Challenging the Separation of Church and State

Since 1954, in order to maintain tax-exempt status under IRS guidelines, churches have to maintain election neutrality. Their representatives can neither endorse or not endorse a candidate. The Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative organization, is rallying ministers to stand up for their first amendment rights and defy this half century edict by endorsing candidates. This Sunday certain ministers throughout the country have vowed to do so, to uphold what they're calling "scriptural truth about candidates for office or issues." They're calling September 28 "Pulpit Freedom Sunday."

The IRS will likely impose the law, that is take away participating churches' tax exempt status. And the churches will subsequently appeal in the courts, challenging the constitutionality of the law.

In my estimation the relatively strict separation of church and state, certainly as expressed in the 1954 edict, is good for both religion and for the nation.

An organization that's been active since 1947, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, expresses the right perspective of the delicate balance between religious institutions and the interests of the nation.

Religion and Race

Nicholas D. Kristof wrote an important column in Sunday's New York Times: "The Push to 'Otherize' Obama." Mr. Kristoff drew on a recent Pew Research Survey that found only half of Americans know that Mr. Obama is a Christian. Thirteen percent responded that he is Muslim. A surging sixteen percent responded that they "weren't sure" about his religion.

Mr. Kristof chronicled a campaign on the conservative side to portray Mr. Obama as Muslim. Certain Christian Rightists have even called him the Antichrist.

Mr. Kristoff made an audacious and troubling assertion: there's an effort to "otherize" Mr. Obama, rendering him "unAmerican." "

"What is happening. I think, is this: religious prejudice is becoming a proxy for racial prejudice," Mr. Kristof declared.

In my estimation Mr. Kristof is on target. Race lurks beneath the surface of this 2008 election. How the Religious Right is complicit illuminates an ugly aspect of the so-called culture wars that have engulfed the nation for years. These culture wars are not just about values; on white underbellies, hidden from the light of day, prejudice lurks.

Meanwhile, In Europe

Europe is secular and becoming more so. Pope Benedict XVI has been persistently reasserting the Church's moral authority for European states on such issues as same sex marriage, euthanasia, and communion for the divorced. He has focused on France, which is the model for a strict separation of church and state, as well as a leader in secularization. A good article on the Vatican's reassertion of its authority on European culture is in today's New York Times.

In my estimation Benedict and the Vatican's attempt to recoup the Church's authority through political wrangling is worth monitoring, particularly as the Church portrays itself as the underdog/outsider beleaguered by cultural elites. (This sounds familiar to Americans who have watched the political and religious Right follow similar strategies.)

Sarah Palin's Religion

Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's personal narrative has energized the Evangelical/Religious Right base of the party. Baptized Roman Catholic and raised Assemblies of God, she now occasionally attends Juneau Christian Center—a church with Pentecostal origins, but which goes by a non-denominational label. She and her family have affiliated with a hometown nondenominational Bible church, the Wassila Bible Church.

Her surprise selection by John McCain seems to be, by consensus, a bow toward born again Christians, who make up some 40% of the population. Pentecostals and Charismatics make up almost half of all born again Christians.

Knowledgeable commentators have judged the churches in which she has been recently active as “post-denominational." Post-denominational Christianity blends Evangelical and Pentecostal (Charismatic) ways of faith and worship in independent congregations, which are without denominational ties.

In my estimation Ms. Palin’s candidacy brings religion once again to the forefront of this election. We will learn more about her beliefs, as those beliefs potentially affect public policy. From the outset, regarding sexual education, it’s clear she echoes the Republican National Convention’s platform plank of “abstinence only” with a hostility toward “family planning.”

The culture wars continue and issues such as sexual education, abortion, gay marriage will divert attention from more substantive issues of national defense/international relations and the economy.

That’s too bad, but that’s why the Republican hierarchy settled upon her.

Her candidacy returns religion to the forefront of this year's presidential campaign.