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Deluded, some
say; freedom of worship, others respond. Either way, it is hard to
take the magnitude of the phenomenon lightly. When evangelicals
become entrenched in Washington and seek to influence the
orientation of foreign policy and direct federal spending according
to their religious beliefs, it is difficult not to gnash one's teeth.
No one can
deny the religious pluralism that reigns in the country of Uncle
Sam. From Hindu temples in Tennessee to Buddhist monasteries in
Minnesota, by way of California's Sikh pilgrimage centers, entire
communities have been built up and organized voluntarily from coast
to coast. In the mid-1960s, successive waves of immigration from
Asia brought a panoply of new rites and customs that have had an
impact on architecture, art, music, and dining in many cities. It's
a rich resource the magnitude of which the American Founding Fathers
could not have imagined when they drew up their Constitution's First
Amendment.
In the Founding Era,
having witnessed bloody religious wars engulf the European continent(2)
and failed attempts to establish and maintain State religions in
certain American colonies, Thomas Jefferson set himself the task of
constructing a law guaranteeing freedom of worship to all in
Virginia. Even though he himself believed in God, he learned from
history the danger of a State imposing a national religion. The
citizen, bereft of his natural right to believe what he wants, is
then forced to pay taxes to finance institutions he does not
support. Let us not forget, also, all the violence and
discrimination that such a policy can engender.
While controversial,
Jefferson's proposition had a domino effect in the other colonies.
Ultimately, in the wake of the revolution, it led to this common
agreement: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." In other
words, each citizen remains free to choose what he wants to believe,
or not, depending on his conscience and his convictions.(3)
And in fact, America's traditional motto is not In God We Trust, but
rather E Pluribus Unum, which signifies a nation united in
its diversity.
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A Torrent of Subsidies for God's Sake |
"This is all
a fraud, a distortion of history," Pat Robertson often says in order
to attack the separation of Church and State. Far from being the
opinion of a single citizen, this is coming from the founder of the
Christian Broadcast Network, a powerful and respected organization
reaching millions of voting-age Americans daily. Its main objective:
making the United States a Christian nation. Basing itself on a
particular reading of the biblical story, jumbling together
different verses of the prophets, the CBN fights ferociously against
homosexuality, equal rights for women, and research into therapeutic
cloning, and also advocates the return of prayer in all schools.
These attitudes found an
echo in the current Republican president, George W. Bush. Convinced
that he himself has been born again, Bush openly celebrates
Christian morality in his policies. From the very beginning, unlike
his predecessors, Bush maintained close ties—not to say compromising
ties, from a constitutional point of view—with the evangelical
lobby.(4) He
did not hesitate to loosen the purse strings to create, at the very
heart of the White House itself, the Office of Faith-Based
Initiatives, charged with distributing billions of dollars in
subsidies to churches and religious associations. This program shows
favouritism to Christian organizations, in accordance with the
President's monotheistic beliefs.(5)
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