A recent survey, published in the USA Today (9/12/2007), has shown that a majority of Americans believe that the United States is, by law, a Christian country. The survey, conducted by the First Amendment Center (firstamendmentcenter.org) a non-partisan group, and designed to measure attitudes toward freedom of religion, speech and the press, found that 55% of Americans believe that the founders of the United States wrote Christianity into the Constitution when it was drafted in 1789. In addition, the survey shows that half of the people surveyed believe that teachers should be able to use the Bible as a history text and, perhaps most troubling, “only 56% believe that freedom of religion applies to all groups regardless of how extreme their beliefs are.” The survey, of course, does not ask people to clarify who should be able to define “extreme.”
In fact, the Unites States Constitution does not make any designation of the Unites States as a Christian country. On the contrary, religious freedom was at the heart of the democratic movement and at the core of the reasons why many of our early ancestors came to this country. Many people who assert the primacy of Christianity refer to statements and writings by founders that seem to consistently use Christian terminology, and there is no question that they were, overwhelmingly Christian and probably had limited exposure to other faiths. However, the same mindset that led to the absence of rights for women or African Americans can also explain these limited texts.
The larger issue for me is how much we identify with our religious affiliation. So often our religious identity seems to go beyond our basic principles of living. What does it mean to be a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist, etc.? Does it transcend what we believe about life? And, perhaps most perplexingly, who does it link us to?
For example, is the radical, right-wing Christian group that advocates bombing abortion centers closer, by identity, to more reasoned and open-hearted Christians, or are they more aligned with the mindset and beliefs of Al Qaeda and the Jewish extremists who machine gunned Mosques in Israel several years ago? What does it mean to be part of a religion?
Our religious identity is so many things to us. It provides recognition of our historical heritage; it is a remembrance of our ancestors; it is a statement of our beliefs; and a guide to life practices. For many of us, it is a haven for our connection to something deeper, more meaningful, and, perhaps, safer and more peaceful than what goes on around us in our everyday lives.
And yet, as we live in this increasingly multi-cultural country, and this increasingly multi-cultural world, our exposure to each other on a daily basis, and even through increases in religious intermarriage and engagement call us to look more deeply at what it means to identify with a religion. Are we going to allow ourselves to be separated by these identities (they say, for example, that Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America), or are we going to ground ourselves in a true understanding of what our core identities mean about our core beliefs.
At their core, almost every religion professes profound and universal love. Is that the message that we will allow our religions to teach us? Or will it be a message of separation and hatred?
In this diverse world, our survival may depend on that choice.
