YEWS

2 Friday, February 8, 1980

Purely Commentary

The Separation Principle Again in the Limelight With Carter
and Reagan Favoring Prayers in the Schools ... Recalling
Attitude of American Idealists Who Fathered Tradition

Madison on Religious Liberty

Carter and Reagan Share Their
Views on 'God in the Schools'

At the National Religious Broadcasters convention in
Washington a week ago, President Carter, at a breakfast
meeting at the White House, encouraged a group of reli-
gious leaders to press their campaign to restore voluntary
prayer and Bible readings in public schools.
Such also was the view expressed very recently by
Ronald Reagan in the process of his campaigning for the
Republican nomination for President. Reagan was empha-
tic in his criticism of any effort to expel God from the public
schools.
That's how this religious crusade sounds all over again
— a sort of crusading for God, giving the impression that
anyone who would adhere to the basic American principle
of Separation is conducting a war on God.
In April 1979, Carter expressed opposition to legisla-
tion and said prayer should be "an individual matter be-
tween a person and God."
It becomes necessary to call to the witness stand a few
of the earlier American Presidents, notably Thomas Jeffer-
son (1801-1809) and James Madison (1809-1817).
The Carter-Reagan-et. al . flirtations with those who
would demolish the Separation ideal is not new. It is repeti-
tive. It has reached the Supreme Court. It has become a
means of stimulating suspicions and arousing hatreds by
saying to those who would not turn the school into a church
that they hate God and are banishing the Almighty from
public institutions.
Whatever the prejudices, they are not partisan.
Former President Gerald Ford and Presidential candidate
Robert Dole have gone on record in favor of prayer-reading
in the schools.
It was an issue when Jimmy Carter first sought the
Democratic nomination for President in 1976. It necessi-
tated a commentary on the subject and on July 2, 1976, this
commentator had this to say on the subject:

• • •

"Jimmy Carter, whose nomination for the presidency
by the Democrats now appears a certainty, is a Baptist.
Traditionally the Baptists support the Separation ideal.
But Baptists also are religiously dedicated and many are
believed to lean towards a new policy of permitting the
reading of prayers in the schools.
"William V. Shannon tackled 'The Religious Issue' re-
cently in an Op-Ed page article in the New York Times and
his view of the Separation idea may add rather than detract
from puzzlement. He had this to say:
Secularism is a false and distorting creed with
which to bind the richness and variety of the
American experience ... Not only have Ameri-
cans been a religious people, but Christianity and
Judaism are animating forces in the Western
civilization of which America is a part.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court in recent de-
cades has gone far toward affirming this sec-
ularist creed as the one, true constitutional gos-
pel. That poisonous metaphor, "a wall of separa-
tion" between church and state, has given sec-
ularist notions a power in the law that they do not
possess in the plain language of the First Amend-
ment or in the rich pluralist experience of Ameri-
can life.
To pretend that state and church can be walled
off from one another is to found a constitutional
theory upon a social fiction — never a sound basis
for any law. The social reality is that a religion has
in the past and does now play an important part in
the lives of many people as it does in Governor
Carter's. The intertwining of religion and the
state can be seen in everything from inscriptions
on our money to the provision of chaplains in the
armed forces to the granting of tax exemption to
church-owned property.
Rather than simply obeying the constitutional
command to be neutral toward all churches, the
Court in trying to construct its imaginary wall has
been led into much grave nonsense. Thus, what
began as a niggling fear that some child might be
psychologically damaged by hearing the Lord's
Prayer in the classroom has forced public schools
to ban the singing of Christmas carols and the
observance of Hanuka.
Similarly, the Supreme Court strives to distin-
guish why if it is constitutional to pay for a bus to
drive a student to a church-related school, it is
unconstitutional to pay for teaching him physics
or geography once he gets inside the school.
It is this aggressive secularism that finds Mr.
Carter's religion worrisome. Ironically, the Bap-
tist Church of which he is a member is a strong
supporter of the wall-of-separation theory. There
is no reason to suppose that he will try to overturn
the Supreme Court's decisions banning prayer in
the schools and severely restricting financial aid
to church-related schools.
His religious faith probably accounts, in part at

By Philip
Slomovitz

From Encyclopedia Judaica

JIMMY CARTER

RONALD REAGAN

least, for his empathy with poor people and with
blacks, an empathy that leads him to espouse
programs which many secular liberals approve.
But since he admits that he likes to pray and to
rend his Bible and to teach Sunday school, Mr.
Carter is a standing contradiction to the outlook
and the legal fictions of those who believe that
God is dead and should not be mentioned in polite
society.
"Would James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John
Adams and other of the earliest proponents of the Separa-
tion idea and the formulators of that principle have become
so tangentially involved in the Separation dispute? There
is such a thing as calling a spade a spade, and the basic idea
is at hand. A clever theoretician could easily frame a prayer
that might sound like a common denominator for all faiths,
including even the Muslim. But even praying together is
anathema to many differing faiths, and that is not ignora-
ble.
"Just a bit of heresy: The fact is that there is more
secularism than religiosity, but it is a sort of 'sanctimoni-
ous secularism.' Viewing the White House occupants
realistically there is evidence that Abe Lincoln was an
ethical man who turned to preachments after he had been
elected President. Traditionally, there was no sense ques-
tioning his faith. That was not part of statesmanship or
diplomacy. This was true of Eisenhower and Truman.
Kennedy's church-going could have been a private affair if
the notoriety seeking newsmen hadn't watched his every
step. Johnson found himself as much at home in any church
as he did in any political bailiwick. Only Nixon found it
necessary to turn the White House into a church on Sunday
mornings (once or twice into a synagogue) and we called his
bluff then on turning the nation's capital into a church.
"Therefore, the added necessity not to go overboard
with private religious affairs when the sanctity of the
state's separatism from religion and dogma is so vital to the
nation's traditions.
"From what has been learned, it is doubtful whether
Jimmy Carter would deviate from the Separation tradition,
or whether he would risk antagonizing anyone on the score
of religious preferences or freedoms. Yet, the issue has been
raised and needs to be settled quickly before it becomes an
unnecessary issue in 1976.
"The Baptists are devout Christians who believe in
Prophecy. They are dedicated to the proposition that, as
enunciated by the Prophets, in the Old Testament that is so
dear to them, Israel's rebirth as a sovereign state is an
historic inevitability. Will the Baptists, as some suggest,
negate this view because of modernity dominating the Is-
raeli scene, because of freedoms on the beaches, non-
restrictions on dress which is often scanty, the seculariza-
tion that is not outlawed in a state in which the religious
group is part of a coalition government?
The suspicion of Baptist inconsistency in supporting
Israel is unquestionably unjustified. Yet, an earlier experi-
ence by a noted Jewish scholar is worth recording.
"Perhaps 40 years ago the eminent French-Jewish
poet, essayist and historian Edmond Fleg went to Palestine
to retrace the steps of Jesus and to write a biography of
Christ. Instead, he found his people and became enamored
with the Halutzim, the pioneers who were building a new
life in the Jewish National Home which was eventually to
become the autonomous state of Israel. He met with people

THOMAS JEFFERSON

JAMES MADISON

MADISON, JAMES (1750-1836,) fourth
president of the United States. The son of a prom-
inent Episcopalian family, Madison graduated
from the College of New Jersey in 1771. Because
he was then considering a career in the ministry,
he spent an additional year studying theology and
Hebrew. Throughout his political career, he con-
tended that complete religious liberty was essen-
tial for a harmonious society and that religious
institutions established by the state engendered
"ignorance and corruption."
During the Virginia constitutional convention
in 1776, he opposed a provision for full religious
"toleration," proposing instead that the law de-
clare "the full and free exercise of it (religion)
according to the dictates of conscience." In 1784
he successfully led the opposition to a resolution
in the Virginia House of Delegates for a tax in
"support of the Christian religion, or of some
Christian church" and warned that "Instead of
holding forth an asylum to the persecuted, it is
itself a signal of persecution." As president he
vetoed two bills in 1811 which would have granted
legal prerogatives to certain churches.

of all faiths and he found a prejudice among some Catholics.
One Bishop expressed his horror over his experiences with
the pioneers in the Holy City and he said to Fleg, in his
outrage of what the Jewish youth were doing: 'They are
dancing in the streets of Jerusalem.'
"This was related by Fleg in his book 'The Promised
Land' which became the substitute of what he had planned
as a biography of Jesus.
"Jews had come to the ancient homeland to build a
Society of Free Men. That's why they danced and continue
to 'dance in the streets of the Holy Land, while building a
great spiritual-cultural center linked with economic-
industrial-scientific progress for the benefit of all mankind.
"Could a devout Christian who believes in Prophecy
object to the social amenities that predominate in the
Jewish Homeland? Could a religious Baptist emulate the
horror of a devout Catholic, ignoring the realities of the
new age and the freedom of a self-liberated people? This
now becomes inconceivable even in more extreme religious
ranks.
"None of the religious issues seems to have a place in
the political disputes of the present time. They have been
tackled and demolished. The nation will be all the better
without injecting them in the great contest for White House
occupancy."
• • •
Perhaps there is a developing inconsistency. At one
point, as a Baptist, Jimmy Carter adhered to the Separa-
tion policy. In the White House, addressing religious
broadcasters, he flirted with their aspirations.
Thus, the dispute continues. It is inconceivable that
the Supreme Court should reverse itself and act for erasing
the Church-State Separation principle from the American
traditions. Meanwhile, however, those who adhere to the
established tradition are portrayed as criminally conspir-
ing to oust God from public arenas and the nation's school
systems. The strictest adherents to the Separation policy
are often the most devout in American society. Perhaps this
is what makes America strong: that differing views are not
legally, idealistically, banned, and that even a very reli-
giously devout person can be called an enemy of God and he
can survive in the sanctimony of the Almighty.
• • •

`Born Again Religious Prejudice'
Question Represents New Challenge

A letter to the New York Times by Saul Parker of
has some relevance to this discussion.
wrote:
When Al Smith lost to Herbert Hoover in 1928,
we deplored the role of religious prejudice in our
politics and government. When John Kennedy
was elected, we rejoiced at the progress in over-
coming religious criteria in political judgments.
Recently, President Carter denounced the
Soviets as atheists. If that is a term of approbri um
international affairs, why not in American poli-
tics? Will we soon hear a candidate attacked as a
"dirty little atheist," a la Tom Paine?
Now the President, in the words of your dis-
patch (Jan. 22), "reminded members of the Na-
tional Religious Broadcasters, one of the most
powerful groups among evangelicals, that, just in
case they had forgotten, they had a born-again
Christian running for election." What was he
suggesting about Edward Kennedy? Or Jacob
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This is a viewpoint not to be brushed off. It has a link
with Separation. If we are to have total and true religious
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