Founding fathers and religious liberty in Cook County

Dear True,

I'm writing to comment on the troubled and sad column by Mitch Dorr in this week's News Herald, "The Death of Faith, Family and Country." I have some sympathy for Mr. Dorr, as I too recall a time in America that I think was better than today, but I'm not willing to blame the changes on "intolerant intellectuals," radical politicians, or Muslims. Also, methinks I have heard the tune he is singing before, on right-wing talk shows and in emails that sometimes come my way--such as naming Barack Obama a Muslim terrorist and other nonsense claiming to be "God's truth."
I know from Mr. Dorr's other writings that he is a good and loving family man and I don't mean to attack him in any way. But I do feel an urgent need to put forth an alternative view of religion and society.
I want to address the parts of Mr. Dorr's column about religion and try to infuse a dose of historical fact-checking. One of my personal regrets about modern society is the dismal failure of our schools to teach history. When I was a child in the 1950's we were rigorously taught to understand the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. We studied the Revolutionary War and we read the speeches by Washington and Jefferson and the other so-called "founding fathers." Back then we had no problem that there were no founding mothers.
The first thing to remember is that the men who devised the Constitution were, yes, mostly Christians (in fact mostly Episcopalians) but they were even more firmly for freedom of religion, the right to worship or NOT worship as anyone may choose. They were best termed "deists" rather than Christians, however, as followers of the "Enlightenment" philosophies of Locke, Rousseau and Voltaire promoting individual liberty and equality. Of course they were referring to the equality of white men, and several were slave owners but in their time they were visionaries.
Several of them spoke quite firmly on the issue of religion and government, for example:

"I believe in one God, Creator of the universe...That the most acceptable service we can render Him is doing good to His other children...As to Jesus..I have some doubts as to his divinity..."
-Benjamin Franklin

"Every man ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience."
-George Washington

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of..."
-Thomas Paine

"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth."
-Thomas Jefferson

"That religion, or the duty we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience."
-Patrick Henry

"The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretence, infringed."
-James Madison
(original wording of the First Amendment, 1789)

In short, the founders were clear and adamant about protecting the rights of all to worship as each one chooses. The Religious Right have made an issue of actual non-issues like worship in public schools or government buildings.
Granted, the founders never specifically forebade worship in public buildings because they never foresaw free public education for all, the great immigrations of many races and creeds that would re-make America in centuries to come, or that one day some people might feel excluded by a government display of one religious viewpoint such as the Ten Commandments. Nonetheless, they foresaw that there would be possibilities they couldn't cover, and so laid down the principle of religious neutrality in the brilliant First Amendment.
But ironically, what has been decreed in the past is subject to change under those same principles laid down by the founders.
And so, a "Unitary Executive" (anathema to the founders), a judicial system stacked to favor the rightest of the right wing, and a gutless Congress have conspired with the right-wing corporations that buy votes, that control our media and that are supported by the Christian right to perpetrate untruths about the role of religion in America.
The right to worship in government buildings and display the Ten Commandments smacks of a state religion. Or, why not the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism instead? Why not face Mecca and chant?
Mr. Dorr, it was not about keeping you from your Christian worship, at home, at church or within the community, but rather about respecting those who are not Christian that the founders had in mind when they decreed there would be no mixing of religion and government. They understood only too well how easily any religious group may drive "unbelievers" to become second-class citizens, refugees, or victims of genocide, as in recent times we were appalled to witness in Nazi Germany.
Genocide, by the way, proceeds unabated today in many parts of our lawless corporate dominated world. Our aid is urgently required and yet the Religious Right is silent.
In Cook County, Christians have many forums of expressions, unlike urban areas. There is a religion page and a column by a minister in both weekly papers and these are exclusively Christian. There are Christmas pageants and activities at school. Perhaps, you say, this does not matter because everybody in Cook County is a Christian? Not so. I am not.
On the other hand I am more than happy to read the thoughts of Christian ministers, SO LONG AS other voices are also heard equally (or at least occasionally). Such as columns about Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, or my own faith of Hinduism which embraces the teaching of the saints and sages of all religions.
And for those who can't bear to make it through the school day without prayer, you can always pray silently, pray with your heart and mind if not your mouth. Pray while taking tests or eating lunch.
The commonality among religious faiths is what tolerance is all about, and tolerance is the very foundation of a free and just society. I don't know how we can co-exist with one another in harmony without it.
If you seriously study Islam you will find its teachings not very different from those of Christianity. The Islamic fundamentalists who believe in jihad or holy war are not all that different from the Christians who slaughtered Muslims during the Crusades.
Any who kill in the name of religion are not practicing the great moral and universal truths of their faiths. The similarities have always been apparent to great religious leaders like the Dalai Lama, Pope John XXIII, Gandhi and Mother Teresa as well as humbler students of comparative religion, like my personal hero, Bill Moyers.
Shortly after reading Mr. Dorr's column, I chanced to read a speech by Moyers made at Union Theological Seminary in 2005 on receipt of the President's Medal, their highest award. Bill is a devout Christian. He begins his speech by, like Mr. Dorr, looking back to happier times when he was growing up but in a very different vein: "At the Central Baptist Church in Marshall, Texas, where I was baptized in the faith, we believed in a free church in a free state. I still do."
Bill goes on to describe the First Amendment as "a remarkable arrangement honoring 'soul freedom'--the inviolate right of each of us to believe and worship as our conscience determines, in a society that honors freedom over conformity." He sees that fundamental right at risk in the rise of a new religious movement that is based in the Republican party, well-funded and organized, and resolved on a "sectarian crusade for state power." "The religious right has become the dominant force in America's governing party," he said, and thereby also complicit in "upholding a system of class and race in which the rich thrive and the poor barely survive."
"This is the crux of the matter: to these believers there is only one legitimate religion and only one particular brand of that religion that is right; all others are immoral or wrong. They believe they alone know what the Bible means."
Bill concludes, "As I look back on the conflicts and clamor of our boisterous past, one lesson about democracy stands above all others: bullies--political bullies, economic bullies and religious bullies--cannot be appeased; they have to be opposed with courage, clarity and conviction. This is never easy. These true believers don't fight fair."
Well, this says it all to me, Mr. Dorr, and it is why I feel obliged to take issue with your view of MY country as a CHRISTIAN country while to me it is still, if precariously, a FREE country.

Sincerely,
Nancye Belding
Grand Marais

"Kindness is my religion."
-The Dalai Lama