October 7, 2002

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  Each according to the dictates of his own conscience . . .

  
  

  What is Religious Freedom?  What role does the state play in religious freedom?  In what way does state action serve to establish religion?  In what way does state policy serve to inhibit the free expression of religion?  What are we talking about when we refer to religion anyway?

  
  

  In the past religion has been narrowly defined, my Oxford American Dictionary has as it's primary definition belief in the existence of a superhuman controlling power.  It only takes a cursory glance at the various religions represented in our country to recognize the inadequacy of this definition.  Eastern monists, Pantheists and others make up a significant percentage of our population, but don't believe in a "superhuman controlling power."  I doubt that anyone would be sucessful in an attempt to persuade them that they weren't religions.  The second definition offered in the dictionary is a particular system of faith and worship.  Worship is defined as devotion to a particular person, thing, or idea.  This is the definition I will be using when I speak of religion. 

  
  

  Sometime back I wrote a LONG blog on the various worldviews that compete for ascendancy in the contemporary marketplace of ideas.  It is easy to villify the people of one view or tradition as being intolerant of the others, but in actual fact they are each intolerant in the areas they hold to be objective truth.  Denial of these very real differences prevents constructive dialogue on the issue of religious freedom.

  
  

  In 1967 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr issued one of his greatest challenges to the nation, with a small book, Where Do We Go From Here, Chaos or Community?  In that book he told a story that was really a parable of his life's work:

  
  

  
  

  Some years ago a famous novelist died.  Among his papers was found a list of suggested plots for future stories, the most prominently underscored being this one:  "A widely separated family inherits a house in which they have to live together."  This is the great new problem of mankind.  We have inherited a large house, a great "world house" in which we have to live together - black and white, Eastern and Western, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Muslim and Hindu - a family unduly separated in ideas, culture, and interests, who because we can never again live apart must learn to somehow live with each other in peace.

  
  

  The question of religious liberty today is the same it has been since the first Puritans immigrated to the colony established by Separatists, how can we live together in peace?  Do we accept that we have one seat at a table of diverse ideas, do we petition for the chance to withdraw from the table and be alone, or do we try to gain control of the table.  In the past, the strategy of all groups has been to dominate the others and legislate the outward forms of the dominate viewpoint.  We have good reason to fear the outcome of any group gaining control of the table, but we may be deceiving ourselves about who currently holds the upper hand in the policy making formula.

  
  

  Up until 1963, there is no question that the foundation of law and policy was Protestant Christianity.  In 1963 the Supreme Court handed down a decision that changed the legal presumptive view.  In the case of Murray v. Curlett, the Supreme Court ruled that Bible reading and Prayer were unconstitutional activities in Public School classrooms.  The interesting thing to me is the language on which the justices based their decision.  They set as an litmus test that "to withstand the strictures of the Establisment Clause there must be a secular legislative purpose and a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion." {emphasis added}  The rule of Protestant Theism was replaced by the rule of Secularism and it is by this rule that the Court has been guided ever since.

  
  

  Included in the 1963 decision is the explanation that this standard is "neutral."  But is it?  Neutrality is a slippery concept.  As people we tend to view anything that is not for us as against us.  Thus, one person's neutrality is another person's religion.  Recent scholarship has exposed the fiction of value-free neutrality.  A quick trip to a good library will unearth hundreds if not thousands of articles and books discussing the impossibility of a value-free anything. 

  
  

  Moreover, the Court has become increasingly divided on questions of religious freedom.  Supreme Court decisions are never light reading but they currently border on comedic with their many twists and turns.  Most decisions in the past decade have been a 5-4 split.  Within that split there are further splits with various justices dissenting from portions of the view they sided with in the decision.  In addition, the Court has taken the unusual step of reversing itself on previously decided cases involving religious freedom and establishment. 

  
  

  We have seen a majority vote in the House of Representatives on a Constitutional Amendment to support the practice of voluntary prayer in public schools.  The minority view expressed by Justice O'Connor in the 1992 case of Lee v. Weisman has been read and repeated "To deprive our society of that important unifying mechanism [public prayer] in order to spare the [dissenter] what seems to be the minimal inconvenience of standing or even sitting in respectful nonparticipation is senseless."  Across our nation on September 11 of this year we saw prayer after prayer offered by public officials in their official capacity. 

  
  

  National non-compliance with Secularism has become the rule that the Constitutional Amendment on Prayer sought to legalize.  Evidence introduced to Congress includes data on the widespread misunderstanding of First Amendment support for free exercise resulting in discrimination against religious speech.   Secularism is not neutral and has not produced an atmosphere of free exercise.  The rule of Secularism has changed the battle from one between Christian sects to Christian vs Secular, but as I noted above, this is inadequate in today's multicultural environment.

  
  

  I really like the comments left on yesterday's blog.  Christy says that she learned at an apologetics conference to learn, know, and be aware of her own beliefs.  Be ready to answer if someone asks a question about belief.  But, avoid any temptation to manipulate or coerce another into accepting a systen of belief.  Francis says that is important to move beyond tolerance to acceptance and understanding.  I believe that this is possible.  Tomorrow I'm going to go a little further out on this limb and talk about what that kind acceptance looks like and how we can get there from here.

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