Eugene weekly., May 26, 2005, Page 13, Image 13

Eugene's BEST selection
HATS
Men
Women
Children
Government
the abuse of power
By Daniel E.H. Bryant
Eugene May 22. The lecture has been edited for length. The complete 6,000-word text is available at www.eugeneweekly.com
support that the First Amendment was writ-
ten. Constitutional historian C. Herman
Pritchett concludes, “It was this non-preferen-
tial assistance to organized churches that con-
stituted “establishment of religion” in 1791
and it was this practice that the Amendment
forbade Congress to adopt.”
Without separation of church and state we
can only have at best religious toleration and
at worst, religious persecution. The point of
the First Amendment is to guarantee religious
liberty, not religious tolerance.
My thesis is that religion thrives best in an
environment of a secular state that guarantees
true religious liberty. Faith in God is not
something that can be imposed by authority; it
must be freely discovered in the experience of
each individual if it is to have any lasting
meaning and value.
I embrace secularism in government for
three reasons: First, I have a problem with the
idea that those who are elected on the basis of
their philosophy on taxation, national security
Muslims. I obviously do not support the ban-
ning of all religious expression within public
schools. It is rather a matter of treating all reli-
gions and no religion equally. That is the
meaning of religious liberty.
Since so many here seem to be aware of
the local prayer breakfast, I suppose a few of
you recall a little cross that used to sit on
Skinner’s Butte. It only weighed what, 20 or
30 tons? You may recall a small battle over its
placement on public property. The story of
that cross and all the ill-will created around it
is a classic example of when the use of reli-
gion becomes the abuse of power. Even
though it may have been erected with the best
of intentions and was a source of inspiration
and comfort to many, it was hard not to see it
as government endorsement of the Christian
faith at best, or worse, as an in-your-face
proclamation of the superiority of one faith
over all others. The vote in the midst of the
Vietnam War to declare it a “war memorial”
as if it would no longer be a symbol of
calls upon participants “to petition God on
behalf of our leaders and those who are in
authority over us.” It states that, “The
National Day of Prayer belongs to all
Americans. It is a day that transcends differ-
ences, bringing together citizens from all
backgrounds.” So far, so good.
But then it adds, “However, our expres-
sion of that involvement is specifically limit-
ed to the Judeo-Christian heritage and those
who share that conviction as expressed in the
Lausanne Convenant.” (sic) The Lausanne
Covenant is a doctrinal statement adopted in
1974 at a world convention of evangelical
Christians. In other words, though the site
claims Judeo-Christian heritage, in reality it
includes neither Jews nor non-evangelical
Christians who do not adhere to the Lausanne
Covenant. The statement continues, “National
Day of Prayer is not a function of the govern-
ment and, therefore, a particular expression of
it can be defined by those who choose to
organize it. This is not a church/state issue.”
to describe the separation of church and state.
big tuna while lots of little minnows swim freely to and fro.
or gun control are also well suited to make
decisions for the entire nation on religious
doctrine.
Second, secularism and the religious liber-
ty it protects will make us a stronger nation as
we learn about the other religious traditions of
the world not from travel, books or news, but
from our neighbors, co-workers and often even
family members of different religious tradi-
tions. There are not too many places in the
world that have the kind of religious diversity
we have in this country and even right here in
Eugene. It is not tolerance of diversity but
embracing diversity that is the path to peace
and a source of great strength for our nation.
Third, I value secularism because it
requires people of faith to take responsibility
for our own spiritual traditions. We cannot
and should not rely on government to teach
our children our favorite songs of faith, how
to pray or what scriptures to read.
I also have to say that our efforts to main-
tain this wall of separation can be at times
extreme. In France we have seen the recent
example of children in public schools who are
forbidden from wearing any religious cloth-
ing, an action widely seen as directed at
Christian faith illustrates the tyranny of the
majority. As the Ninth Circuit Court eventual-
ly ruled (thank you Charlie Porter), this was
precisely the kind of abuse the First
Amendment was designed to protect us
against.
It has been a hard lesson for many of us to
learn that in a democracy, freedom of religion
does not give the majority the right to use
their power to give preferential treatment to
their religion. That lesson, however, is critical
for all of us to learn. If we do not have reli-
gious liberty for the minority, then liberty for
the majority is meaningless.
That leads me to my first corollary, that
those who care most about their faith
will not use government to promote
the advancement of their faith, rather
will use their faith to promote the
advancement of government. I suppose
that this is partly the idea behind the prayer
breakfast of which we have heard so much of
late. The concept, as I understand it, is to
come together that we might lift up our elect-
ed leaders in prayer. The website for the
National Day of Prayer, which is on the first
Thursday of May, so established by Congress,
Never mind the fact that the website is full
of American flags, images of the Capitol and
is adorned in red, white and blue; this is a pri-
vate enterprise that is fully protected by the
free exercise clause of the First Amendment.
The same is true of the local Mayors’ Prayer
Breakfast. As a private religious function, the
organizers are perfectly entitled to conduct the
event as they see fit. To the extent that it is an
attempt to use faith to promote the advance-
ment of government and to support our elect-
ed officials in prayer, I even welcome it. My
objection, like that of Rabbi Yitzhak, is that it
is called the Mayors’ Prayer Breakfast, giving
the impression as Matt Dennis wrote in his
excellent piece on the subject, “that this par-
ticular religion has special governmental
access and authority.”
I have a second and even deeper objection,
however, that is less about religious liberty
and more about religious responsibility. When
Judy and I were in seminary, our professor of
Hebrew scriptures was Rolf Knierim, a
delightful old German who had emigrated to
the U.S. shortly after WWII. I remember less
today of what he taught about the Bible than I
remember of what he taught about the rela-
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MAY 26, 2005 13