Breaches in the Wall of Separation

Currently we are riding a wave of threats to our liberties coming from the religious right. A woman’s right to control her body, struck down.  Tennessee passing a law allowing public officials, government officials, to refuse to perform gay marriages due to that official’s religious beliefs.  And Alabama’s ruling that a fetus is a person, even using quotes from the Bible as part of its reasoning. 

Given all of this I thought it appropriate to again go over why the separation of church and state is not only important but also critical to the protection of all our rights.  I did so once using history to show why.  This time I plan to use current examples, namely China, India, Israel, and the US. 

China

Some, perhaps many, will be quick to point out that China is not religious.  It does not endorse Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, or any other religion.  It is an atheist state.  Which is exactly the point.  It proclaims a position on something considered religious – whether God exists.  While in one definition of the term secular China is indeed secular.  However, in another definition, the one I am using, it most definitely is not. 

What many do not realize is that there is a difference between being secular and being atheist.  Secular actually comes in three types.  However, in regard to government, it means that that government takes no stance on purely religious issues. They neither promote nor discourage any one religious view.  Even atheism.  And it is that meaning that I will be referring to in this blog when I say secular.  Let me also mention that as with all human institutions, there is no perfection.  There are several secular governments but some are more secular than others.  And many proclaim themselves to be secular but are not.

China though is not a secular government.  It officially describes itself as being atheist.  And although they recognize five religions – Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism – party officials have to be atheists.  And even the officially recognized five religions are closely monitored and restricted.  And if your religion is not one of these five – well, good luck. 

Through the years Chinese actions in regard to religion have changed.  However, they have always been regulated and those considered dangerous condemned and outlawed, while atheism has always been favored. 

The current government of China is “urging all religious groups in China to adapt to socialism by integrating their doctrines, customs and morality with Chinese culture.”  They also have to pledge loyalty to the state. 

They have tightened controls on all the official religions – detaining Uyghurs (Muslims) in Xinjiang and cracking down on underground Quran study groups,  reinforced its ban on unauthorized Protestant worship sites, forcing house churches to join a state-run association and detaining Protestant religious leaders who refuse to cooperate and other actions.  They have though been more lenient towards the native religions – Buddhism and Taoism, allocating money for different projects relating to these two religions. 

So, unlike in secular governments, religion and religious thought and belief is heavily regulated.  Limits are applied to speech and to associations.  All flowing from the lack of separation of church and state.

One point of interest here.  Laws against homosexuality are often said to be related to religious beliefs. Yet, in China, an atheist state, while it is legal to be gay it is still illegal for them to marry or to have civil unions.  Further there are no protections against discrimination in regard to housing and employment, conversion therapy is allowed, gays are not allowed to donate blood.  And can only adopt a child if they are single.   

India

India is officially a secular state.  It says so in its Constitution.  However, in that same Constitution the government is allowed to interfere in matters of religious belief and actions.  Some of this though was necessary and good, such as the abolition of the untouchable caste, and opening up the Hindu temples to lower castes.  Others though, such as the partial funding of religious schools as well as religious buildings are not, are dangerous cracks in the wall of separation. 

An even more dangerous crack in that wall is their allowance of the individual states to make their own laws regulating religious institutions.  And unless they conflict with the central government laws, they stand.  This has led to a variety of laws in regard to religious rights within India, and greater breaches to the wall.  These laws include 11 states outlawing religious conversions.

This mix means that India is more of a quasi-secular state than an actual one.  And just as in the US, there is a conservative religious movement working to have India declared a Hindu nation, with motions to have their Constitution reflect this.  It is no surprise that there has been a rise in religious violence, – Muslims mainly, but also against Christians and Dalits.  As exemplified by the many violent acts during the recent inauguration of the Hindu Ram Temple. 

Israel

Israel is not a secular state.  It proclaims itself a Jewish state and Jews are favored over other groups within Israel.  It does not allow civil marriages and non-religious divorces, the Chief Rabbinate controls all Jewish weddings, divorces, conversions and answers questions on who a Jew for purposes of immigration is.  The ministry of education oversees both the secular and religious schools of all faiths, giving them only a limited degree of independence along with a common core curriculum.  And although it protects some faiths, others are not so favored.  Including some Jewish groups. 

However, despite all of this, it does come closer to realizing the protections within its political structure for other religions than either India or China.  But that is trending downwards. Especially the rise of the religious right in Israel, the rights of non-Jews is becoming more precarious.

Even worse it is this religious belief on the part of the Jewish religious conservatives that is one of the main reasons why Israel continues to expand into the West Bank and controlling Gaza, with the claim that they both are part of the Israel in the Bible. 

Finally there is the fact that their religious identity conflicts with their identity as a democracy.  Currently that is not a pressing issue. Although it means that if Israel does formally make the West Bank and Gaza strip part of Israel they will be faced with a decision.  Name do they allow the Arab and mainly Muslim inhabitants to vote with the very real possibility that items related to Judaism and government may be changed?  Do they also formally make them second class citizens without the right to vote?  Or do they do a massive deportation?   None of those are good options, but that is what Israel will be facing someday, even without annexing the West Bank and Gaza. 

The United States

I came across this description of the state of secularism (from the above link about secular) in the United States and liked it.

“The United States is a secular country in theory, but it falls short in actual practice. The U.S. is a self-described secular state and is often considered to be constitutionally secular. The U.S. Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Additionally, keeping with the lack of an established state religion, Article Six of the U.S. Constitution states that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

On the other hand, many official U.S. materials still include clear references to religion. The Pledge of Allegiance includes the line “one nation under God,” which is undeniably non-secular. Also, the phrase “In God We Trust” appears on all United States currency (both coins and paper bills) and became the official United States motto in 1956. While religious references such as these are common in many countries, their presence inspires understandable debate about the separation of church and state, as well as whether the U.S. is truly devoted to secularism.”

There are many threats to rights from many different directions and with many different motivations and causes. Breaking the wall separating religion and state though is a common route for such threats to become reality.  That is because it involves matters of conscience and morality, and beliefs that most consider very important.

Once a state starts to identify with a religion then anyone not of that religion becomes, at the very least, slightly suspicious since they are not a good “insert name of state here”.  Worse case, they are persecuted.  Their speech is limited, their ability to associate with others limited, their ability to build houses of worship limited, their ability to hold office limited, their ability to marry and raise children limited.  Eventually these limits turn into being jailed, or forced to move to camps. 

When religions is used as the primary basis for passing laws then we see what we are seeing play out in the US – book bannings increasing, restrictions on bodily autonomy, making the fetus equal in the eyes of the law with a person, allowing government officials to refuse to marry gays, etc. 

The separation of church and state is not only important for the right of individuals to believe as they think best but also to protect us against unnecessary laws based upon other’s conscience. It is why there has to be a secular basis for laws.  It may coincide with a particular religious view – in fact it most often will. With several religious views in fact. But the basis for the law has to be secular not religious 

People look at the small things that encroach upon that wall of separation –  police cars with “In God We Trust”, a cross in a public school classroom, allowing students to fly the Christian flag on the public school flagpole, opening public meetings with a prayer, etc. – and think this is minor.  It is not a big deal.  However, it is through such small things that rafts are created that lift some people above others – those of the right religious beliefs.  The rest get left behind to swim, or more likely, sink. 

As a bit of an aside, for those who call us a Christian nation and who say our country was founded upon Christianity, you need to consider why I chose this time to write my blog.  My idea for this blog actually came about when listening to a Christian religious talk show discussing how the government of India was no longer protecting the religious rights of non-Hindus and of the dangers of “Hindu Nationalism”.  I think they should have used a mirror during that discussion. 

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To Those Christians Persecuted by Starbuck’s Christmas Coffee Cup

To those Christians who are persecuted by Starbuck’s Christmas Coffee Cup, Pastor Saeed Abedini sends his support and prayers as you battle this egregious defamation of the Christian faith. Or he would were he not in prison in Iran for being a Christian.

To those Christians who are persecuted by Starbuck’s Christmas Coffee Cup, Michael Kayyal and Maher Mahfouz, priests of the Armenian and Greek Orthodox Church respectively, send their support and prayers as you battle this egregious defamation of the Christian faith. Or they would had they not been kidnapped by ISIS and executed.

To those Christians who are persecuted by Starbuck’s Christmas Coffee Cup, the Christian Churches of North Korea and China send their support and prayers as you battle this egregious defamation of the Christian faith. Or they would were they not in jail or concentration camps.

To those Christians who are think that they are persecuted here in the United States, is your need to feel persecuted so strong that you have to generate fantasies? Is your faith so weak and in need of justification that you search and dig to generate stories of dark oppression so you can congratulate yourself on how strong your faith is and on how steadfastly you defend your faith?

Such fantasies that are so out of touch with reality damage the image of the Christian and Christian church that you say you love.

It damages the image of the United States, a country in which freedom of religion is cherished and which has given you so much freedom that you apparently wish there were less of it.

It damages the plight of those Christians and Christian churches that really are persecuted around the world. Your narcissistic need, by generating a false persecution, takes the focus and attention off of their real suffering and tribulations

It damages you and your reputation. Why should anyone take you seriously now? Aside from Donald Trump that is.

Addendum:  I know that I am an atheist and to some this might seem a strange way to blog about this issue.  However, I  strongly support religious freedom for all, believing in its necessity for a peaceful and just society, and so am against any government or society that does not allow this freedom.  Contrasting what those Christians face with the fantasy of these American Christians seemed an effective way to show the ridiculous nature of the American’s supposed persecution.  Now, I wish that all of those groups who are doing such an admirable job of reporting and working to keep in our minds those Christians who are being persecuted would extend their reach to cover all religions and religious beliefs that are persecuted whoever and wherever they may be.  Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, all.  Including that of the atheist.

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Three Reasons Why Christians Who Believe Homosexuality is a Sin Should Oppose Legalizing Discrimination Against Gays

Even though Arizona Governor Brewer has vetoed the legislation that would have allowed those with religious objections to deny service to gays, the debate will still go heatedly on.   The Christian right who pushed for the passage of this bill will condemn Governor Brewer, those business groups who pressured her into vetoing it, and the gay rights movement and their supporters.  However, the Christian right will also continue to push for similar legislation that has already been proposed in Missouri, Georgia, Kansas, Maine, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, and Tennessee.   And I am sure that with the recent federal court decision to overturn Texas’ law against gay marriage that one will be proposed in Texas too.   That will keep this issue simmering in the press for months to come.

However, I can’t help but wonder if these Christians have really thought this through in terms of their faith and beliefs.   While no longer a Christian, I was at one time and still have many Christian friends and relatives.   Based on knowing them and on knowing Christianity and the Bible, I think that the Christian conservatives who are supporting these sorts of laws are not following their faith faithfully.   To my mind, and in the minds of many Christians too, there are three good reasons for why even a Christian who believes homosexuality is a sin should be against these laws.

 

First,  there is the example of Jesus.   He did not shun the sinners and the tax collectors, he did not refuse to see and deal with the Samaritans and the pagans.   If he did not, then why should the Christian businessman of today refuse to serve gays?     This refusal to deal with gays seems to me closer to the actions of the Pharisees who condemned Jesus than that of Jesus.

Now it can, and I am sure will, be argued that Jesus did so to save them, to show them the way. However, I do not believe that all such sinners were saved, and yet he still met and socialized with them.   Further, consider your actions if you turn away a gay person from your business.   What sort of witness does that provide?

You deal with other sinners (something I deal with in the second reason), yet you refuse to deal with them.   Where is the loving acceptance?   Where is the chance to show the much touted Christian love and care?   Instead what you have done is shown a cold heart.   You are providing a business service for a person.   You do not have to condone the sin of your customers, but you should not reject the sinner in doing so – which is what the refusal to provide that business service does.

 

Second , why refuse to deal with gays but still deal with other sinners?   Since many of the examples I have heard of deal with weddings, let me use and example appropriate for weddings.

You are a Christian baker of very conservative and very deep and sincere beliefs.  Because of these, you refuse to create a wedding cake for the wedding of a gay couple.   So, do you also reject the business of a Jewish and Christian couple getting married?   What about the marriage of an atheist and Christian, or a Baptist and Catholic?    After all, according to the Bible:  ^“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” 2 Corinthians 6:14 (NIV)

For many conservative Christians this is a command not to marry those of different faiths.   So, for those Christians, will they continue to marry couples who are unequally yoked despite what the Bible says?

Or what about divorced couples?   After all, Jesus said:  ^“But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”  Matthew 5:32 (NIV).

This means that any divorced couple who were divorced for any reason other than adultery are themselves committing the act of adultery by getting married again.   Do you bake their cake, for these sinners?   If you do not for gays, then, to be consistent, you should not for the divorced and for the unequally yoked.   Yet I know of no one advocating for that, nor engaging in such discrimination.

So, why the double standard?  Is not hypocrisy also a sin?

Further, according to standard Christian doctrine, all of humanity is fallen with a sinful nature.  We all sin.  Most do not repent or regret many of their sins.  So, given this, why provide a cake for most sinners but not those sinners who are gay?

The problem here is two-fold.  First off, homosexuality as a sin is treated differently by conservative Christians today than most other sins.   Yet, it is a sin not mentioned by Jesus (adultery was, yet that does not seem to be as great a concern in regards to being a customer for a business owned by a Christian),   It is not one that takes up that many verses within the Bible.   Many other sins take up much more space of the Bible than homosexuality does.   In fact, homosexuality does not even make it into the 10 commandments.   Yet so many treat it as if homosexuality is the worst of sins, so terrible that, in their business, they will deal with all manner of other sinners except the gay sinners.

The other fold of the problem is that in taking this attitude, it assumes that the businessperson, in providing the service of his business is in some manner condoning the morality of his customer.  It does not.  You are providing a service, a product for the public – all of the public.   Doesn’t matter if the person is a smoker, you create a wedding cake.  Doesn’t matter if one is an alcoholic, has lied on their tax returns or resume, has cursed his parents and refuses to have anything to do with them, eats too much, has a bad sense of fashion, is a Muslim or atheist – you create them a cake.   Your business is to create a wedding cake, and that is what it is, a business, not an endorsement.

Providing a service to the public does not mean that you condone that person’s lifestyle and choices.   If it did you would have to start having people fill out a questionnaire before serving them; after which your client base would become so sparse as to force you to close your doors due to lack of viable customers.

 

Third, the United States has a secular government.  Our founders created a secular government – the first one in the world – in order to protect the freedom for every citizen to believe as they saw fit.

While your religious beliefs may be the basis of your morals, and may be one reason why our representatives propose a law, they should not be the sole reason for our laws.   There should always be some secular reason, a reason common to all regardless of religious belief, for all laws.   To do otherwise would be to prefer one religion over all others in our nation, and thus set the stage for the same strife and war that we see in much of European history and in the Middle East today, and that the American colonies started to experience in the beginning.     But perhaps a few examples would help bring this into focus better.

There has been a great deal of push to have the 10 Commandments posted in schools and courthouses, so let us use that as an example.  And using the version of the 10 Commandments used by Orthodox and Reformed Christians (but not Lutherans, Jews, and Catholics), consider the 1^st and 4^th Commandments.

The first commandment – You shall have no other Gods before me.    That is a commandment.   It is part of your strong religious beliefs, so strong that you try to get it put into our nation’s schools and courthouses.   Yet, to enact this as law would be to violate our Constitution and its religious freedoms.   After all, you are first going to have to decide whose God should have no others before him.   And won’t that be a fun conversation, one that will be as divisive and, probably, wind up as violent as the conversation our nation had about slavery in the mid 19^th century.  After all, whoever loses this argument, their religious beliefs wind up being deemed inferior and decidedly second class with only second class protections, at best.

The fourth commandment – Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.   First question that comes up in making this the law of the land, whose Sabbath day?   That of the Baptists, the Methodists, and the Catholics?  The Jews and Seventh Day Adventists?  What about the Muslim?

Then comes the question of what it means to keep it holy?  This question is followed closely by one asking, what about those U.S. citizens who are not part of that religious belief?   I imagine this would include, at the very least, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, and Atheists.   Dependent on the answer, many forms of Christianity would also be on this list.   Again, what about their rights to practice their beliefs in the way they see fit, without interference from the government?

Trying to base a law solely on a religious belief is an act of exclusion and not inclusion and is what has torn nations and countries apart in the past.  It is something that our founders realized and why they created a secular government.   It is why there needs to be a secular reason for laws, reasons that will impact a person regardless of their religious belief.    To not hold to this standard is to trade a possible short term gain for the majority religion into a long term disaster for all – including those in the majority.

And, finally, in regards to this point, do you really want your religion to be linked with the government?   History has shown that linking religion to government damages both.   This fact, that linking religion to government causes great harm to religion, is why it was a Puritan theologian and founder of the Baptist Church in America who first argued for a complete and total separation of church and state (one more thorough than our own today), and who then proceeded to create the first government to embrace this ideal – Roger Williams.

 

Final Thought – Each of the above arguments alone should be enough to make a Christian who believes homosexuality to be sinful to pause and think again before pressing for such discriminatory laws such as the one that almost passed in Arizona.   Together though, these arguments support and aide each other so that the sum of these arguments is greater than each part.    Laws allowing discrimination in business based upon religious belief is a bad idea, even from the standpoint of those Christians who believe homosexuality a sin.

 

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What Most Have Forgotten

The sight of gallows loaded with the bodies of men and women hanged and sometimes mutilated just for their beliefs. Men such as the Jesuit John Ogilvie who was sentenced to death by a Glasgow court and hanged and disemboweled on March 10, 1615.

The thousands of men and women deprived of their property due to being of the wrong religion with the definition of the wrong religion changing when the English rulers changed. First Protestant, then Catholic, then Protestant again.

The thousands of Lutheran men, women, and children who starved and froze to death when, on October 31, 1731, 20,000 of them were expelled from their homes in Salzburger, Austria by the Archbishop Leopold von Firmian. They were given only eight days to leave their homes.

The drowning of Protestants by the Irish Catholics in 1641. After holding them as prisoners and torturing them, the Catholics then forced them to the bridge over the River Bann, forced them to strip, and then drove them into the water at sword point. Those that survived the plunge were then shot.

Our Founders remembered this and more. It is why there is no mention of Christianity, no mention of God, no mention of Jesus in the Constitution. Our Founders set up a secular state so that freedom of conscience would be guarded for all men.

The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in Paris on August 24, 1572 when thousands of Huguenots (Protestants) were butchered by Catholic mobs. This was just the worst of the many killings and riots that occurred during the 30 years of war between the French Protestants and Catholics that started in 1562.

The Huguenots disemboweling and burying alive priests. The killing of Catholic children. The torture of priests and Catholics during the same 30-year war.

John Rogers being burned alive at Smithfield England, the “first Protestant martyr” executed by England’s Catholic Queen Mary.

The smell of burning flesh as John Lambert was chained to a stake in 1537 at Smithfield, England and then burned. He had defended his conscience and faith after being summoned to an inquisition.

For not enshrining God and Christianity into its text the Constitution was heavily criticized. This omission of God and Christianity was denounced by the Reverend John M. Mason who declared it “an omission which no pretext whatever can palliate.” He went on to warn “we will have every reason to tremble lest the Governor of the universe, who will not be treated with indignity by a people more than by individuals, overturn from its foundations the fabric we have been rearing and crush us to atoms in the wreck.”

 

Others warned of the dangers of not putting God and Christianity into the Constitution because it would be an “invitation for Jews and pagans of every kind to come among us.” and that “a Turk, a Jew, a Roman Catholic, and what is worse than all, a Universalist, may be President of the United States.”

 

Our Founders knew that, with most of the states having religious tests for citizenship and holding office, that pushing a thoroughly secular Constitution would be difficult. Yet they did push.

 

George Washington, John Adam, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and the others of our Founders considered the lack of religion in the Constitution important enough to weather the firestorm of criticism to get the Constitution ratified as it was – without God and without religion.

 

In fact, eventually all the states would follow the lead of the writers of the Constitution and erect their own wall of separation between church and state.

Anne Hutchison defending her beliefs and being banished by the Puritans from the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637. The same Puritans who were persecuted in England and sailed to the New World carried the Old World’s intolerance of dissent with them. Anne Hutchison, her servants, and 5 of her children were killed by Indians in New York in 1643.

Roger Williams’ defense of the separation of church and state in the mid 17th century. He believed that the state should not be involved in religion at all. He believed that all men — the Muslims, Jews, infidels, and atheists – should have freedom of conscience and for the state to be involved in any way with religion would infringe on this right. His books were banned and burned in England. In America he was banished by the Puritans.

The persecution of the Quakers by the Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1656 the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed laws against anyone bringing Quakers into the Colony or anyone harboring them. They would be fined 100 pounds and then either imprisoned or banished. Other fines included 54 pounds for possessing Quaker books or writings, 40 pounds for defending the teachings of Quakers, 44 pounds for a second offence of defending the teachings, followed by imprisonment until the offender could be shipped out. The laws also allowed corporal punishment ie., whippings, cutting off of ears, boring holes in tongues, and hanging. Mary Dyer, William Robinson, Marmaduke Stephenson were some among many who braved these punishments in order to speak their conscience. All three had been banished, endured flogging, and were eventually hanged.

Today we take the benefits of keeping church and state separate too much for granted. It has allowed us to avoid most of the religious violence that has embroiled much of the world despite our being the most religiously diverse nation on earth.

 

Even though we are home for Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Protestants, and Catholics we have avoided the strife that plagues India from the Hindus and Muslims, the wars that consume the Middle East between the Sunnis, Shiites, Jews, and Christians, and the violence between the Protestants and Catholics in Ireland.

 

We take these so much for granted that many do not understand why the state cannot favor any religion; why the state shouldn’t fund or help religious groups and organizations.

 

In An Essay On Toleration Benjamin Franklin wrote, “If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Roman Church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. These found it wrong in the bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here and in New England.”

In his statement about why he refused to proclaim a national day of fasting and prayer Andrew Jackson in 1832 said, “I could not do otherwise without transcending the limits prescribed by the Constitution for the President and without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion nowadays enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government.”

James Madison, the chief author of our Constitution, wrote in a letter objecting to the use of government land for churches in 1803, “The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.”

The Treaty of Tripoli of 1797, carried unanimously by the Senate reads, “As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen (Muslims) … it is declared.. that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation.”

In a letter John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson, “I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved– the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!”

These and more statements from our founders, from George Washington to Thomas Paine, from Ethan Allen to Thomas Jefferson all attest to the fact that they set up a secular government in order to preserve the new country that they had created from being torn by religious wars. A country where all men, not just Christians but all men, would be free to follow their conscience and express their beliefs.

During the beginning of the Civil War, the National Reform Association was founded in order to correct the mistake that was tearing our nation apart. No, it was not slavery that was the mistake in the eyes of these clergymen but instead it was the lack of an acknowledgement of God and Jesus in our Constitution.

 

In 1863 an attempt was made to amend the Constitution’s preamble and there acknowledge not only God but also Jesus Christ as the source our government. A foreshadowing of one of our recent President’s use of Jesus as his political mentor.

The clergy involved in the National Reform Association devised a statement that would not offend any of the mainstream Protestant denominations (they were not worried of course about Jews, Quakers, or Catholics who, being religious minorities, were aghast at the idea). It proposed replacing “We, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union…” with “Recognizing almighty God as the source of all authority and power in civil government, and acknowledging the Lord Jesus Christ as the Governor among the nations, his revealed will as the supreme law of the land, in order to constitute a Christian government…” Shades of the Islamic constitution in Iran.

The National Reform Association met with President Lincoln in February 1864 and presented him with their petition for a Christian government. His response was the observation that “…the work of amending the Constitution should never be done hastily.” and a promise to “take such action upon it as my responsibility to my Maker and our country demands.” He then took no action at all. Neither did Congress, instead tabling the resolution for years until it was forgotten.

 

Now these and other histories have been forgotten. We have taken for granted the benefits of a secular government. Now a new mythology is being created that our founders would be appalled by. The myth that the United States of America was created as a Christian Nation.

 

We no longer remember why that road is such a dangerous one. We no longer seem to understand why a secular government is necessary for the continued freedom of belief and conscience that we now so blithely enjoy.

 

Even such seemingly laudable actions such as giving government money to religious charities creates problems and raises troubling questions.

 

When the government gives money, as in the faith based charity programs, it decides which religions get money and which do not. Is it really any surprise that during President Bush’s Presidency the vast majority of the money is given to evangelical organizations that supported him?  Is it any surprise that only they, out of all the organizations that our government supports with our money, are allowed to discriminate in hiring on the basis of religion with that money?

 

And how will you react when Moslems charities start receiving money? How about Scientology? Wiccan charities? Secular Humanist charities? Do you approve and trust our government to start picking and choosing what religions are “worthy” of receiving money and government approval and which are “unworthy?”

 

Despite all the talk about original intent we are moving away from what our founders intended.

 

Although some of our founders were traditional Christians, most, while devout, were not traditionally so. Many believed that religion encouraged morality in the common people and so followed religious practices. All, though, recognized the danger that comes from religion and government becoming entangled. All recognized the necessity for a secular government. All remembered the reasons why a strict separation between church and state is necessary. I think it is time that many of us read more thoroughly our own and European history and take a good look at the world around us.

 

I think it is time that we start remembering again.

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Secular Governments and Religious Cultures

I have seen some atheists decrying what they see as the religious government of the United States.  Some have even gone so far as to label it a theocracy.   It is not though.  What such people fail to do is distinguish the government from the culture of the United States.

The Flavor of a Democracy

The government of the United States is most assuredly secular.  However it is also equally assuredly a democracy and a strongly religious culture.  These two points are important.  They are important because all democracies take on the flavor of the dominant culture.  It is inevitable.  After all, a democracy reflects the will of the people – they elect officials, vote on laws, and are polled on what they believe and want and if elected officials desire to be re-elected such desires have to be considered.  Further, elected officials are drawn from the culture which means that whatever is the predominant strain running through a culture and society then people who believe in that strain and think like that strain will get elected more frequently than those that do not.

This fact is highlighted by the recent Pew poll on the composition of our 2013 Congress.

http://www.pewforum.org/Government/Faith-on-the-Hill-The-Religious-Affiliations-of-Members-of-Congress.aspx

“Members of Congress are often accused of being out of touch with average citizens, but an examination of the religious affiliations of U.S. senators and representatives shows that, on one very basic level, Congress looks much like the rest of the country. Although a majority of the members of the new, 111th Congress, which will be sworn in on Jan. 6, are Protestants, Congress – like the nation as a whole – is much more religiously diverse than it was 50 years ago.”

While there is some variation in religious representation in Congress with that of  American society, most notably among the nones, as a whole it fairly closely matches.  Given all of this it would be surprising if our government did not have a religious flavor.  It is made up of religious people and is reflective of American society at large.

However, our government having a religious flavor is not the same as it actually being religious.  It is rather more like those fruit juice drinks with artificial flavoring but containing no real fruit juice.

A Secular Government

Let us start this section by noting that the United States Constitution is a starkly secular one.  There is no reference to God or Christianity in it.  The only religious reference are the ones telling the government to stay out of the individual’s religious beliefs – the no religious test for public office clause and the 1^st amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

Indeed, as an outline for the workings of government it is more secular than almost any other such document for any other government.

It is more secular than Canada’s, “Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law.”

It is more secular than Denmark’s, “The Evangelical Lutheran Church shall be the Established Church of Denmark, and, as such, it shall be supported by the State.”

It is more secular than Germany’s, “”Conscious of their responsibility before God and man, … the German people, in the exercise of their constituent power, have adopted this Basic Law.”

It is more secular than Australia’s, “Whereas the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown … Be it therefore enacted … as follows:”

Much more secular than Ireland’s, “In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred, We, the people of Éire, humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial, … do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution.”

It is more secular than Switzerland’s, “In the name of Almighty God! The Swiss People and the Cantons … adopt the following Constitution:”

And the list goes on.

So, despite what some believe, both atheist and theist, the United States is a solidly secular government.  One though set in a religious culture, in fact one of the most religious cultures in the industrialized nations.

So, how does the interplay of religious culture and secular government work out then.

Secular Government Meets Religious Culture

The United States secular government restricts how far legislation based solely on religion can go.  It does so through several different methods.

First, the fact that our Congress represents the views of a great many diverse people means that the more radical religious acts die without even being voted on.  Of those that do get voted on the majority will wind up never passing.  And then it still has to be signed by the President.

Keep in mind that there are numerous voices clamoring to be heard during this whole process.  This includes the secular and those who value church/state separation as well as the religious who wish to impose their views on all.

Even should such legislation (overtly religious) get passed there is still another check point – the judiciary system.  Such laws can be challenged in court and the courts can and have overruled them.

Now, keep in mind that all of this is not an automatic process, nor is it one that happens instantaneously.  It cannot be so due to the fact that the Constitution is a document that has to be interpreted and that men of good will can disagree on this; and that a democracy is inherently a messy and inefficient system of government.  Also, the weeding out involves a process and the process, as all processes do, can and usually does take time.

To provide an example of what I mean, consider creationism.  Every year numerous bills are proposed in the states and occasionally at the national level that would promote creationism.  The vast majority never get beyond the proposal state.  They either die in committee, or are not passed by the legislature, or are vetoed by the governors.

Of the few that do get enacted so far each and every one – every single one that has managed somehow to be passed – has been struck down by the courts.

Or consider the fate in Florida of Amendment 8.  This proposed amendment to the Florida Constitution in 2012 that would have prohibited state government from discriminating (specifically in terms of financial aid) against religious organizations, including schools with religious affiliations.  It needed 60% of the population to vote yes in order to pass.  It didn’t even get half the votes, winding up with only 44.5%.

Even had it passed it would still have been successfully challenged in the courts.

I know that there are some religious trappings to our government.  I would like to see them banished, however they are trappings and not substance.

The swearing of oath of office on the Bible is one such.  However, keep in mind that there is nothing in the Constitution requiring this, nor does the Constitution require saying “So help me, God.”  This is cultural only, and one that is changing.  Today we have Muslims swearing in on the Qur’an, a Hindu who swore her oath on the Bhagavad Gita, and a “none” who swore on nothing at all.  Here is a link to a very good article that provides a bit of background on this particular practice.

https://www.au.org/church-state/january-2013-church-state/featured/so-help-me-gods

Some Comparisons and Their Meanings

All of the following information is from “Freedom of Thought 2012; A Global Report on Discrimination Against Humanists, and the Nonreligious”

 

http://www.iheu.org/new-global-report-discrimination-against-nonreligious

 

Several countries have hate crime laws that make it illegal to insult religions.  These include Germany where the German magazine Titanic was prosecuted after their front page showed a crucified Jesus appearing to be receiving fellatio from a Catholic clerk and also a German businessman who printed “Koran” repeatedly on toilet paper who was initially sentenced to one year of prison and 300 hours of community service.

 

Other countries with such hate crime laws include the Netherlands, France, Ireland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.  All of these countries have used these laws against those making strong statements against religious groups.

 

You will not find that here in the United States.  It would be considered unconstitutional and a violation of free speech as well as religion in many cases.

 

Many countries also give preferential treatment to one religion over another.   In Sweden Swedes can designate part of their income tax to go to their church or religious body, but secular Swedes have been denied the right to do this for the Humanist Association.

 

While I would like to do away with the tax exemption for churches in the United States it is at least applied to all religions and includes Humanist organizations.  I will note that sometimes the atheist organizations receive a tax exemption on grounds other than religion, but it still is a tax exemption and is a level playing field as opposed to actively giving money to all religious organizations except secular ones.

 

Other countries that financially contribute to religions includes Ireland, the United Kingdom, Iceland which promotes Lutheranism, Norway which supports the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Switzerland which supports one of three traditional communities through church taxes and Canada in which six of the ten provinces provide partial or full funding to religious schools, usually Roman Catholic.

 

Yet despite all of this and more, the United States is the government considered the least secular and most religious.  Why?

 

The difference here is culture.  Were the United States to have a constitution like many of these other countries have then I would imagine we would be in danger of becoming a religious theocracy.  However, I would argue that fact that our constitution is so secular has prevented and will continue to prevent this from ever occurring.  The flip side is God, so to speak, help the citizens of those countries should their culture ever become dominated by conservative religious groups.

 

What Need to be Done in the U.S.

 

The government of the United States has a good secular foundation.  It does not require any change in regards to this, only protection of its secular nature and skilled, consistent use of its laws and nature to continue to fight back against religious legislation.

What is needed instead though is a change in our culture.  To my mind this involves focusing on three areas.

1)       A PR effort to educate the religious public about atheists and atheism; that we are not evil and immoral people and can be trusted.  This would make it easier for us to work together with theists in areas where we have common cause and also increase the odds that an atheist can be elected to public office.

 

2)      Work to encourage the questioning of religious “truth” and ideas with the rationale that once such questioning begins some (although not nearly all) would become atheists.  The others, although not becoming atheist would become more liberal and progressive and more willing to work with us for the common good.  While this questioning might lead these theists to becoming even more religious it would be a religion that is more intelligent and rational.

 

While there is a need for the firebrands and hardliners in this, most such efforts to encourage questioning should be more low key and part of an on-going dialogue.  Why?

 

Because such a low key approach will be the most effective.  It also will not hurt our PR effort mentioned in #1 above, whereas the firebrand approach can create a backlash and be counterproductive to such efforts. Lastly, it is  matter of human fairness and courtesy – theists are deserving of being treated with respect even if we disagree with them about God (after all, aren’t we demanding the same sort of courtesy from them?)

 

3)      We need to educate theist about the benefits to them of a secular government.

 

Some atheist might laugh at this, along with some theists, but I would point out that the earliest arguments for the separation of church and state were made by very devout theists using the Bible as part of their arguments and rationale (Roger Williams is a good example of one such theist).

 

Further, many of the organizations today that are fighting to maintain a wall of separation between church and state consist of many or even mostly religious people.  Americans United for Church and State is headed by an ordained United Church of Christ Minister and consists largely of theists.  The Texas Freedom Network, who has done a good job here in Texas combating attempts to mingle religion and state consists largely of clergy and religious people.    The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty is a group consisting mainly of Baptists (surprise!) who strongly support the separation of church and state.

 

I think a lot of the differences between the United States and many of the European and Canadian governments is due to the historical fact that we created a secular government first and are slowly working our way to a secular culture.  In Europe and Canada their culture became secular first and caused their constitutions to be used and interpreted and somewhat modified in a secular manner.   Broad generalization here I know, but I think there is a great deal of truth to it.

It is also why I am not overly concerned about the United States becoming a theocracy or being taken over by the fundamentalists.  I would be more concerned about this if our Constitution had more sympathy for religion and God as do so many European ones does, but it does not.  It is, at its foundation, a thoroughly secular government with some religious flavoring added.

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Welcome to My Nightmare – Lessons From A Future History Class

“I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state are absolute,  The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country…to say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes me want to throw up.” – former Republican Presidential candidate and former governor Rick Santorum

 

When you think about our Founding Fathers, they created this country, our Constitution, the foundation of America upon Judeo-Christian values, biblical values and this narrative that has been going on, particularly since the ’60s, that somehow or another there’s this steel wall, this iron curtain or whatever you want to call it between the church and people of faith and this separation of church and state is just false on its face. – Texas governor Rick Perry

 

“I don’t see how a person can separate their public life from their private life or from their faith. Our faith informs us in everything we do.”  Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan,

 

“U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris told a religious journal that separation of church and state is “a lie” and God and the nation’s founding fathers did not intend the country be “a nation of secular laws.”

The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate also said that if Christians are not elected, politicians will “legislate sin,” including abortion and gay marriage.” – News report from Fox News.

 

Preshambles

This is something that I originally posted a couple of years ago.   However due to our current political climate I have been having disturbing and frightful dreams about this, ones that have left me in a cold and clammy sweat.

So, with the idea that a fear shared is a fear diminished,  I thought that resurrecting and re-posting this appropriate – especially during the Halloween season, a time when our many fears are personified into ghosts, vampires, and monsters.

 

Here then is a personal nightmare story about a future history class.

 

Shambles

Once upon a time our beloved and blessed country promoted evil and ignorance and was a great help to Satan in his war against God for the possession of men’s souls.  It did this not through malice, although there were many in the government then who knew what they were doing and took great pleasure in destroying the souls of their fellow men. Rather, our country did this because of a twisted, perverted line of reasoning that allowed a separation between God’s church and God’s state and that allowed men to think for themselves on issues too complex and great for them.

 

They believed, wrongly of course, that the state should not foster a religion or any group of religions upon its people.  They believed that each person should be free to believe as they please.  This idea was even protected in a document they called the constitution, one of the subtler works of Satan.  This damnable constitution of theirs even protected those whose beliefs ran counter to those of the Christian majority.  This constitution protected the rights of all individuals – ungodly as well as Godly –  so that the government, even with the will of the majority of a Christian nation, could not infringe upon those rights.

 

Satan had implanted in our ancestors the idea that there had to be limits to the powers of government.  According to this idea if there were not certain basic individual rights that were not protected from both the government and the will of the majority of God’s people then either a tyranny of one man, group of men, or the mob would develop.  Of course, in their own twisted and perverted way they were right.  Without the moral and spiritual guidance of the one true church, to allow any government absolute power would indeed be foolish.

 

Following this line of reasoning these deluded souls even went so far as to ban organized prayers and displays of the Ten Commandments in the public schools and courtrooms.  Their rationale was that this was a land of diversity containing many people with different beliefs and that the government was bound by this constitution to respect those beliefs no matter how wrong and blasphemous.

 

They maintained that this diversity of thought and belief was this country’s greatest strength.  According to these people this obscene diversity allowed society to grow and mature, enabled it to find new and better solutions to problems, and let it adapt in an easier and better way to a continuously changing world.

 

This satanic government said that the place of religion should be in the hearts and minds of people and not enshrined in government institutions set up to serve a diverse people.

 

Praise God though that the people of this Christian nation finally saw through this twisted reasoning and elected responsible men who changed the laws and this constitution and put prayer back in schools, eliminated Darwinism from the classrooms, displayed the Ten Commandments in all the courtrooms along with enforcing all of its commandments and not just some of them.  Gradually, for Satan had invested much time and effort into building up this unnatural and evil barrier between the church and state, the separation between church and state was done away with.

 

With the help of God these good men and women returned this blessed government of ours back to its Biblical and Godly foundation.  A foundation now protected against those who believe wrongly by laws against them promoting their errors.  It’s need is seen by the vast numbers of those in prison for violating those laws.

We have much to be thankful for.  But we must be ever vigilant lest we once again let church and state separate and allow people to grope blindly through the darkness and arrive at their own misguided beliefs, for humanity is too easily led astray.  We truly are the descendents of the fallen Adam.

 

That is all for today class.  Remember that after the closing prayer there will be a book burning held in the football field.  All the works of the Great Heretic Thomas Jefferson will be consigned to the flames.  This will be followed by the witness of a newly outed and converted Jewish classmate of yours.

 

I know all of you will show up.

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How the Baptists Have Falle…. Um, Wait – How Some Baptists Have Fallen But Others Have Not: Or a Lesson in the Importance of Fact Checking Before Writing the Blog

Let me preface this by saying that my initial, very short post had an important message.  However another two other important lessons were also learned by yours truly (ones I already knew but did not follow this time) so that I urge anyone reading this to read the “Important Addendum” at the end of this blog too.    

From  http://www.dallasnews.com/news/columnists/jacquielynn-floyd/20120920-gov.-rick-perry-vs.-satan-secular-humanists-and-american-constitutional-history.ece?action=reregister

“While chatting with members of Vision America, which is calling for 40 days of pre-election prayer and fasting “to save America,” Gov. Rick Perry described the doctrine of church-state separation as a “myth” devised by Satan to drive Christians from public life.

He additionally warned that American families are “under siege,” that “Christian warriors” must defend the nation against secular attack, and that the president “and his cronies” are trying to scrub every trace of religion from American life.

Get thee behind Rick Perry, Beelzebub!

“This separation of church and state, which has been driven by the secularlists [sic] to remove those people of faith from the public arena, there is nothing further from the truth,” he said, stumbling a little over that tricky word “secularist.”

“Satan runs across the world with his doubt and with his untruths and what have you.”

There’s more — lots more — about the Founding Fathers and Judeo-Christian values and rescuing the nation from secularism and atheism.”

 

I was reading the above column about some remarks made by the wonderfully unenlightened governor of my home state of Texas, Rick Perry, and it got me thinking about church state separation.  I don’t know if Rick Perry is a Baptist or not, but this made me think of the Baptists and of how far they have fallen in regards to church/state separation.

 

The founder of the Baptists in America, Roger Williams, was a strong believer in the strict separation of the church and the state.  The early Baptist churches, when they were a minority religion and concerned about their rights being trampled by the larger and more established churches, were strong believers in the separation of church and state, as witnessed by the Dansbury letter and other writings of the time.

But today, now that they are no longer a minority religion and are instead an established and more powerful religious group, they wish to pretend that the separation of church and state does not exist and does not need to exist.

 

Oh yes indeed, power does indeed corrupt.

 

 

Important Addendum – well dang, I hate doing things ass backwards which I did by writing this blog, almost one click away posting it and then fact checking it.  I have seen so many Southern and other sorts of Baptists speaking out against church/state separation that I just assumed that it was a policy of the Baptist church in general.   Just before I was about to post this I decided that I needed a copy of the policy stating the Baptist position and went looking for it.  Instead I found this, from the American Baptists Churches USA    

http://www.abc-usa.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=Pm1kkXvrrqM%3d&tabid=199

AMERICAN BAPTIST

 

RESOLUTION ON SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

 

“We proclaim that separation of church and state is central to our American heritage; that

it has made possible a measure of freedom not previously achieved under any other

system; that it is indispensable to our national policy of equal rights for all religions and

special privileges for no religion.

 

Church and state are separate not only in their functions, but also in the source of their

financing. Government being under public control is properly financed by taxation.

Membership in religious institutions and organizations is voluntary, and therefore should

be supported by voluntary contributions. We believe that the use of tax money for

support of religious groups is in opposition to the spirit and letter of the Constitution.

 

We declare that this principle does not mean that the state is indifferent to the church, nor that the church is unconcerned for the state. It means rather that church and state are separate in their institutional life and that neither controls the other.

……..

We object strenuously, therefore, to any proposal that authorizes taxes or borrowing

power be used to make grants or loans to sectarian or church related schools. We

emphasize that the use of government finances in support of any sectarian purpose is a violation of basic religious liberties for it coerces citizens to support religious objectives which many of them cannot conscientiously approve.

 

Adopted by the American Baptist Convention 1961

 

Affirmed as an American Baptist Churches Resolution by the Executive Committee

of the General Board September 1983

 

Revised by the Executive Committee of the General Board – March 1993

 

Modified by the Executive Committee of the General Board – March 2001

 

Modified by the Executive Committee of the General Board – March 2005”

 

And this from the Baptist Joint Committee

http://www.bjconline.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=138&Itemid=129

“The separation of church and state, or the “wall of separation” talked about by Colonial Baptist Roger Williams, Thomas Jefferson and the U.S. Supreme Court, is simply a shorthand metaphor for expressing a deeper truth that religious liberty is best protected when church and state are institutionally separated and neither tries to perform or interfere with the essential mission and work of the other.

While the phrase “separation of church and state” technically is not in the First Amendment, and although there is no evidence that either Thomas Jefferson or James Madison used the word “separation” until the 19^th century, the principles those words represent are there. Who would deny that federalism, the separation of powers and the right to a fair trial are constitutional principles? But those phrases do not appear in the Constitution either. And how could anyone read Jefferson’s “Bill Establishing Religious Freedom” in Virginia and Madison’s “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments” without concluding that they unequivocally supported the concept?

Baptists often hold up Roger Williams’ “hedge or wall of separation” and point to Jefferson’s 1802 Letter to the Danbury Connecticut Baptist Association where he talked about his “sovereign reverence” for the wall of separation. But we often forget about the writings of the father of our Constitution, Madison, who, in a letter to Robert Walsh in 1819, observed that “the number, the industry and the morality of the priesthood and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of church and state.”

Of Course then I also come across such Baptist sites as this one

http://www.allaboutbaptists.com/distinctives_Church_and_State.html

“Does the Bill of Rights really call for the separation of church and state?

There are actually those who would have all Americans believe that anytime a Christian exercises his freedom (I did not say “right”) to influence government based on his Biblical convictions, he/she is violating the Bill of Rights.  Furthermore, that same believer is infringing upon the rights of others.
This is indeed ignorance in it’s saddest form, for the Bill of Rights does not state what rights we have but, rather, what restrictions are placed upon government so that it cannot infringe upon our God-given freedoms.  It is much less a document stating what citizens can do but much more one that clearly states what government cannot do.

The ongoing argument still being put forth by those who resent Christians (including us Baptists) is that our wanting to keep such things as prayer and the Ten Commandments in our public school systems smacks of violating the human rights of those who do not accept such things.”

 

 

OK, two lessons re-learned. 

Lesson one:  Always fact check before you write, always fact check before you write, always fact check before you write. 

Lesson two:  All large organizations consist of a variety of groups and people with a variety of different opinions on any one subject.  All large organizations consist of a variety of groups and people with a variety of different opinions on any one subject.  All large organizations consist of a variety of groups and people with a variety of different opinions on any one subject.

 

 

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Gimme That Old Banned Religion

While walking in the mall today I noticed a young man who was wearing a black shirt.  Just at the top of the front of the shirt, centered on the shirt, was a red cross.  Centered below this crose were the following words:

“This shirt is illegal in 51 countries.” 

The back of the shirt had this message:

“I am not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God the salvation of everyone who believes.  Romans 1:16”

These words were a mixture of black and white and tossed together into the form of a ragged cross in red.  It was really a nice graphic and obviously a reference to countries in which Christianity is illegal or in which expressing the Christian faith might be illegal.  For fun, I decided to check this claim out. 

To do so I visited “Persecution.org – International Christian Concern, Your Bridge to the Persecuted Church”  http://www.persecution.org/awareness/persecuted-countries/

The first thing I noticed is a list of 44 countries on their home page.  They invite visitors to “search for a persecuted country or chose from the list below.”  The 44 countries is their list below. 

Now, I would think that since these 44 countries have been singled out that they must be the worst offenders.  If so, then there are only 44 and not 51 countries as the shirt claimed. 

I also noted a couple of countries that were listed in which I did not think it would be illegal to wear the shirt that the young man was wearing, so, of course, I decided to investigate these countries.  The first was India. 

This website really did not give me any specifics on laws in India that prohibit Christianity.  So, I went to the United States Department of State “2010 Report on International Religious Freedom” for more information: 

http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/2010/index.htm

From that website I pulled this up: 

“There are active “anticonversion” laws in six of the 28 states: Gujarat, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Arunachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Himachal Pradesh. In August 2009 the regulations needed for enforcement of the Arunachal Pradesh’s laws were adopted. Gujarat has a Freedom of Religion Act (2003) and Rules (2008) which proscribed religious conversions by means of allurement, force, or fraud. At the end of the reporting period, no court date had been set for the challenge by civic groups of the constitutional validity of the 2003 act and 2008 rules. There were reports of arrests but no convictions under these laws during the reporting period.”

From my reading of this I gather that nationally this t shirt would NOT be illegal.  However in six of the 28 states of India this shirt might indeed be illegal.  I also note that while there have been arrests there have been no convictions.   I further note that these laws are being challenged.  

To my mind using less than 1/4^th of a country to claim that the whole country would ban this shirt is stretching the truth a bit – if indeed India is counted as one of the 51 countries.  This is especially true since at the national level they do not promote these anti-conversion laws.  Again from the State Department website:

“The national government, led by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), continued to implement an inclusive and secular platform that included respect for the right to religious freedom. Despite the national government’s rejection of Hindutva (Hindu nationalism), a few state and local governments continued to be influenced by Hindutva.

The law generally provided remedy for violations of religious freedom, however, due to a lack of sufficient trained police and corruption, the law was not always enforced rigorously or effectively in some cases pertaining to religiously oriented violence. Legal protections existed to cover discrimination or persecution by private actors.”

and

“While there were no reports accusing the national government of committing abuses of religious freedom, human rights activists criticized it for alleged inaction regarding abuses committed by state and local authorities and private citizens. Law enforcement and prosecution continued to be weak. This shortcoming was exacerbated by a low police to population ratio, corruption, and an overburdened and antiquated court system.”

Let me also mention that there is a difference between violent acts between different religious groups and a religious group being made illegal.  There is a great deal of violence in India between Hindus, Muslims, and Christians.    However, legally, it appears that this shirt would be perfectly legal in over 75% of India, and might become so over all of India as the legal and enforcement situation continues to work itself out.   

Now, let us look at another country on that list – Turkey. 

This is from the Persecuation.org website:

“Government: The constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respects this right in practice. But it also imposes certain restrictions on some religious groups.”

This is what the 2010 Report on International Freedom had to say:

“The government generally respected religious freedom in practice. There was no change in the status of respect for religious freedom by the government during the reporting period. The government continued to impose limitations on Muslim and other religious groups and significant restrictions on Muslim religious expression in government offices and state-run institutions, including universities, for the stated reason of preserving the “secular state.” However, in state buildings, including universities, there are often mescits (small mosques), in which Muslims may pray.”

And

“Religious minorities reported difficulties opening, maintaining, and operating houses of worship. Under the law religious services may take place only in designated places of worship. Municipal codes mandated that only the government can designate a place of worship, and if a religion has no legal standing in the country, it cannot register a site. Non-Muslim religious services, especially for religious groups that did not own property recognized by the GDF, often took place on diplomatic property or in private apartments. While police and prosecutors did not take steps to prevent or prosecute such gatherings, landlords were hesitant to rent to groups without confirmation that they would not be harassed by the police.

There were reports that local officials harassed persons who converted from Islam to another religion when they sought to amend their identity cards. Some non-Muslims maintained that listing religious affiliation on the cards exposed them to discrimination and harassment.

Members of non-Muslim religious communities were exempted legally from compulsory religious and moral instruction in primary and secondary schools. The government claimed that the compulsory instruction covered the range of world religions, but religious groups asserted that the courses reflect Hanafi Sunni Islamic doctrine. A few groups, such as Protestants and Syriac Orthodox, faced difficulty obtaining exemptions from the compulsory instruction, particularly if their identification cards did not list a religion other than Islam.”

And

“No law explicitly prohibited religious speech or religious conversions; nevertheless, many prosecutors and police regarded religious speech and religious activism with suspicion. Christians and Baha’is engaging in religious advocacy were occasionally threatened or pressured by government and state officials. For example, Protestants distributing Bibles at a book fair in Kayseri in November 2009 reportedly faced pressure from local politicians to withdraw from the book fair and not to return in the future. If the advocates were foreigners, they were at times deported but generally were able to reenter the country. Antimissionary rhetoric remained in compulsory school textbooks, and police officers occasionally reported students who met with Christian missionaries to their families or to university authorities.

Religious groups generally faced administrative challenges when employing foreign religious personnel because there is no visa category for religious workers.”

What I take from all of the above is that, while religious minorities do face discrimination and challenges in Turkey to say that Turkey – if indeed Turkey is one of the 51 countries referred to by the shirt – this shirt would be illegal is stretching the truth to the breaking point – the same as it would be if India were counted in this category.    

What is interesting here is that while there are instances of discrimination and actions taken against religious minorities there are also many actions taken against those who are Muslim and either follow a more radical and fundamentalist brand of Islam or who advocate a religious instead of a secular government. 

One country not on the list that I thought might deserve a mention was Israel.  From the 2010 Report on Religious Fredom:

“Proselytizing is legal in the country and missionaries of all religious groups are allowed to proselytize all citizens; however, a 1977 law prohibits any person from offering material benefits as an inducement to conversion. It was also illegal to convert persons under 18 years of age unless one parent were an adherent of the religious group seeking to convert the minor. Despite the legality of proselytism, the government has taken a number of steps that encouraged the perception that proselytizing is against government policy. For example, the MOI has detained individuals suspected of being “missionaries,” and required of such persons bail and a pledge to abstain from missionary activity, in addition to refusing them entry into the country. It maintained denunciations of such activity from antimissionary groups like Yad L’Achim in its border control databases. The MOI has also cited proselytism as a reason to deny student, work, and religious visa extensions, as well as to deny permanent residency petitions. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) promised the Knesset in 1986 to refrain from all proselytism voluntarily in conjunction with receiving a building permit for its Jerusalem Center following protests from the Orthodox community.”

“Government policy contributed to the generally free practice of religion, although government discrimination against non-Jews and non-Orthodox streams of Judaism continued.”

And

“While proselytism is officially legal, some missionaries continued to face harassment and discrimination from some local government officials.”

Another country not on the list is Greece, which not only has laws banning proselytizing, but its constitution does the same.  Doesn’t matter who is doing the proselytizing, it is illegal, period.  Greece is one country in which that shirt may be illegal. 

To keep this blog from further spiraling out of control in regards to length, let me just say that  I could not find any support for this shirt’s claim that it would be illegal to wear it in 51 countries.  The best I could find was for 44 countries and even then some of those could be disputed while some other countries appear to have been left off. 

What this really speaks to though is the desire of many Christians to view themselves as persecuted.  While they are in many countries I find it ironic that the ones in my country, the United States, wish to think of themselves as part of the persecuted church. 

They wish to elevate the loss of their religious privileges – which are forbidden by the United States Constitution – to the loss of their religious rights – which is very much protected by the Constitution. 

They wish to elevate their inability to impose their prayers on students in the public schools to being beaten in the streets and arrested for practicing their faith.  They wish to elevate their inability to change the teaching of science in public schools to not being allowed to build a church without fear of having it burned to the ground. 

This all in a country in which a Christian church seems to spring up every four or five blocks; in which every newspaper has a favorable story explicitly about Christianity, a Christian church or a Christian every day; in which there are numerous radio and television stations that play Christian programming 24/7; in which the vast majority of politician proclaim that they are Christian and many of whom seek the endorsement of religious organizations. 

Yeah, right, Christians are definitely being persecuted in the United States.

To my mind, while this t shirt might be an attempt to focus awareness of religious persecution in other countries, it is more likely an attempt by an American citizen who is Christian to feel that he too is being bold and brave and facing down his persecutors here in America.   If he were really concerned about religious persecution he would broaden his focus on all religious groups instead of trying to pretend that Christianity is the only religion in the world which faces persecution.  The fact that he chooses to do so, with questionable facts, only about Christians is evidence of this lack of concern about religious freedom. 

Perhaps he should try being an atheist sometime if he really wishes to face some backlash for his beliefs.  I have a feeling that atheism is restricted in a great deal more than 51 countries.

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