer would ask why Witnesses could not simply keep their religious practices private, to which the Witnesses responded that being loud and disruptive was part of their religious practice. To them, religion was not something that could be confined to discrete sanctuaries and personal prayers before bed, but rather it is something integral to a person’s daily life that must be shared with others.

But Professor Jackson’s view on how religion should act in the public sphere is also rather distinct from that of Jehovah’s Witnesses. While putting the community above the individual, he likewise also places nation above the community (or at least he honors it such that community concerns do not become restricting and isolating). Muslims do not have to surrender their religious beliefs in order to serve their fellow Americans; these duties can compliment each other quite well. He also recommends that all people of faith, whether they be Shi’ite and Sunni or Jain and Mormon, should unite together. As gargantuan as this task is, I agree with the sentiment behind it. As the world becomes more secular and globalized, religion would do well to set aside theological arguments in favor of preserving and promoting the value of the numinous experience in order to secure and maintain its place in contemporary society.