freedom and religion

The other day, on March 17th, the House Judiciary Committee approved House Concurrent Resolution 13 "Reaffirming 'In God We Trust' as the official motto of the United States and supporting and encouraging the public display of the national motto in all public buildings, public schools, and other government institutions."

Bleuch! My immediate and cynical reaction is, what a bunch of opportunistic blowhards. But maybe I'm wrong: maybe they're sincere; maybe they really do feel that they're not betraying anything by "reaffirming" what never should have been affirmed in the first place.

The fact is that we didn't have that motto on all our currency until the McCarthyist 50s. Something that *has* been on our currency from the beginning, though, is "E Pluribus Unum." One out of many. Many people, of many beliefs, of many political stripes, of many backgrounds, of many languages, of many faiths or no faith at all. Oh, that it would somehow be so today.

I'm showing my traditional Baptist ideas here. I'm distressed that some of my fellow Baptists have so easily abandoned their true roots (proof that power corrupts). The further religion and government get from each other, the stronger each is, as evidenced by the great state of Rhode Island, founded by Baptist Roger Williams as one of the first places on planet Earth where a person truly could worship in whatever way he or she wished, or worship not at all, with complete freedom — no special districts, no special taxes or fees, certainly no beheadings or deportations, complete freedom.

When will we return to this wonderful ideal? (Of course, this wonderful ideal was never completely bought into by all Americans in the first place, so there you have it. Let's not be guilty either of romanticing or homogenizing the past, or of co-opting the Founders for our convenience.) But it's a glorious badge of honor in this country, something for us to be proud of, and with every public prayer at a Presidential inauguration, football game, or graduation ceremony, we not only disobey the Christ who very tartly ordered his followers to pray behind closed doors, "not like the hypocrites do" (and I'll add that those who follow him do indeed do the former and eschew the latter, given the logical fact that those who don't are quite simply not following Him), but we besmirch our greatest traditions as a country that affirms the freedom of every man's and woman's conscience.

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