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| Is this public school display a violation of the First Amendment? (Jewish Press) |
The Founding Fathers of this great nation understood that
freedom and the equality of man required that the United States not have an
official religion. This was unlike any other civilized nation in Europe at the
time, most of which had state-sanctioned religions. The United States was going
to be a country where all people would be free to worship as they pleased,
without interference from the government. That required that no single religion
could be established within any part of the government.
Yet, many of the Founding Fathers were Christians. Some
quite devout. How could they reconcile this seemingly contradictory state of
affairs, where they would allow people of other faiths, whose beliefs and
practices differed from their own, to worship freely?
Ever since, there has been a tension between these two
principles - religious freedom and government neutrality. Which has resulted in
conflicting views about how to live out these values.
The First Amendment addressed this tension with two very
famous clauses: the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. The
former ensures that the government may not establish any particular religion or
religious rituals in any governing body - local or national. The latter
guarantees that the beliefs and practices of any faith may be freely observed
without government interference.
Until about the mid-20th century, the First Amendment worked
reasonably well for most Americans. Although there were some constitutional
challenges brought by anti-religious groups (e.g., American Atheists), such as
demands to remove ‘In God We Trust’ from U.S. currency or to omit ‘under God’
from the Pledge of Allegiance, things moved along pretty smoothly. That’s
largely because the vast majority of Americans do believe in God. That is the
one unifying factor across much of our population.
But doesn’t that contradict the First Amendment? Apparently
not. The Supreme Court has ruled that belief in God, in a general sense, does
not amount to the establishment of a particular religion.
Still, belief in God is, by definition, a religious
principle—is it not? Don’t the atheists have a point? This is where things get
a bit fuzzy. To answer this question, we need to refine what ‘establishing a
religion’ really means.
Especially considering the devout nature of many Founding
Fathers, whose Puritan ancestors held the Old Testament in high regard. A text
we Jews refer to as the Tanach, usually meaning the Torah, from
which we derive our beliefs and practices. There is a biblical basis for
certain American traditions that have become institutionalized.
Take Thanksgiving, for example. It is rooted in Chag
HaAsif (Sukkos/Shemini Atzeres) when Jews are commanded by God to give thanks for the bounty gathered during
the fall harvest. The Pilgrims appreciated this Old Testament tradition and
adapted it into their own form of thanksgiving.
The point is that there are religious components to the
American ethos that are not explicitly identified as such but clearly arise
from religious values.
So even though America is a secular country, it has a kind
of secular religion—a civil religion—based on biblical values. These values are
common to both Christians, who make up the vast majority of the population, and
Jews, who constitute less than 2%—many of whom today barely identify with their
faith.
Here’s how Mark Tooley put it:
“America’s civil religion organically emerged from America’s founding as a pan-Protestant inclusive way to keep religion in public life without unnecessary division. George Washington was especially expert in citing the Deity while avoiding theological controversy. The tradition worked so well that as more Catholics and Jews came to America, the civil religion not only endured but thrived.
Abraham Lincoln became the high priest of American civil religion, expressed especially through his Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural Address. In this tradition, God ordained America to be the ‘last best hope on earth,’ while also holding it under divine judgment for the sin of slavery.”
Old Testament values were a consistent feature of American
leadership. This was true at the founding, true during Lincoln’s era, and
remains true today.
That said, I don’t mean to suggest that American Jews are
subject to anything other than the beliefs and practices of Judaism. What I am
saying is that certain religious values are shared by all Americans—and that
public declarations and symbols of those common values ought to be celebrated,
not disparaged or discarded as violations of the First Amendment.
Which brings me to a recent news item reported in the Jewish Press:
“The Texas House on Sunday approved Senate Bill 10, legislation mandating that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom across the state...
The bill now heads back to the Senate for final approval (after which) the measure will move to Governor Greg Abbott’s desk, where it is expected to be signed into law.”
First Amendment warriors like the ACLU are sure to challenge
this on constitutional grounds. But I think they’ll lose—precisely because of
America’s civil religion, where the majority of the American people accept the
principles embodied in the Ten Commandments. Principles cherished by our
Founding Fathers and some of our greatest presidents.
As this great nation seems to be descending into an abyss
where immorality is being turned into a virtue, it is long past time to reverse
that trend and refocus on the biblical values that made this country great.
And as the Jewish Press rightly points out, what better time to focus on the Ten Commandments than now - just before Shavuos, when we celebrate the Divine revelation of the Torah and we read the Ten Commandments.
