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Separation anxiety: from founders to fundamentalists
Judaism, Spring, 1995 by Stephen J. Whitfield
Tags: Christianity, church, Government, U.S. Congress
There are a couple of lessons to be drawn from that true story, apart from the obvious one that the speeches of politicians are to be taken with a stalactite of salt. One is that, in American politics, religion can sometimes be of great importance; and even office-seekers who lack faith themselves, like Long, must reckon with the significance that religion enjoys among their constituents. The other lesson is that, even in the most thoroughly and homogeneously Protestant section in the Western Hemisphere, which is Dixie, more than one version of religion prevails, more than one expression of piety exists; and therefore the political culture must grapple with the varieties of religious experience. How the American legal and Constitutional system was intended to address the problem of faith - or, rather, of faiths - bears directly upon the Jewish condition and affects the status of a minority that has been acutely vulnerable in the historical experience of Christendom. In uncoupling church from state, the Founders created a distinctive heritage to which American Jewry has been indebted, and which this essay is designed to elucidate.
Consider, for example, the following prayer: "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence on Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country."(2) This meek supplication was as innocuous as a ticket stub for a parking garage. This prayer was addressed to a deity that bears little resemblance to the fiery and jealous God of the Patriarchs (though Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, endorsed this faint meditation as intended to "engrave upon the child's mind the idea that any wrongdoing is an offense against the divine authority and order").(3) Composed by the New York Board of Regents, this prayer was nevertheless outlawed by the Supreme Court in 1962, provoking such uproar that the Congress considered a Constitutional amendment to spike the majority opinion in Engel v. Vitale. Representative George W. Andrews (D-Ala.) denounced the Justices because "they put the Negroes in the schools and now they've driven God out," and Senator Sam Ervin (D-N.C.) complained that "the Supreme Court has made God unconstitutional."(4) Senator Herman Talmadge (D-Ga.) interpreted the decision as "putting God and the devil on an equal plane," a serious charge when about half the population professed belief in the actual existence of Satan.(5) Representatives of the nation's largest religious denomination were outraged: the Catholic weekly America called Engel v. Vitale a "stupid decision...that spits in the face of our history"; and an articulate Catholic layman, William F. Buckley, Jr., added that the First Amendment "was not designed to secularize American life." A year later the Court, by an 8-1 majority, outlawed the reading of the Bible in public schools, sowing the seed for the emergence of the New Right that sought to combat and to conquer the Godlessness and immorality that supposedly afflict the nation. Even a prayer that omitted mention of a deity, and was to be uttered by kindergarten children receiving their cookies and milk ("We thank you for the flowers sweet,/we thank you for the food we eat,/we thank you for the birds that sing/we thank you for everything"),(6) was banned. No wonder then that President Kennedy quipped in 1963 that "the Chief Justice has assured me that our school bill is clearly constitutional - because - it hasn't got a prayer."(7)
How could such a situation have emerged within the lifetime of most Americans? Why has the Constitution been read in that way, and how has the emergence of outraged religious groups affected both the interpretation of that document and the status of civil liberties? The rise of the right, especially the religious right, over the past couple of decades has posed a broad challenge to certain Constitutional interpretations. Its rise has decisively affected American politics, having helped in 1980 to put President Jimmy Carter on a midnight train to Georgia and replace him with the embodiment of the aspirations of an insurgent Christianity, Ronald Reagan. As many as eight million white evangelical Christians switched party registration from Democrat to Republican in 1984, forcing not only liberals and Democrats but even moderates within the Republican party on the defensive. This tumult has also altered the climate of judicial interpretation, encouraging everyone to think anew about religion in the modern state, the latitude to be given to deeply felt belief, the power that ought to be granted to the observances of the majority, and the sensitivity of the state to religious minorities and to unbelievers.
What the Framers wrote remains a living document partly because of the desire of the religious right and its allies to promote a certain moral vision. Such Christians have championed state-sanctioned prayer and devotion, a renewed public respect for religious observance and symbols, and the enforcement of prohibitions against what they profess to despise, such as abortion, pornography, homosexuality, promiscuity, and drugs - all of which are often attributed to "secular humanism." Perhaps an historian, absorbed in the minutes of the last meeting, can contribute to understanding by considering that parchment primarily in its late eighteenth century context and then, more gingerly, discuss its contemporary meaning - which has special relevance for Jews.
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