Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Church and State

  • Stupid Actions in Church-State Cases

    Ed comments on a bizarre church-state case on which he agrees with the ADF, as do I.

    There are cases in which there is some significant doubt about the correct set of actions. I sympathize with school administrators who must deal with close calls. But most of these cases are very clear, and I have a hard time understanding the motivation of the school administrators. Perhaps there is an overreaction to the perceived law. I know that many, many Christians I come in contact with truly believe that it is illegal for children to pray at school. They are surprised when someone points out that it is quite legal for their children to pray–student led, voluntary, non-disruptive times of prayer, worship and study.

    It would be very valuable for both parents and educators around the country to educate themselves on what the law actually is. Most of the litigation could be avoided with a little care and attention. I know that one way to challenge the law is to push the edges, but one should be aware of where those edges are and have some hope of accomplishing their goal before spending taxpayer money in that fashion.

    One document giving general guidelines can be found here, along with contact information for organizations that can provide more detailed and up-to-date information.

  • Rules for Church Leaders on Politics

    . . . or perhaps not.

    Joe Carter at evangelical outpost links to and critiques some rules for church leaders regarding political activities and involvement.

    I’m pretty much in agreement with Carter’s critique. I am a supporter of church and state, but even my view on church and state is informed by my faith. I cannot separate who I am when I go vote and who I am as a person of faith. It just doesn’t work.

    I believe in separation of church and state, sometimes even greater than that enforced by the state, but I mean the separation of the church as an institution from the structures of state power, using the sword of the state to encourage or enforce the dictates of religion. I don’t believe in the separation of the church and the statesman. I couldn’t do it. I don’t expect the people I vote for to do it.

    The suggested rules go beyond the requirements of law, and I fail to see what ethical views drive them, except perhaps a desire to keep the religious right less involved in politics–a goal I don’t know that the author of the rules, Dr. David Gushee, even accepts. So I’m a bit at a loss.

    As a leader of a parachurch organization myself, albeit a volunteer leader of an organization that has no paid staff (including me), I watch this sort of thing with interest. I would not endorse a candidate as officially as the head of that organization. To do so would be illegal as well as inappropriate ethically. As an individual, I can still do so. That would be a violation of rule #12.

    Rule #17, regarding separation of church and state sounds good to me for me, but I am well aware of many people who would disagree. Why should I be free to model my view, while they can’t model theirs?

    I’m troubled by the fact that religious people cannot express any view desired, but I would also be troubled should churches be allowed to use tax exemption as a way to get involved in politics without the costs others must pay. Thus legally I have to agree that churches, as such, shouldn’t perform most of these activities. But their leaders, as individuals, and through other means, should not be ethically barred from such involvement.

  • Bible Curriculum in Odessa

    Ed Brayton has an informative post on the process of selecting a Bible curriculum in Odessa, TX. I haven’t had time to follow the case closely, but it appears that Ed is doing so.

    If one is to have a specifically Bible curriculum in high school, as opposed to appropriate mentions in literature, history, and various social studies classes, I would prefer the BLP curriculum strongly. I do not, however, think it is good either for the state or for the church to venture into this area. I realize it’s constitutional when done right (and NCBCPS is not done right), but I still do not think it is a good idea, as I explained in a previous post.

  • More on Bible Curriculum for Public Schools

    I have previously expressed my concerns about Bible classes in public schools, even as electives. These objections come from multiple directions. Because I support separation of church and state, I prefer to keep such classes out, even though in principle they have been held to be constitutional. As a Christian, I believe there is a serious danger in having a Bible class which will necessarily be from one perspective provided at state expense. I think providing Biblical knowledge is part of the function of the church. As a Bible teacher I’m concerned with the competence of prospective public high school Bible teachers.

    My objections do not apply to inclusion of scripture passages in literature class as appropriate to the academic goals, nor to references to the Bible at appropriate places in history. There is good reason to be acquainted with the Bible and how it has functioned in western history especially, but that goal is best attained by teaching the Bible as part of those other classes, not with a specific Bible curriculum.

    In particular, the NCBCPS curriculum has been found not to meet the needs of teaching a neutral, academically sound Bible class. I have reviewed only the reviews and not the material, but the points brought up by the professional reviewer are well-taken, and precisely correspond to the objections I have to public school Bible classes.

    Ed Brayton has an excellent post on this which quotes a letter from a Jewish teacher in the Odessa, Texas public schools. The link also leads to other letter that illustrate some very unchristian attitudes about this program.

    I strongly oppose the inclusion of this curriculum in any public school program.

  • Penscola AUSCS and ACLU Reps on Kenneth Lamb’s Show

    This is of local interest along the Florida-Alabama gulf coast.

    Kennneth E. Lamb is hosting of “Your Turn” program from 4 til 6PM on Thursday 3 May 2007. Bill Caplinger of AU and Susan Watson of ACLU local chapters will be guesting. I know both of these folks, and they should be worth hearing. I won’t be able to get to hear the show myself due to conflicts.

    The show is on 1330AM WEBY.

    Personally I don’t like Kenneth Lamb’s show all that much, but Bill and Susan should be able to make their voices heard. (Come to think of it, I just don’t like talk radio. It’s a personal prejudice.)

  • Committed Christian Seeks Secular Society

    Easter seems to be the time of the year for a strong Christian affirmation. It’s not a time when most Christians want to be thinking about secular topics, or considering difficulties with their faith.

    But as I am fond of reminding people, Easter morning followed Good Friday, and that year in Palestine Good Friday was really not very good at all. Jesus was on the wrong side as far as those in power were concerned. He was a threat to public order and to their power, and they felt the need to get rid of him. One answer among many to the question of why Jesus had to die is simply that people who behaved like he did in 1st century Palestine were very likely to die like he did. On first read, that may sound like I’m belittling the crucifixion, but I suspect if you think about it further, you may see what I’m talking about.

    As modern American Christians, we are quite willing to go along with the Easter morning scenario, though we forget that only a few saw Jesus after the resurrection and there was no great triumph in the streets of Jerusalem proclaiming the victory of Jesus over death itself. Nonetheless, we like the idea of “showing them” and letting them know just who’s in charge. One way to get a cheer out of a Christian audience these days is to shout “Jesus is Lord!” It’s a good cheer, and I even like it. But the serious question is this: Lord of what?

    According to the gospel of John when Jesus was asked about this by Pilate (John 18:33-37), he said that his kingdom was not of this world. If it had been, he would have had his disciples fighting. And that’s the hard part. Christianity calls for the “Good Friday” attitude in us, but most of us have a good deal of trouble accepting that. What we want is the name of the crucified Jesus but the power of the Roman soldiers who nailed him to the cross.

    So why would these thoughts lead me to think about a secular society. Well, for one thing, my attention was called to it by the blog against theocracy. But I immediately started thinking about the term theocracy, and all the things it might mean to be against theocracy, and soon I was lost in definition land. So I just want to write a little bit about why I, as a Christian, don’t want a Christian government (a phrase that requires some definition as well), and why I think that’s the best thing for Christianity and for individual Christians.

    My basic understanding of the gospel message stems directly from the incarnation. I really, really believe in the incarnation as the big miracle of Christianity. It seems to me that this must form the core of our belief system. We do not merely believe in good ethics; we believe in ethics empowered by a God who reached out to us in this fashion, crossing the gap between infinity and the finite. Having done that, he called on us to make disciples, “new creatures” as Paul would have it (2 Corinthians 5:17). I believe that anything and everything that distracts us from this one point diminishes Christianity.

    Over our history we have repeatedly tried to use force to make other people believe or practice our faith. But that is precisely what God did not do. God condescended, reached down, emptied himself (Philippians 2:5-11), became one of us, took a human-eye view of things for a little while.

    I believe in separation of church and state not so much because it is a constitutional principle (and I do believe it is; many principles are named with words not actually found in the text), but because I think the church endangers itself when it takes any other power than the power of God’s sacrificial love as manifested in Jesus Christ.

    That gives us one and only one option for making this nation or the world a Christian nation–the voluntary, unforced, unmanipulated, free choice of every individual to be a Christian.

    On the other hand, it gives us a very powerful approach to all the problems of the world–the gospel of Jesus Christ. The good news that Jesus is willing to touch and to heal, that there is a way to transform lives, one person at a time. The task may seem overwhelming, but there are also a lot of Christians out there, and a lot of resources. They are just being used to maintain church buildings and keep the membership happy in maintenance mode.

    We need to start at the bottom, just like Jesus did, with people who desperately need help and hope. The church has the ability to solve problems on a broad scale if we put our resources to work in the right way. And note that I do not mean abandon the gospel message in favor of becoming a social service agency. We need social services driven by the message of the incarnation–servant, even slave evangelists ready to take the message of Jesus and the loving touch of his current body to the world.

    For that we don’t need the power of the government. Governmental power works much like idolatry–constantly calling us to something less than we are supposed to do.

    I don’t mean that Christians need to get out of politics or lose our moral voice, though I would suggest we broaden it quite a bit. I do not mean that we should not talk about our faith. I do mean that we should reject seeking government sponsorship for any religious activities, because those activities will, without exception, become diluted.

    Let’s use our one tool. Let’s live a life worthy of the incarnation.

    PS: I posted two other Easter meditations, Continually Translating the Message and an Easter short story (fiction) Easter Morning Resurrection.

  • Freedom of Speech Rights Tangled

    Here’s an interesting freedom of speech issue again brought to my attention by Breaking Christian News and this time referring me to this LifeSite article. It appears that at a minimum there is confusion about the facts of the case, including the professor’s intentions and when the paper was graded, as comparison of the LifeSite article with this article on the Southern Illinoisian web site.

    I am uncertain of where the law would stand on this, and would certainly welcome comment that might clarify it for me. This whole story bothers me because of what it means for education. A professor’s beliefs do have something to do with what they teach and what they are going to find acceptable in a paper. I can imagine, for example, a person who wants to be a social worker, but who believes that the entire course of treatment should consist of prayer and Bible study. Should such a study be granted a degree in social work, essentially the university saying that this person is qualified to perform the functions of a social worker? If it’s a free speech issue, then the validity of the contents would not be relevant. I’m not suggesting that Christine Mize did not provide a reasonably competent, faith-based program, but it seems dangerous to me to apply free speech standards to the grading of college papers.

    To take an example from a field with which I’m more familiar, suppose that a biology student wished to write a paper on origins for biology class that claimed that all species appeared fully formed and without genealogy, and proposed to demonstrate this from the Bible. I would have to say that there should be no requirement that such a paper be accepted for biology credit. The student has free speech, and can go home and post his paper on his blog if he wants, but I don’t think the first amendment guarantees, or should guarantee a passing grade. Of course the level of competence required would depend on the level.

    There’s a subjective line here between thoroughly incompetent and competent but challenging prevailing attitudes. I must say that while it seems excessive to me for the professor to refuse any inclusion of faith based options in a treatment plan, considering that there is substantial disagreement on the value of such elements, it also seems to me that applying first amendment rights to the acceptance and grading of assignments is questionable, and I wonder what the courts may have ruled on this in the past.

    As I have time I will look it up, though it’s likely that brilliant readers will have straightened me out before I get the time to do that.

    Brilliant readers, where are you?? 🙂

  • Persecution Victim as a Profession

    It seems that former Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt, who claims to have been dismissed from the Navy for praying in the name of Jesus, is making a career now of being persecuted. The story is being kept alive. I was alerted to the current edition through my Breaking Christian News e-mail alert, a source that often provides me with valuable, positive news, but in this case refers me to the WorldNetDaily which appears to be a bit apoplectic.

    WND said:

    A chaplain who was dismissed from the U.S. Navy when he refused to following orders to make his prayers “nonsectarian” and remove the name of Jesus from them now has been commissioned by the governor of Kentucky as an honorary “Kentucky Colonel.

    But CNN reported:

    In September a military jury found Lt. Gordon Klingenschmitt had disobeyed a superior officer’s order not to wear his uniform to a political protest at the White House in March 2006.

    Ah, he was not dismissed for praying in Jesus name, but for disobeying a lawful order. Interesting difference. The Kentucky legislature should be ashamed of themselves for commending an officer for disobeying orders. Kentucky’s governor should be ashamed of himself for giving such a person an award for courage.

    Since I have commented on the issue before, I’m not going to go through the details of the original problem about prayer. Suffice it to repeat here that Klingenschmitt’s view on this differs substantially from that of others, including other Christian chaplains.