For much of my career (ordained #PCUSA, Jan. 1970), I've been aware of the great divide in this nation: Ecumenical Protestantism, Progressive Judaism and Liberal Catholicism on one side, and on the other side, Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism.
For lots of reasons, I suppose, I've always reached out to Evangelicals and Fundamentalists - no big deal, I'm sure - like a cup o'coffee or a hamburger and some conversation. I wanted to be a bridge builder.
Can't say that it ever worked! Generally, they believed I wasn't even a Christian, or, at best, a very poor one. Though I've never thought of Evangelicals and Fundamentalists as "not Christian," though I was never comfortable with their "conversionist" theology, me being a "covenantal" thinker, with infant baptism as the liturgical cornerstone illustrating God's sovereignty in these matters. Many a time, I was told they would be praying for me, and on a number of occasions, I asked them not to pray, since their prayer was mostly a call to God to change me into their own image - hardly a prayer of love, and surely not a prayer for learning together about God's greatness.
Anyway, the divide has only grown wider ... what was at one time a silence between the two sides has now escalated into a shouting match, as Evangelicals find themselves on the losing side of the Marriage Equality question.
Evangelicals certainly have had their day in the sun, you might say, ever since Ronald Reagan learned how to play them to his political advantage, and there was a time when they felt on top of the heap, and crowed ever day, with books and sermons, that Ecumenical Protestantism was on its last legs, and there would be a new Evangelical America free of abortion, without Marriage Equality, with Bibles and prayers in the schools along with creationist curriculum.
Well, that certainly didn't come to pass, and now the sun seems to be shifting a bit, with Evangelicals now confused, because it seems that their god is no longer working things out as had been expected. And all of this is turning into a deep and violent anger.
The current state of affairs is very disheartening. I don't even know any longer how to talk to an Evangelical ... whatever we might have had in common 30 years ago now seems to have evaporated.
Evangelicals, led by the Huckabees and Santorums, have hardened in their thinking and politics in light of Marriage Equality - because what they truly what is a theocracy, not a democracy. Sadly, much of this Evangelical fervor now is tangled up in Southern Nullification, old-line racism, State's Rights, misogyny, and guns.
FOX News has chimed in on this, too, with full voice, and GOP candidates have joined the fray, all trying to out-Bible one another, yacking endlessly about "religious freedom" and the rights of believers to "practice their faith."
It's a first-class mess, and I have no idea how to deal with it, other than to be what I am - and to articulate my vision as clearly and compassionately as I can, and do so with passion, too, not laying down in front of the Evangelical freight train, but countering it with clear and incisive theology and ethics.
I have my work cut out for me.
Showing posts with label prayer in schools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prayer in schools. Show all posts
Thursday, September 3, 2015
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
Jefferson's Wall
One of the driving pieces of the Puritan migration to the New World was to escape state-imposed religion, which has never worked very well anyway. But state after European state used religion to buttress national interests and power, and people went to prison because of it, or were tortured and maimed, property confiscated and prohibitions imposed, with one version of religion trumping all others in service to national interests.
All of this history is clearly before us.
But over the years, many of the descendants of those who came here to be free of state-imposed religion decided that state-imposed religion, if it were their religion, the right religion, would be just fine.
The effort to formally establish religion has never ceased, and in recent years has gained momentum, driven largely by various forms of evangelicalism.
These interests added "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance and initiated the National Prayer Breakfast, in the early 50s, among other things, and struggled to establish state-mandated prayer in public schools, which ultimately the Supreme Court decided on June 25, 1962, in "Engel v. Vitale."
Jefferson's "wall of separation" was wisely raised up, to protect both religion and government from one another, that they might remain good neighbors, talking with one another, helping one another, but neither assuming control of the other.
Good walls make for good neighbors ...
Those who cherish their faith in God should be well-advised, that efforts to establish a religion backed by state interests can only fail it's intended purpose of instilling virtue in people's lives. It has never worked and never will.
If the state uses religion to further its own interests, religion is no longer religion in the sense of pointing us toward God, but only a tool to further some limited purposes which are mostly about power and money.
And if a religious body uses the state to further its own interests (as we saw in the Middle Ages), the religious body soon begins to look, talk, act and feel very much like the state, with soldiers, bankers and attorneys working over time to impose upon the people a particular religious expression, and woe to those who would violate it.
People of faith need to consider these matters with great care. The evangelicals of our day who so easily speak of "getting prayer back into the schools," and using Charter Schools to foster a sectarian creed, are making a huge mistake, often caught up in their personal version of the "culture wars" (one of the worst ideas every coined, because God is God in all realms - there is, in God's love, no competing cultures, no culture wars; only human vanity and the the lust for power that uses religion as a cover for its base interests).
People of faith (and these days, that encompasses a much wider horizon than previously imagined in the Western World) need to jealously guard their traditions from the intrusion of other religions or the power of the state. Every religion needs to respect the others, too, and the state serves its religious purpose best of all when it legislates religious freedom for all forms of faith and respect for the essential practices that characterize various creeds, without endorsement or establishment.
Religion, by its very nature, seeks the wellbeing of the land in which it resides ... but base instincts also drive religion to control and dominate. It's these latter instincts that Jefferson's "Wall" seeks to mitigate, both for the health of religion and that of the state. And with that Wall well built, religion can flourish and do what it does best - to provide encouragement and strength to its adherents to live well to the best of their ability, to encourage a nation to be just in its regard for all of its citizens, with a special effort on behalf of the poor and marginalized and to address the state when it appears that the state is veering off into some form of hyper-nationalism and its attendant militarism.
Jefferson was right, and it's in our best interests to heed his advice. Build the Wall high, maintain it well ... it has enough doors and windows in it to allow conversation and mutual regard, but preserve the Wall, and in so doing, the character of good government and the character of a living faith are more likely to be preserved and served.
All of this history is clearly before us.
But over the years, many of the descendants of those who came here to be free of state-imposed religion decided that state-imposed religion, if it were their religion, the right religion, would be just fine.
The effort to formally establish religion has never ceased, and in recent years has gained momentum, driven largely by various forms of evangelicalism.
These interests added "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance and initiated the National Prayer Breakfast, in the early 50s, among other things, and struggled to establish state-mandated prayer in public schools, which ultimately the Supreme Court decided on June 25, 1962, in "Engel v. Vitale."
Jefferson's "wall of separation" was wisely raised up, to protect both religion and government from one another, that they might remain good neighbors, talking with one another, helping one another, but neither assuming control of the other.
Good walls make for good neighbors ...
Those who cherish their faith in God should be well-advised, that efforts to establish a religion backed by state interests can only fail it's intended purpose of instilling virtue in people's lives. It has never worked and never will.
If the state uses religion to further its own interests, religion is no longer religion in the sense of pointing us toward God, but only a tool to further some limited purposes which are mostly about power and money.
And if a religious body uses the state to further its own interests (as we saw in the Middle Ages), the religious body soon begins to look, talk, act and feel very much like the state, with soldiers, bankers and attorneys working over time to impose upon the people a particular religious expression, and woe to those who would violate it.
People of faith need to consider these matters with great care. The evangelicals of our day who so easily speak of "getting prayer back into the schools," and using Charter Schools to foster a sectarian creed, are making a huge mistake, often caught up in their personal version of the "culture wars" (one of the worst ideas every coined, because God is God in all realms - there is, in God's love, no competing cultures, no culture wars; only human vanity and the the lust for power that uses religion as a cover for its base interests).
People of faith (and these days, that encompasses a much wider horizon than previously imagined in the Western World) need to jealously guard their traditions from the intrusion of other religions or the power of the state. Every religion needs to respect the others, too, and the state serves its religious purpose best of all when it legislates religious freedom for all forms of faith and respect for the essential practices that characterize various creeds, without endorsement or establishment.
Religion, by its very nature, seeks the wellbeing of the land in which it resides ... but base instincts also drive religion to control and dominate. It's these latter instincts that Jefferson's "Wall" seeks to mitigate, both for the health of religion and that of the state. And with that Wall well built, religion can flourish and do what it does best - to provide encouragement and strength to its adherents to live well to the best of their ability, to encourage a nation to be just in its regard for all of its citizens, with a special effort on behalf of the poor and marginalized and to address the state when it appears that the state is veering off into some form of hyper-nationalism and its attendant militarism.
Jefferson was right, and it's in our best interests to heed his advice. Build the Wall high, maintain it well ... it has enough doors and windows in it to allow conversation and mutual regard, but preserve the Wall, and in so doing, the character of good government and the character of a living faith are more likely to be preserved and served.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Return Prayer to Schools?
Someone sent a petition my way to "return prayer to schools." Here's what I wrote:
There's plenty of prayer in school - teachers pray, and so do students and their families. We don't need "organized" prayer - who's to write it, say it, and what will it be? Generic prayers to some space-deity? Patriotic prayers? A Muslim prayer? A Jewish prayer? Pentecostal prayer, in tongues? A justice-prayer by a justice-seeking Christian? We have more than enough prayer in our schools. What we don't have is adequate funding, because, for some strange reason, we lack the will to care for all the children. I pray that we will decide again that all our children are really important, and decide to fund American education as it once was funded, fully, for all the arts and sciences, building maintenance, decent salaries and benefits, and all the needed supplies, with adequate social support - jobs and living wages, health-care and bringing our soldiers home. These are things we can do, and they would mean the world to our children.
There's plenty of prayer in school - teachers pray, and so do students and their families. We don't need "organized" prayer - who's to write it, say it, and what will it be? Generic prayers to some space-deity? Patriotic prayers? A Muslim prayer? A Jewish prayer? Pentecostal prayer, in tongues? A justice-prayer by a justice-seeking Christian? We have more than enough prayer in our schools. What we don't have is adequate funding, because, for some strange reason, we lack the will to care for all the children. I pray that we will decide again that all our children are really important, and decide to fund American education as it once was funded, fully, for all the arts and sciences, building maintenance, decent salaries and benefits, and all the needed supplies, with adequate social support - jobs and living wages, health-care and bringing our soldiers home. These are things we can do, and they would mean the world to our children.
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