Date: Mon Nov 17 11:49:13 1997
To: Frank Grose
From: Rob Weinberg
Subject: Re: Shalom
Shalom!
I was almost hoping you'd not reply too quickly, just because I have a lot of work to do this a.m., and I was afraid I'd not be able to avoid replying to yours. But I'm glad you did, and appreciate what you say here very much.
At 12:30 AM 11/17/97 0600, you wrote:
You truly are a patient, tolerant man! I read carefully through your response. It is now obvious to me that you have studied the First Amendment issue on a professional level. I have not. I don't mind admitting that. And I have relied a great deal on David Barton as a source, because it seemed to me that he'd done a good job at researching the early history. Thank you for forwarding the cases.
I do regret that I'd not found the time to listen to the tapes earlier. Still haven't, but it's not because I presuppose what they're going to say. Over the last number of days I've been visiting and revisiting the Separation of Church and State (SOCS) Web page, reading more. I found something interesting in that my "reply" to Barton's video transcript was pretty much off the cuff. I have access to Westlaw from home, so when there was a case reference, I could look it up or pull it down directly from Westlaw. Afterwards, I found a lot of discussion about Barton's articles and tapes. I wasn't looking for Barton on the SOCS page because I wasn't familiar with his name until after your transcript. Anyway, much of what I said about Barton is articulated much better on those pages.
It will take me some time to get through them, however. The last thing I want to do is use a mis-quote from someone to try to prove a point. I want facts, not spin, right or left.
Absolutely, and I'm so glad to hear you say that. I can see how you might assume that my "legal" responses are cloaked knee jerk liberal reactions. And that, given what I've already said, there'd be no way I'm going to give the writers on the "right" a fair shake to begin with. I've seen somewhere books by Robert Bork and William Bennett that may be the closest thing to scholarship and intellectual honesty that I can give a "fair shake" to, so I need to see if I can find them.
Being a friend to the liberal community, I've seen it in its extremes too. That does no one any good. In matters of scholarship, spin doctors are too easy to detect and discredit. That's the unfortunate thing about what I've seen so far. I'm seriously looking for competent legal analysis and serious historical scholarship. If I ever catch the "left" playing games, I'll be the first to call them out. In fact, that's why I can be helpful in the office on such issues despite my own personal or political views.
You mentioned that I was not answering your questions. The fact is, I only have a limited amount of time I can spend responding to emails. Please don't think I don't read them, however. I do, every one. And I don't try to place myself in your position. I do consider your questions the way you want me to. As I've said before, you do make me think. From my last couple of emails, I can understand why you think I'm closed minded. But I'm not.
Thanks you for sharing that. I never thought too much that you just gloss over what I've said. But I know it's difficult. And I know that if *I've* read something once and replied, I'm not likely to revisit it. I know you don't *want* to be close minded, and that's the first major step to not being so. It's a lifelong process. As liberal and open minded as I think I am, even I am prone to close up when I think I already have the answers, whether on questions of religion, race, politics, government, or sex. That's why I spend so much time listening to your POV and trying not to argue it down, but just explore it.
By design and sometimes unintentionally, I write on many levels, and to many different people in the audience. I may be writing to you, but I'm writing for myself and posterity as well. It helps clarify my own feelings as I put them into words, and helps me try and visit objectively how much analysis my feelings or thought can withstand.
If I can claim any attribute of "my people," and I claim few, it is the love and pursuit of scholarship. It is what attracted me most to my wife in the beginning. Although she didn't have a college degree at the time I met her, she was constantly reading, religion and history in particular. The kinds of books that look great on your shelves but no one really reads, she read. You name it, she devoured it.
I agree that a Christian public school teacher should not be teaching your children her religion on government time. I'm with you there, my friend. In fact, some Christians take their children out of public schools precisely to avoid having them indoctrinated with "government approved" religion. (Let's not debate that statement, please.)
Gee, I thought that's what the debate was about....
My comment regarding your heritage had nothing to do with your be one of "God's chosen," I was just simply trying to make the point that you and I were reared in different environments. Mine was a Christian home; yours was Jewish. Sometimes I get a little confused and uncertain how to consider you. It seems you point out your Jewishness, but when I refer to it, you dodge. I have no problem with you being Jewish.
I don't think I set out to make the point that I'm Jewish for its own sake. Usually it's just in response to a particular question about Judaism, or it's used as a specific example of how the debate can lead to divisiveness, or the harm. They're really only particular examples of generic harm I see, as when I refer to Pike County, or closer to home, when I talk about my and my sister's childhood or my nieces.
When I jump you for pointing it out, it's because, as well intentioned as you may think it is because you mean it positively, you seem to tend to confer attributes of the collective people on the individual when you say things like "your heritage" or "chosen people," or whatever. The fact that I was born Jewish in a predominately Christian society may influence a lot of my thought, but it's not necessarily anything that contributes to any inherent characteristic I display. Make any sense?
As I said very early, I was glad to have a Jewish friend from whom to learn. The fact that you are a lawyer, and the Assistant Attorney General make it even better. I don't consider you a minority. You are just as much American as I am. But then, sometimes you place yourself in a minority, and allude to the majority being a threat to you in some way. I am trying to understand.
Yes, I allude to it for purposes of example. Perhaps it's because you don't consider me a minority that you "gloss" over or minimize the alienation I try to describe. I don't go around making an enormous thing of it, indeed I don't think of it ordinarily that often. But it's there, and inescapable, and only by challenging prejudices, even positive ones, do I get others to think of me as an individual.
I am, I am. But I just can't come up with a scenario that seems to fit what you are talking about. I've considered the Pike County thing. It was unfortunate. But my gentile mind may not be catching some of the subtleties.
That's a major start. Keep working on the "Louis Farrakhan sweeps through blackbelt county" hypothetical I gave you early on. Or if you can find a better example, let me know. In order to make the hypothetical work, you have to divorce yourself from your current reality. Imagine how you would feel as a Christian in an all Muslim community, with and without the protections of the first amendment as interpreted in the last 30 years. If you had the choice to be free from government sponsored prayers to Allah and Mohamet, if you had the choice to be free to have your kids not have the Koran read to them every morning, what would you choose? Could you make the last 30 years of precedent work for you in any imagined scenario? The real test of your emerging legal abilities is how well you can play devil's advocate with yourself.
If you as a Jew have enemies out here, more than likely, they are my enemies as well. I have no use for the Skinheads or the KKK. Yes those are overt organizations, but I probably never see the less overt anti-Semitic gestures or attitudes that you see, simply because I am not Jewish. That is where I need you to help me see it.
Again, I don't make a thing so much about anti-Semitic, as much as I do simply seeing people making assumptions about me because of my race, things I would and wouldn't want to participate in. Remember the show "All in the Family"? Archie Bunker needed a lawyer once, and he went to the phone book, and picked out a law firm with a Jew, an Italian, an Irishman, and one or two others minorities. He ascribed positive things to each one as he explained his reasoning for choosing that particular firm and collection of individuals, but the presumptions and prejudices were still that...prejudices.
Today, we don't talk about the overt forms of racism that much, segregation, Jim Crow laws, cross burnings, etc. We look overseas for that, like South Africa, the Middle East, Serbia and Croatia. In America, when we see the KKK or nazis or skinheads doing their thing, we know they're extremists and do not represent more than a very, very, very, small segment of society. But they have to be watched. Having dealt with, for the most part, overt racism today we turn our attentions to the more subtle forms, we try to understand the root and cause of racism, because if left unchecked it will happen again and again and again. So when I talk about racism or prejudice, I'm usually talking about the subtle kinds.
On the issue of race, black vs. white, I really recommend "Makes Me Wanna' Holler," which I've mentioned before. It's an eye opener even for liberals like me. As white men, we tend to think that we've got these equal rights laws and affirmative action that have been in effect for a few decades, and that blacks, women and other minorities have what they're constitutionally and legally entitled to equal opportunity. Enough's enough already, right? "Quit'chyer bellyachin and get on with it," we tell them. It doesn't have to be an issue of blame or fault, but the reality is, that opportunity is still not equal in this country. It all boils down to people being afraid of people who are not like them. So doors still don't get opened on the basis of individual merit. When we see them coming, we close the doors. Whether we realize it or not, race remains a factor in our considerations in everything we do. It's a cancer, and just because we don't always see it, doesn't mean it's in remission. We have to constantly check ourselves for signs. It's very easy to ignore because we don't want to have to deal with it.
The same thing is true on the issue of religion. Left unchecked, one particular denomination will encroach on the freedoms of the others and assert "their way" as the way to get things done. If it were only a matter of political thought, that would be fine. But religious thought gets all bunched up in there as well, and left unchecked, the next thing you know the Muslims will be telling your kids they're going to hell for not praying to Allah five times a day.
America is a multi-cultural country, and we are a better country for it.
I'm very happy to hear you say that. It is the foundation of much of my political thought, always has been.
But sometimes it seems that all cultures are okay except the American culture, of which prayer in school is a facet. It is only in what seems to me to be an attempt to rid the American public scene from all vestiges of Christianity, that causes me to voice objection. And from where I am, how can I see it otherwise?
I think I said it best when I said don't be hitting your head against the wall and tell me you're being attacked. As a Christian you have every right as an individual or collective to exercise your religion that everyone else has. As an individual you can pray in the public square and you have as equal access to the use of public facilities as anyone else. Just pay the license fee or the parade fee or whatever. If you want to spray paint "Jesus saves" all over your house, you are free to do so, so long as you're not violating any other content neutral zoning restrictions. Purple Ribbons? No problem. "WWJD" bracelets? Fine. Leaflets, pamphlets, parades, radio, tv and newspaper addresses? Go for it. Want your kids to form a Bible study class after hours on school property, or meet at the pole. Sign me up to. All of that is just fine.
But interject any of that into a government sponsored event (like a public school football game) and that's where you run into trouble with the likes of me. It's too fine a line between "Almighty God..." and "...in Jesus' name we pray." It's crossed nine times out ten in public events I attend.
Regardless of the religious, predominately if not exclusively Christian, history of our nation, there's a fact that we need to recognize. And that's that our country is considerably more pluralistic and multi-cultural than it ever was, certainly than it was in the time of our founding fathers. So those arguments that we were a "Christian nation" are interesting from a historical perspective, but not particularly utilitarian today.
Other than disallowing the use of public/government facilities for religious purposes like prayer, you have to seriously ask yourself "how is Christianity being attacked?" The court cases, every blessed one of them, that we've been talking about all involve government action and involvement in religion. Subject to reasonable "time, place and manner" restrictions which are applicable across the board to all religions and non-religions (like zoning ordinances, or requiring you to pay the same permit fees as "druids for democracy" or the NAACP) your right as an individual to exercise or practice your religion has never been in jeopardy.
You may perceive an "attack" in the "liberal" news media, or in various political movements, or in art and literature, movies an TV. And I can't argue that is very likely true. It's the nature of our multi-cultural society, it's politics, it's free expression, it's...America. Indeed, it may be the very essence of religious pluralism in western civilization dating back before the time of Martin Luther. But you have the same rights to express yourself in all those forums.
The only thing I've ever talked about is whether the institutions of government can be the forum for the purposes of advancing religion, any religion, not just Christianity. It just happens that "Christians" are the ones who keep trying to use government to advance religion at the moment. But if you work on my blackbelt county example, you can see that it could be anyone, not just Christians. That's why there's nothing anti-Christian in the reasoning behind the ACLU lawsuits and why they're always baffled at that suggestion. So, it's very important to distinguish what you're talking about when you say Christianity is being attacked.
You've made references to "one way" in some of your messages. You probably know this already, but let me address the point for clarification. I believe the Bible is true, all of it. (I agree that the King James translators may not have chosen the closest English equivalent word here and there for Greek or Hebrew, but for the most part, the message has not been diluted or changed.) This is an essential element of my faith. In John 14:6, Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." Now if I believe the Bible, I must also believe that. And I do. That is why I am Christian. In Mark 16:15 Jesus also said, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." That gives Christians a mandate to share their faith with others. If "sharing" goes beyond that, it has exceeded the mandate.
I think I can generally agree with this. And I think you'll find the liberals respect and will fight quite vigorously for your right to share, so long as you don't use government resources to do so. I'm serious, check out what they have to say about it.
Acceptance of salvation through the atoning death of Jesus Christ on the cross and his subsequent resurrection is strictly a personal matter for you and all others to address in the privacy of your own will. Would I like to see you accept the Christian faith? Absolutely. Will I try to coerce you to accept it, absolutely not. I've often heard it said that when we get to Heaven, we'll be surprised, either by how many there are who got there or how few there are who will have made it. I choose not to gamble with the destination of my eternal soul. Having said that, it is my hope that you will try to understand the difference between exercise of religion and promoting it. If I tell you you are going to Hell if you don't accept my religion, I'm promoting it. If I bow my head and thank God in the name of Jesus for my food, whether in my home (which I do) or in a restaurant (which I do), by myself or in the company of others, I am exercising my religion.
A pretty good distinction. And it's where a lot of the confusion comes in, I think. "Christians" like Moore think and argue they're exercising their own personal right to religion and not promoting or endorsing it. Liberals like me think what you do in your own home or at a restaurant is fine as the exercise of individual religious rights, but when you employ the trappings of government to do so, it's not.
That is not intended to be a threat to anyone. When we have the opportunity to have a meal together (sooner than later, I hope), you should not feel negatively toward me in any way when I bow my head and pray over my food. I've done that longer than I can remember. And it is not "ceremonial." I pray.
We do not pray or say grace when we eat at my home. I have *always* made a point when we had guests who do, to tell them that while we don't, we'd be honored and blessed if they cared to say grace. It's something I picked up from my father when I was a kid. I don't know if he even remembers it. That is a standing practice in my home, as areligious as we may otherwise be. Obviously, I prefer it if it's not "in Jesus' name" that grace is said, but there is usually an "amen" from us even when it is.
I am also at somewhat of a disadvantage because I don't really know what you do believe. You have chosen to not share that with me beyond saying you are "spiritual." That's okay if you choose to keep it private, but it is hard for me to put in context some things that you say, and it is difficult for me to make a point on a commonly held belief.
I don't think I'm being particularly secretive. I'm not especially indoctrinated one way or another, even born as a Jew and being Bar Mitzvahed. So there's no over-arching "charter of Rob's beliefs" that we can point to for purposes of analyzing the similarities and differences. I hesitate to say I am a Deist, i.e., God created the world and left it to its own devices after that. But I also don't anthropomorphize the concept of God, meaning I don't ascribe human attributes to some heavenly (male) father figure who likes to dabble in the affairs of men. Obviously, I don't think Jesus is the messiah, but he was a great teacher who sought to show man the way to God in the truths of the day. For that reason, the Bible (OT/NT) is not something I can read as literally true, but can read for the underlying truths that are written in the metaphor and understanding of the day. Reading it in context, I can then apply those truths.
I'm unclear on what I believe about the western or Christian idea of a second coming (or in the case of Jews a first or messianic age), but there are also aspects of the ideas of the Apocalypse and Armageddon that creep into my thinking, perhaps if nothing else because man is so self destructive. I don't believe in fate so much or predestination, or that the events of man are predetermined, but I do believe in the eastern idea of Karma in the sense that there is a balance to the universe, that what goes around comes around, that all good things come to those who wait, that there is choice and free will, but if we disrupt the balance of the universe in the exercise of that choice there will be consequences. I believe in the golden rule, not just applied to men, but to the earth as well. I believe we are the caretakers of this planet, but that it is presumption to assume we are the center of God's universe.
Probably not too helpful, but that's about it really.
It is late, and I must get in bed. I don't foresee any more messages from me as stressing to you as my last few have been.
I won't say I'm stressed. I do look forward to your replies. The truth is, I'm hooked on this debate. We do have to keep reminding ourselves and refining what the rules of engagement are, and that's an evolving process as you've seen.
I'm going to pull down copies of all the cases I can find that discuss "wall of separation" and all the significant cases on the establishment clause I can. Then I'll email them to you, you can buy a couple of reams of paper and print them out and read them all for yourself. You'll be at the source, as it were. We'll be able to discuss the merits of who said what, when a lot better that way, because neither will be relying on what other people say the cases say they say. So, we may want to take a break and read and reflect on what people actually wrote before resuming the merits of the "original intent" and "activist courts" debates.
We do have differences in opinions, and we both recognize that neither of us are likely to roll over and agree with the other on certain fundamental issues, and beliefs. That is okay with me. But my efforts, crude and non legal as they may have been, were to try to present my views and understanding of reality, not to be critical of you, but to (in keeping with our objective of finding a solution) try to build a bridge of understanding.
There may have been a time when you didn't really think that was possible, in our early discussions. So I'm heartened to see you say that.
You've heard the story of the blind men describing the elephant. I am trying to understand what your "piece of the elephant" feels like; I hope you are doing the same with me. Do I really think you are anti-Christian? No, I don't. (But sometimes I do wonder if you aren't getting close.) However, taken collectively over the last 35 years, it is difficult to not view the action by the courts and the ACLU as not being anti-Christian. To me, it seems like far less of a stretch than saying "one way" is a threat to anyone. Hey, be patient with me. I'm just a "rocket scientist." ; )
Hee, hee... When this is said and done, I do believe you will understand that taking a stand against religion in government is not the same thing as being anti-Christian or anti-religion.
BTW, you once again did an excellent job responding to my message. You are through. I might even vote for you anyway. : )
Like I said earlier, that was a pretty quick off-the-cuff response, grabbing the cases to see what they said. But thanks. If you visit the SOCS page, know I did not have the benefit of reading what they said about Barton before replying. Whatever we may subjectively believe, questions of scholarship and legal analysis are entirely objective. And sloppy scholarship can adversely affect credibility. Lincoln said a lawyer's stock in trade is his education and reputation (something like that). Credibility in scholarship is therefore paramount for someone like me.
BTW, weren't we about to attempt to work out mutually acceptable definition of "religion?"
Probably a good idea. Why not read those cases first, and see how the courts have interpreted the concept, and why. Then we can explore whether or why you disagree with what they've said.
Time to run. -Rob
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