Is the old wall between church, state crumbling?

Published 7:00 am Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Panelists look at history and recent Supreme Court decisions.

Americans struggle to keep church and state separate, because religion is so inextricably linked with their lives.

Defining faith as “a way of looking at the world, what it is and what it should be,” Rabbi Mark Glickman of Congregation Kol Shalom said, “most Americans are ‘religious’ because they have a system of morals, ethics and values.”

He cited news coverage of funding for City Hall upgrades, federal funding for a Japanese-American internment memorial, and the failure of a school technology levy.

“Every public decision we make reflects religion,” he said, adding, “government budgets order our priorities.”

Sunday evening, a four-person panel – American government scholar David Harrison, the Rev. David Snapper of Silverdale’s Anchor of Hope Christian Reformed Church, island attorney Jay Brown of the American Civil Liberties Union, and Glickman – discussed “religion in the public square” before a packed audience at the Bainbridge High School LGI Room.

A series of conversation cafes the next three Tuesdays, starting May 31, will continue the discussion on a smaller scale.

Main themes included the inseparability of religion and life, origins of the separation of church and state in the Constitution and perceived erosions of that separation in recent years.

The Rev. Snapper agreed with Glickman’s assessment of religion’s inextricable place in American culture, likening faith to a canvas and culture being painted on the canvas, thus impossible to separate without destroying the painting.

Glickman suggested that “all significant religions are evangelical. They have a vision they want to become real… It’s not fair to ask them to leave religion at home.”

At the same time, he proposed that in the public square, one religion should not advocate itself over others.

The advocacy of one religion over another is at the crux of the debate over the “Establishment Clause” of the Constitution’s First Amendment, which forbids the government to establish a religion, but also forbids it to supress the exercise of religion.

Harrison, who teaches policy analysis in a master of public administration program at the UW Evans School, said the writers of the U.S. Constitution were interested in protecting religion from government.

Small churches, he said, feared government would support larger institutions, and people wanted to be protected from having to tithe, Harrison said.

Snapper added that the Evangelicals – Puritanism, which is today’s Evangelical theology – believed that men are prone to corruption and “will take power to seek more power,” he said. Leery of men’s weaknesses, they wrote laws to protect people from government.

“While not all people were evangelical, the language (of Evangelicals) pervaded the culture,” Snapper said.

Brown, of the “strict separationist” camp, argued that the Bill of Rights “placed religion beyond the reach of the majority because it was too personal, important and fundamental to be subjected to the whims of government.”

“I agree that it’s not possible to separate religion from the culture in this country,” he said. “(But) that is separate from the question of keeping religion and civil government separate.”

Harrison discussed a weakening of that wall of separation in cases considered by the Supreme Court under Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.

The separation was held up by the “Lemon standard” that a statute “must not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion” based on the 1971 Lemon v. Kurtzman case.

Harrison said the “standard” has been weakened by two newer interpretations under the Rehnquist cout.

First came the “absence of preference” test, which makes it OK for government to sanction religious school clubs, for example, as long as it shows no preference for one club over another.

Secondly came a distinction between “religious belief” and “religious practice,” where it would be permissible to deny a Muslim prisoner time to pray, because praying is a “religious practice” as opposed to a “religious belief” being curtailed.

Brown also cautioned that faith-based initiatives – in which the government delegates governmental tasks to religious organizations, which may then require a statement of belief from a person to receive services – is an area in which separation is crumbling.

Glickman provided a contrasting opinion, citing a Jewish organization helping persons needing drug rehabilitation, which was recently turned down for federal funding.

“I’m OK with teaching Christianity if it gets a person off drugs” as it saves someone from dying, Glickman said.

By evening’s end, there was clearly still much to consider.

Glickman urged people to “buy and sell” respectfully in the free marketplace of ideas.

And, allowing that he might offend someone in the public square, Glickman proposed that if wrong, he would try to fix it, but “the tyranny of ‘don’t offend’ can only paralyze us.”