Meditation: from a poem by Maya Angelou entitled “Caged Bird”
A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom….
Reading: from last Sunday’s News-Gazette (Feb. 19, 2012), a piece by Lynn Johnston, the comic strip “For Better or Worse.” Let me describe it:
In the first panel, the eight-year old Michael, and his four-year old sister are both sitting at the living room coffee table. He is drawing in a coloring book. She is driving a toy car over the pages of the same book. “Get over on your side,” he says.
“This isn’t your table, Michael,” she replies. He has an annoyed look on his face, as she leans over to him, appearing rather smug.
“Maaaaaaaaah! Lizzie keeps puttin’ her stuff on my side of the coffee table!!!” Michael shouts. Lizzie says, “Bffblbbb.”
The mother approaches, hoping to make peace, with a role of masking tape in hand. “The masking tape should solve the problem.” She puts a strip of masking tape right down the center of the table.
The next panel shows Michael on the sofa looking at a picture book. Lizzie is sitting next to him with a thumb in her mouth. “Mah! Liz is taking more room than me on the couch.” Michael shouts.
The next panel shows Michael turned around, resting his arms on the back of the sofa, and looking out the window. Liz shouts: “Ma! Him gots all the window!!”
The last panel shows the living room, with a strip of tape down the middle of the coffee table, the middle of the sofa, the middle of the window, the middle of a book, a cup, the middle of the family dog, and the front of the mother’s sweater. She looks annoyed. Her husband has a puzzled look on his face as he examines the living room. She says: “Don’t ask.”
Reading: by Christopher Eisgruber and Lawrence Sager from Religious Freedom and the Constitution (p. 1)
Members of the human species have a poor record of living together in peace and an even worse record of treating one another fairly. Religious differences have often been the cause or at least the excuse for our most egregious failures. Even today, religious disagreement underwrites violence, disfavor, and discord in many parts of the world.
America’s founders knew the perils of religious difference all too well. The Europe that the early settlers left behind was racked with religious conflict and persecution; indeed, many who came to America were victims of it. The colonists had a deep awareness of questions concerning religious liberty, and they self-consciously pursued the appropriate resolution to those questions…
Reading: by Laurie Goodstein from an article entitled “Obama Shift on Providing Contraception Splits Critics” (The New York Times, Feb. 14, 2012)
The near-unified front led by the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops to oppose a mandate for employers to cover birth control has now crumbled amid the compromise plan that the Obama administration offered last week to accommodate religious institutions….
…Even the nuns are not on the same page. The organization that represents a majority of women’s religious orders, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, said the Obama administration had listened to the concerns of Catholics and found a “fair and helpful way to move forward.”
But a traditionalist order in Ann Arbor, Mich., the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, which was formed 15 years ago and has about 100 members, said in a statement that the “so-called compromise” by the White House was “insulting.”…
The bishops called the rule an affront to religious liberty and a violation of Catholic conscience.
Faith of Our Fathers
A Sermon Delivered on February 26, 2012
By
The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann
A few weeks ago, when Catholic leaders appealed to principles of religious liberty and freedom of conscience as a justification for their position on health insurance coverage and contraception, the news caught my eye.
Liberal religion and freedom of conscience – those are key ideas we Unitarian Universalists affirm. Centuries ago our forebears promoted and defended these principles against religious powers of orthodoxy and conservatism – for instance the Church of England, and the Roman Catholic Church.
And now Catholics are calling on those same principles to protect their religious practices against interference by the state.
Now, I certainly share a concern for freedom of religion. But what happens when religious freedom is used as an excuse to withhold health care from fellow citizens? What happens when religious freedom conflicts with civil rights?
These questions are often framed in terms of the “separation between church and state.” They are part of an ongoing battle, it seems, that is fought on city councils and school boards across the country, and sometimes rise to the highest levels of government and the Supreme Court.
These battles may be about faith-based social services or public funding for religious schools; they may be about the word “God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, or school-sponsored prayers at high school football games; they may be about how to teach about evolution or creationism; or they may be about family planning or abortion, gay rights or euthanasia.
These disputes are often cast as a conflict between religious and secular ideals. But this is not necessarily true. The vast majority of Americans consider themselves religious. The arguments arise over competing convictions about what it means to be religious, and how religious principles and practice should appropriately affect civil society.
* * *
“The wall of separation between church and state” is probably the most well-known idea most Americans associate with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Though, as historians know, the words “wall of separation…” appear in neither the Constitution nor the Bill of Rights.
Jefferson referred to “a wall of separation between Church and State,” in a letter he wrote in 1802. But Jefferson didn’t invent the metaphor. Roger Williams, founder of the first Baptist congregation in the British New World, coined the phrase over a hundred an fifty years earlier, in 1644.
And while Jefferson certainly had clear ideas on the matter, the “separation of church and state” was always an issue of fierce controversy – even among the founding fathers.
In a book entitled So Help Me God –The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle Over Church and State, the Unitarian Universalist minister Forrest Church writes, there were always two distinct perspectives represented as this country’s government was first formed. One perspective was informed by the British model and the Church of England. It held: “God was the head of authority and the rulers were to have their authority from Him.” The other perspective, which Jefferson represented, was based on the Enlightenment ideals of liberty and equality, that figured prominently in the French Revolution.
There were two camps. On the one hand, Church writes,
“the advocates of divine order believed that in order to uphold one nation under God, the secular and sacred realms must rest on a single foundation. Without a united sense of purpose and clear moral vision, the argued, liberty would lapse into license. Champions of sacred liberty [on the other hand] believed that to promote liberty and justice for all, the secular and religious realm must be kept autonomous. Government attempts to impose religious (or moral) values suppress religion instead, they claimed, by violating individual freedom of conscience.” (p. 2)
The initial discussions exploded into fierce arguments, which pitched absolutionists on both sides into a war of conflicting ideals that threatened to tear the country apart. Early on the “apostles of divine order” seemed to have the upper hand. In the end, the “champions of sacred liberty” carried the day.
But from the very beginning, this was a highly controversial and complex issue. So today, in a way, both those who say our founding fathers wanted to create a Christian nation, and those who say the founding fathers wanted to create a secular state - both are correct. The historical record is complex. Proof texts can be found for either position.
After the War of 1812, after three decades of religious strife, the proponents of a secular government won, and church leaders withdrew from national politics. But as Church writes,
“In a surprising turn of events, rather than diminish Christian influence in the nation’s moral life, the defeat of those who had championed Christian government freed the church from political manipulation instead and extended its moral authority. … Secular governance was confirmed, yet the religious nation prospered.” (p. 9)
It seems, a clear separation of church and state, and a national commitment to religious freedom, rather than stifling the country’s religious spirit, did just the opposite. Organized religion flourished.
* * *
Just like a strip of masking tape placed strategically on every table, couch and chair in the house, the metaphor of “the wall of separation” is compelling and clear.
I don’t know that, as a parent, I ever made such effective use of masking tape, when attempting to make peace between my son and my daughter. But the comic strip sure captures a parental longing for such simple and effective separation. And it reminds me of when I myself was a child, when one of my older brothers would get on my nerves – playing with my toys, in my part of the room, or by sitting too far on my side on the back seat of the car. I longed for a clear line to be drawn between us, that would protect me from the perpetual provocations of my brothers.
But the point the comic strip makes, is that it is actually and ultimately impossible to solve conflicts of interest by simply separating the parties involved. As the final frame shows, it is ridiculous to try: to put a line down the center of every window, every cup, every book and even the family dog.
The “wall of separation” is a metaphor. And, as any metaphor, it has its limitations. This is a point Eisgruber and Sager make. “…Literally separating the modern state and the modern church is implausible in the extreme.” How can you possibly separate religious institutions from government regulations? Think about it.
“Churches buy and sell property, build buildings, run schools, [pay] employees, need roads for access… Church members drive cars, pay taxes, interact in countless ways with their fellow citizens, and vote in public elections. The state, for its part, maintains the [laws] upon which contract and property rights depend, [enforces] building codes, regulates the use of land, protects citizens from unfair and discriminatory employment practices, builds roads… The enterprises of the state and the enterprises of the church are bound to intersect with and affect each other.” (p. 7)
Eisgruber and Sager offer the example of events a few years ago, when a few churches in Richmond, Virginia, banded together to operate a Sunday afternoon soup kitchen for the homeless. They wanted to provide meals at the Lutheran Church, which happened to be located in a residential neighborhood. Plans for the soup kitchen, they learned, conflicted with zoning restrictions. So the church members took the position that they had a “religiously mandated mission to feed the poor, and that restrictions on the place, manner or time of their efforts to discharge that mission were unconstitutional infringements on [their] religious freedom.” This turned into a big fight between church members, and the people who had homes in the church’s neighborhood.
In Richmond, Virginia, city officials tried to find a compromise, which would limit the frequency of the meals, or the number of persons served. But the compromise, it seemed, only served to fuel the fire of controversy. City council members were threatened with everything from hell-fire to lawsuits. In the end they relented, and the churches received permission to feed the hungry in unfettered freedom.
But is that the kind of freedom we are looking for? Is that the kind of separation we want, that allows religious groups be above the law?
The authors offer a hypothetical example. What if there were two women in this same neighborhood, who live across the street from each other, and each want to provide a soup kitchen for the poor. Both of them run into zoning restrictions. One of the women explains she is offering food as an expression of her religious convictions. The other says she is offering the food, because she abhors suffering. The first woman is granted the privilege to disobey zoning law. The second has no choice but to follow the law.
Eisgruber and Sager offer a different approach to questions of church and state. Rather than imagining a wall of separation, they envision two guiding principles. First, no one should be devalued because of their religious beliefs and commitments. Second, everyone ought to enjoy the rights of free speech, personal autonomy, private property and freedom of association. They call these two principles “Equal Liberty.”
The problem with the “wall of separation” metaphor is that it leads to some instances in which religious projects are treated much better than secular endeavors, and other instances when they are treated worse. If we simply focus on Equal Liberty for all, we have no reason to grant special constitutional privileges, nor impose special disabilities upon religion.
The brilliance and novelty of our founding fathers’ work was not that they created a wall of separation between church and state. Their brilliance was in casting a vision of justice, which – ideally – would be equally applicable to all people – whether men or women, whether white or black, whether gay or straight, whether religious or not.
* * *
When we disagree with our religious or secular neighbors, when we disagree passionately and fiercely, we may wish that we could build a wall between us, a wall that would protect us from the encroachment of our opponents, a wall that would protect our liberties.
We may wish we could simply put down a few strips of masking tape, and clearly separate conflicting parties and conflicting ideas.
But these walls we want to build don’t work. Our lives are simply too interconnected.
And when we try to build walls, the walls we envision will confine us rather than set us free. The walls intended to keep us safe, will become cages into which we are locked, or into which we lock ourselves. We will be trapped behind bars of rage, we ourselves made.
Instead of trying to separate a society along ideological lines, blocking out the possibility of understanding and exchange, instead we must cultivate respectful engagement.
In respectful and thoughtful conversation we may realize that something that seems trivial to us, may be of critical importance to others. And we may realize some cherished ideals that are crystal clear to us, may be completely unclear to our neighbors. And we may realize we share a lot in common.
Freedom is not about divisions between us, but distinctions among us. It is not about walls that separate us, but bridges with connect us.
We all want liberty and equality – whether in the halls of state our in the halls of church – we all long for justice and love.
Our founders and forbears longed for a freedom they themselves had not yet known.
May we do our part to create a world of harmony and understanding,
guided by a vision of ever greater justice, and freedom for all.
Amen.
