TruthBook Religious News Blog

Voters will get their say Nov. 6 on whether city should display manger scene on public ground.

Jennifer Chambers / The Detroit News

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life conducted a poll in December 2005 that asked:

Should displays of Christmas symbols like nativity scenes and Christmas trees be allowed on government property, or not?

83 percent: Should be allowed
11 percent: Should not be allowed
4 percent: Doesn't matter/Don't care
2 percent: Don't know/refused

Of the 83 percent who supported the idea:
27 percent: Only if other symbols are displayed
44 percent: OK for Christmas symbols to be displayed alone.

The survey was conducted Dec. 7-11 and included 1,502 respondents.

Carlos Osorio / Associated Press

Because of the controversy and threats of lawsuits, the nativity scene shifted from city hall to area churches. This is at the Berkley First United Methodist Church in 2006. See full image

BERKLEY -- Christmas may be weeks away, but a quarrel that has become an annual holiday tradition across America is in full swing: heated disputes over religious displays on public property.

An infant Jesus, mother Mary and Joseph are again at the center of this long-brewing legal controversy, this time in the city of Berkley, where in an unprecedented election on Nov. 6, voters will decide whether the government should be required to display a nativity at City Hall.

Rulings from the highest court in the land have been anything but consistent on the issue of religious displays in the public square, U.S. Constitutional scholars agree. And so the debate rages on the meaning of the oft-cited but equally vague Establishment Clause -- one of two clauses of the First Amendment that govern the relationship of government to religion -- and Thomas Jefferson's call for a "wall of separation between church and state."

These highly emotional disputes -- where citizens embroil themselves in battles with their local governments and courts over the right to display and not to display -- have become so common nationwide they've been dubbed "The Christmas Wars."

Yet public opinion polls show a majority of Americans favor religious displays on public property.

In December 2005, a poll by the Pew Forum found 83 percent of Americans agreed that displays of Christmas symbols like nativity scenes and Christmas trees should be allowed on government property. Forty-four percent of those respondents said it was OK for Christmas symbols to be displayed alone.

For at least two decades -- some say longer -- Berkley has displayed the modest nativity scene on a small patch of grass behind City Hall on Coolidge Highway.

The figures, along with the three wise men, animals, an angel, a wooden manger and scattered piles of hay, stood quietly on the frozen patch of ground, fixtures in the predominantly Christian, Woodward Avenue suburb.

After the American Civil Liberties Union threatened the city with a lawsuit in 2005, it moved a Santa mailbox closer to the nativity scene. But the ACLU returned in 2006 and the council sent the figures packing after examining several options from its legal department and enduring lengthy public discussion.

The city's nativity tradition has bothered many around town, including resident Richard Scott, who calls a nativity scene, or creche, on government property inappropriate.

Scott, a self-described activist, is distributing a statement to his neighbors encouraging them to oppose the measure and support the compromise that allowed the creche to be displayed outside town churches. Scott said returning the nativity to City Hall grounds would convey an impression of a closed community, indifferent to those not among the Christian faith.

Both sides in the controversy can point to different rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court to strengthen their long-running argument.

The Supreme Court has found a nativity can be constitutional if it's part of a larger display of secular decorations...

Language in the proposed charter amendment, which must pass by 50.1 percent of the vote, says the city must display the nativity "in compliance with governing law" that includes -- at minimum -- an infant Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

Language in the proposed amendment says the display is to be modeled after one in nearby Clawson, which includes a nativity scene surrounded by numerous secular items and was ruled constitutional by the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, the federal court that governs Michigan.

Berkley Mayor Marilyn Stephan said many residents don't think it makes any difference where the nativity ends up. Stephan supports allowing the clergy to rotate the city's nativity.

Stephan said the city is not in possession of numerous other secular items like snowmen and has no plans to buy them.

These "Christmas Wars" that emerge every December in towns across America are all part of a cultural war in the United States that spans several hot-button issues...

"It's a question of social conservatives and more secular, more liberal Americans over abortion, same-sex marriage, God in the public square," he said.

"This is a constant kind of struggle. Sometimes it becomes more."

Labels: Berkley, Carlos Osorio, Christmas, Jennifer Chambers, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, separation of church and state

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Monday, October 15, 2007

So what does the Constitution say about religion?

(It may not be what you think.)

By Oliver "Buzz" Thomas

Ask most Americans what the Constitution says about God, and their answers may surprise you.

"One nation under God?"

Nope, that's the Pledge of Allegiance.

"Oh, yeah, right, right. How about, 'Endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights'?"

Sorry, but that's the Declaration of Independence.

"Hmmmm."

Mostly what you'll get is a lot of blank stares. Trust me. I've tried it in nearly 50 states. Fully 55% of the country, according to a recent survey by the First Amendment Center, believes that the U.S. Constitution establishes us as a "Christian nation." Worse still, while nearly all Americans say freedom of religion is important, only 56% think it should apply to all religious groups. The truth is that the Constitution says nothing about God. Not one word. And, you can bet that some of the local clergy back in the 1780s howled about it. Newspapers, pamphlets and sermons decried the drafters' failure to acknowledge God.

One, and only one, reference

Even more interesting is what the Constitution has to say about religion. Although many of the nation's loudest religionists continue to assert that America is a Christian nation in some legal or constitutional sense, the language of the original Constitution itself suggests otherwise. The only reference to religion is tucked away in Article VI and reads: "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

So, why would the framers of our Constitution do such a thing, and moreover, why two years later would they adopt a constitutional amendment declaring that the new federal government could "make no law respecting an establishment of religion?" Was it because they were militant atheists? Hardly. James Madison, the primary architect of our Constitution, studied under the tutelage of Presbyterian-preacher-turned-Princeton-president John Witherspoon and even considered a career in the ministry before opting for politics.

More likely, the framers were concerned about the corrupting influence the institutions of church and state have on each other when either becomes too cozy. These guys knew their history. They had witnessed the blood shed by governments in the name of religion. Europe was nearly destroyed by it. They also knew their politics. The Baptists, Presbyterians and other Evangelicals were fed up with religion that was "established" by the state (as was the Anglican Church in many Southern colonies and the Congregational Church in New England) and were determined to achieve full-throttle religious freedom for all — believers and non-believers alike. It was prominent Virginia Baptist John Leland who declared, "The notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever!" Pastor Leland went on to assert that "the fondness of magistrates to foster Christianity has done it more harm than all the persecutions ever did." Leland and his Baptist colleagues played a key role in helping persuade Madison to support a federal Bill of Rights guaranteeing liberty of conscience for all.

What 'separation' really means

America has institutionalized this great theological concept through the political mechanism of the First Amendment. The "no establishment" clause separates the institutions of church and state by prohibiting any government action that has the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion. Government is to remain neutral. No citizen should be advantaged or disadvantaged because of his religious faith.

The separation of church and state does not mean the separation of God and government or of religion and politics. The First Amendment limits only the power of government — not the power of the people or of the church. Religious organizations are free to speak out on the issues of the day. They can preach, pray, proselytize, promote and, yes, even endorse candidates if they are foolish enough to do so. (They will, however, have to forfeit their tax exemption if they use church funds, since we don't allow a tax deduction for monies given to partisan causes — just charitable ones.) Again, it is government — not religious organizations — that is restricted by our Constitution.

Oliver "Buzz" Thomas is a minister, lawyer and author of 10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can't Because He Needs the Job).

Labels: Christianity, God, Oliver "Buzz" Thomas, separation of church and state, US Constitution

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Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Is the United States really becoming a Christian nation?

By: Joe Morehart
Issue date: 7/18/07

Both the Christian cross and the American flag are often shown together in this country, and many preach patriotism as they say, "This is a Christian nation." To say this means to say that each individual inside the U.S. borders would agree with Jesus Christ, which is simply not true in a nation that depends largely on diversity of beliefs. It also means to say that Christ would agree with both the Christian church and with this nation's policies, which is highly unlikely, but impossible to know for sure.

"In God We Trust" was added to currency after the Civil War and "under God" was included in the Pledge of Allegiance after it was added by Congress in 1954. Is this the direction the Founding Fathers would have encouraged? This is impossible to know for sure.

History's truth has been spun and rewritten to serve the interpretations of different beliefs so much so, that some say our Founding Fathers were mostly deist, while others claim that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were based on the Ten Commandments.

Which is true? How much religion actually filters into governmental policies, and how realistic is the promise of a separation between church and state?

"[No elected official should be] limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation," John F. Kennedy said. Many polls, however, show that Kennedy's opinion is not entirely shared.

In a survey conducted in 2003 by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 52 percent said they would be reluctant to vote for an atheist and 38 percent said they would be reluctant to vote for a Muslim.

"I would suspect the real numbers are much higher," said Jeff Peake, political science professor at the University, said. "In those surveys, people tend to go for the more politically correct answer."

A favorable appearance for the candidate during the primaries is one of the most important reasons that they are elected. How much does religion affect the appearance of the candidate?

"If you are not Catholic or Protestant, religion is going to be the story," Peake said. "Just look at [Republican presidential hopeful and member of a Mormon church] Mitt Romney."

The media is quick to find the religious labels, which then become important, for one reason or another, to the candidates' identities. Is it more important what Romney thinks about health care or that he is a Mormon? Was it more important what Kennedy thought about civil rights or that he was Roman-Catholic?

Once in office, do the newly-elected officials govern based on what is best for the country or do they govern based on their religious beliefs?

The Pew Research Center, in the same survey attributed above, said that religion plays a role in the everyday life of 67 percent of those surveyed. Is this not the same for politicians whose "everyday life" consists of making and enforcing laws that the entire nation must obey?

Republicans have to appear more religious during their campaign to appease conservative voters, then once in office, they must compromise this religious appearance with the moderates and liberals in order to get their policy through, Peake said. To the Democrats, religion is less of an issue during their campaign so there is less of this compromise needed after being elected.

Gay marriage, stem-cell research, abortion, censorship, intelligent design versus evolution in schools and many other issues of today's world bleed over from religion to politics and are disputed on a daily basis. The separation of church and state as defined in the Constitution by America's founding fathers leaves the door open for different interpretations of what exactly that means. In the end, who has the authority to say that their beliefs are right?

Labels: America, Christian, Joe Morehart, Pew Research Center survey, politics, religion, separation of church and state

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Sunday, July 15, 2007

Our civil religion defines us

By Lloyd Omdahl,
Published Saturday, July 14, 2007

The issue of separation of church and state reared its divisive head in Fargo when the City Commission voted to move a monument proclaiming the Ten Commandments off of city property. Defenders immediately circulated petitions to initiate an ordinance that would prohibit removal of any monument that had been on city property over 40 years.

The 40-year provision will not save the monument. Court rulings have been fairly clear on the issue, requiring the inclusion of artifacts and sacred objects of other religions to demonstrate the neutrality of government toward all religions. In other words, the Ten Commandments must be secularized.

Centuries of experience with oppression arising out of an unholy integration of government and religion provide plenty of arguments for defending separation of church and state. Nevertheless, we have seen a growing affinity for integrating religion and government.

It isn’t that the merging of religion and government is something new in America. Over the past four centuries, Christian denominations have left their mark on the public square in a wide variety of ways. As a consequence, the idea of a Christian nation (perhaps an oxymoron) has grown into a civil religion.

In his recent book, Who Are We?, Prof. Samuel Huntington, a highly respected Harvard political science professor, discusses civil religion and explains that “civil religion enables Americans to bring together their secular politics and their religious society, to marry God and country, so as to give religious sanction to their patriotism…”

He saw four manifestations of civil religion in the United States.

1 The belief that the American system of governments rests on a religious base. This view is common coin among religious leaders looking for a rationale to justify a greater integration of church and state.

2 The belief that Americans are God’s chosen people. Emanating from the Old Testament, this myth has been used to justify several wars and genocide in the name of “Manifest Destiny.” (Example: Within 15 years of establishing their Godly “city on the hill” at Plymouth, the Christian colonists slaughtered the neighboring Pequot tribe for its land and praised God for delivering the Indians into their hands.)

3 Religious allusions and symbols in rituals and ceremonies are commonplace. On the political scene today, we see numerous references to God, faith and prayer, invoked to meet political and religious expectations.

4 Public ceremonies take on a religious flavor. The best examples of this characteristic are the presidential inaugurations featuring prominent religious figures invited to bless these secular events.

According to Huntington, America’s civil religion is a nondenominational, national religion that is not expressly a Christian religion, even though it is Christian in its origin. Then he offers his most compelling observation. Two words do not appear in civil religion statements and ceremonies, he says. Those two words are “Jesus Christ.”

“While the American Creed is Protestantism without God, the American civil religion is Christianity without Christ,” he concludes.

The addition of religious symbols and rituals to the public square, such as monuments of the Ten Commandments, gives strength and legitimacy to a national civil religion that becomes a substitute for personal faith. In the final analysis, all of the meaningless religious rhetoric and trappings in the public square are alien to the teachings of the New Testament.

Omdahl is former N.D. lieutenant governor and retired University of North Dakota political science teacher.

Labels: Christianity, civil religion, Jesus, Lloyd Omdahl, Samuel Huntington, separation of church and state, Unites States

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Friday, June 29, 2007

At CUNY, Religious Studies, or Religion?

The City University of New York Board of Trustees approved the creation of a religious studies major at Medgar Evers College on Monday, over the objections of CUNY faculty leaders who said the new program would blur the separation of church and state by focusing not on the study of religion but on the practice of certain religions. Medgar Evers, a predominantly black college in Brooklyn, is now set to enroll its first class of students in the interdisciplinary program, which culminates in a B.A. in religious studies, this fall. The program aims to help students “explore how religion functions in and shapes the modern world and how it empowers, enlightens, limits, complicates, inspires and conflicts modern society,” the program proposal says. “Degree candidates will study and analyze the most important standard texts and investigate contemporary and historical religious practices from a global perspective, with emphasis on religions of the African Diaspora.”

The religious studies program has considerable support on the Medgar Evers campus and was approved by the college’s faculty in May 2006. Charlotte Phoenix, the college’s interim provost, said that the institution’s history of activism means that “if in fact there was faculty opposition [to the program] on this campus, everyone would have heard about it.”

At Monday’s meeting, Frederick P. Schaffer, senior vice chancellor for legal affairs and general counsel at the CUNY system, said he “saw nothing” to back up the concerns of some members of the University Faculty Senate who feared that the program might violate the Constitutional separation of church and state. The concerns, he asserted, were based not on the proposal but on the religious backgrounds of the program’s faculty and of the college’s president. Edison O. Jackson, the president of Medgar Evers, is an ordained minister who serves on the ministerial staff of an African Methodist Episcopal church in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Faculty leaders, however, cited a range of perceived problems with the degree program as conceived by Medgar Evers. At a June 4 meeting of the trustees’ Committee on Academic Policy, Programs and Research, Lenore Beaky, vice chair of the systemwide University Faculty Senate and the senate’s representative on the board committee, read a statement from the senate’s executive committee that called the Medgar Evers proposal “seriously deficient in several important respects.”

One concern, Beaky said, was that “the proposal appears to promote the practice of religion to teach religion rather than to teach about religion.” The program, she added, “would be unconstitutional [because] as a public university we cannot violate the separation of church and state by favoring either religion or any particular variety of religion.”

The program, Beaky said, was “geared to … community experiences more suited to the practice of African-American protestant religions,” rather than the academic study of religion. She pointed to the religious affiliations of the college faculty who would teach in the program, as well the Christian affiliations of all of the scholars and others from whom Medgar Evers sought endorsements in its proposal.

Of the nine faculty members whose C.V.s are included with the proposal and who are to teach in the religious studies program, five focus their work on Christianity or African-American churches. Three others are scholars of philosophy and the fourth studies Islam in the black community.

Beaky also complained that students would also be required to do internships “requiring them to work closely with professionals, practitioners, and/or graduate professors in their field of choice in order to obtain hands-on experiences in the professional practices related to religious studies,” at least some at community and faith-based organizations. The proposal, Beaky added, confirmed that the program is “geared more toward the personal development of students — development as agents of change — rather than of their critical understanding of religions,” as would be expected of a liberal arts major in religion.

Manfred Philipp, chair of the University Faculty Senate and a chemistry professor at Lehman College in the Bronx, also criticized the program’s “sectarian” focus. At a public hearing on June 17, Philipp asked why there were no specific course offerings on Roman Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity and other Christian branches, while there were several courses on the religions of African-Americans and Caribbeans.

Phoenix, the college’s provost, responded by calling the groups Philipp listed as “sects” and suggesting that students could take independent study classes to learn about those groups. In an interview, she also proposed that students could do internships with those groups or research about them to fulfill the major’s requirements, adding that “the courses in the proposal are just the ones we’ll have at the beginning, but as the major grows, we’ll add more classes and more specific classes.”

Philipp also contends that the program offers several courses on “a specific brand of Christianity” — the Protestantism found in black churches — including a required upper-level course called “African Traditional Religions.” Students concentrating in philosophy and religion would also be required to take “Black Philosophical Thought” and students in the religion and social justice concentration would be required to take “Caribbean Religions and Social Justice Movements” and “The Role of the Church in the Black Community.” Other than a class on Buddhism and Hinduism required of the philosophy concentrators, all of the other required classes are surveys, such as “Peace Education,” “Religious Ethics” and “Philosophy of Religion.”

But Phoenix defended the religious studies major as “a way to explore how religion functions in and shapes the modern world.” It was not intended to be “an exhaustive look at every religion in the world — there’s no way we could cover them all,” she said, but rather a course of study focused on the “social science perspective” on modern religion.

“Our program is in no way trying to prepare students for seminary or sectarian studies, because that’s not what most of our students want,” Phoenix added, explaining that a survey of students interested in the religious studies major found that students were more likely to want to go to law school or to pursue non-profit or social service jobs than to go on to study divinity or become clergy members.

Jeremy Leaming, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said “the fact that some faculty say it may not be a very well-rounded program at the moment doesn’t amount to a violation of the separation of church and state.” Unless there is evidence that the program’s faculty are “trying to proselytize or inculcate Christianity or another religion,” he said, there are no grounds for objection to the religious studies program.

“Public universities,” Leaming added, “must ensure that religious study courses are just that, academic courses on religion, and not classes that should be taught at a bible seminary or a bible college.” He declined to comment further without more information on the program at Medgar Evers.

Labels: Christianity, CUNY, Medgar Evers College, religion, religious study, separation of church and state

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Thursday, May 10, 2007

Parsing the Polls: Religion in Public Life

Sifting through the transcript of last week's Republican presidential debate, we came across this exchange between former Govs. Mitt Romney (Mass.) and Mike Huckabee (Ark.) about the role of religion in the public square.

Romney: "We have a separation of church and state. It's served us well in this country. This is a nation, after all, that wants a leader that's a person of faith, but we don't choose our leader based on which church they go to."

Huckabee: "I said, in general -- and I would say this tonight to any of us -- when a person says, 'My faith doesn't affect my decision- making,' I would say that the person is saying their faith is not significant to impact their decision process. I tell people up front, 'My faith does affect my decision process.' It explains me. No apology for that."

The candidates' comments got us thinking about how much or little the American public wants to hear about religion from their elected officials. Conventional wisdom says that most voters want a person of faith in the White House but are simultaneously wary of religion encroaching upon affairs of state.

Is that conventional wisdom right? Let's Parse the Polls!

First of all, it's important to set the backdrop on which the debate over how much religion we want in our public policy takes place. According to exit polling in 2004 and 2005, roughly nine in ten voters say they have a religious beleif system of some sort ("Protestant/other Christian" is by far the largest group), while 85 percent said they went to church at least a few times a year.

Looking at those numbers it's clear that the vast majority of Americans not only see themselves as religious but also seek out the communal setting of a church, synagogue, mosque, etc. at least a few times a year.

But, when it comes to whether religion should play a larger role in public life, people are far more divided.

In a January 2007 survey, Gallup asked people whether they would like to see "organized religion have more influence in this nation, less influence, or keep its influence as it is now." Twenty seven percent said they would like to see religion play a larger role, 32 percent said they'd prefer a smaller role and 39 percent said they would like to keep the status quo.

Those numbers are remarkably consistent with an April 2005 Washington Post/ABC News poll. In that survey, 27 percent said they preferred religion have "greater" influence in public life, 35 percent said "less" while 36 percent chose "the same."

Compare those numbers to a Gallup poll conducted in January 2001 -- at the start of the Bush Administration. In that poll 22 percent said they wanted less religion in the public sphere. In 2007, 32 percent said the same thing, a jump of ten percent in six years. Some have speculated that President Bush's willingness to talk publicly about his faith -- combined with his growing disapproval ratings -- may be responsible for the rise in the percentage of people who are put off by politics influenced by religion.

A May 2004 CBS News poll asked what worried people more: "Public officials who don't pay enough attention to religion and religious leaders or public officials who are too close to religion and religious leaders?"

Overalll 35 percent said they worried more about politicians not paying enough attention to religion, while 51 percent said they fretted about politicians paying too much attention. Isolate Republicans, however, and the numbers were nearly reversed with 53 percent saying politicians don't pay enough attention and 30 percent choosing the "too close" option. Compare that with just 25 percent of Democrats and 29 percent of Independents who wanted public officials to pay more attention to religion and religious leaders. The partisan gap is obvious.

While the American public is closely divided over the role religion should play in public life, there is a less of a chasm when it comes to several religion-related policy fights like prayer in school or displaying the Ten Commandments on government property.

An August 2005 Gallup poll showed 76 percent of the sample favored a constitutional amendment to allow voluntary prayer in schools, while just 23 percent opposed it. In that same survey 60 percent said that religion had "too little of a presence" in public schools while 27 percent said the amount of religion in schools was about right and 11 percent said it was too much.

The American public also tends to favor the display of the Ten Commandments on government property with 75 percent of a CNN/USA Today/Gallup sample in June 2005 saying the Supreme Court should allow that sort of display and just 23 percent saying it should not.

What to make of this raft of numbers? That we are a country divided -- sometimes even within ourselves -- when it comes to the proper role of religion in public life. On the one hand most Americans see themselves as a religious people; on the other, they remain generally wary about religion seeping into politics.

Because no obvious consensus exists, it's likely that the politicians running for president in 2008 will seek to find a balance between making clear to voters that they believe in a higher power while also making clear they won't be taking their marching orders from the church they attend.

It's a complicated position but reflects the divided mind most Americans have when it comes to religion's role in everday life.

The Fix owes a big debt of gratitude to The Washington Post polling team of Jon Cohen and Jennifer Agiesta. As they so often do, the two provided essential help in making sense of all these numbers.

Labels: Americans, faith, Gallup, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, politics, religion, separation of church and state, Ten Commandments, voters