[Editor’s Note: It has come to the attention of the editorial staff at the Apologetic Professor that the following article is overly high on the whiny-ness dimension. We apologize to the readership of this blog for such a lack of professionalism. While we print the original unedited article below out of journalistic integrity, the editorial staff wants to assure our readers that proper steps have been taken to guarantee such whiny-ness does not happen again. In particular, the senior writer has been deprived of the whipped cream on his Decaf Iced Caramel Macchiato for an entire day. While this may seem severe (and we recognize that such inhumane correction is actually illegal in many European nations), we felt such unprofessional behavior deserved harsh punishment. We hope that you can enjoy the article nonetheless, and feel confident that the whiny days of the Apologetic Professor are now behind us. We now return you to the original article in progress.]
In case you haven’t heard, there is a big kerfuffle in Whitefish because the Forest Service wanted to remove a large statue of Jesus that was put there by World War II vets some 60 years ago. The reason: It’s on public land, and (they say) you can’t put a religious symbol on public land due to the separation of church and state. A group called “Freedom from Religion” apparently persuaded the Forest Service to remove the statue, and after a public outcry in favor of Whitefish Jesus, they are currently reconsidering.
I don’t know what the “proper” Christian response is, exactly, but I can tell you what my own response is to this bizarre attempt to remove a public landmark: It is to laugh.
And I mean to laugh…out loud.
I serve the Creator of the entire universe. He made the whole mountain the statue sits on; He stirs entire galaxies with His small finger. Do you seriously think He is up there saying, “Holy Cow, I don’t think Christianity will survive without a statue in Whitefish!” So, as it turns out, I’m really not that concerned about what happens to this statue – God is still going to be exactly the same, with or without it. He will still listen to my prayers with the same tender care; He will still listen to yours, too. He will still raise and calm storms and hold the universe together with His power beyond our comprehension.
That’s not to say that I approve of the statue’s removal. In fact, I appreciate the folks in Whitefish who are fighting for the statue and I personally would sign a petition to keep it if it were placed right in front of me. And it might be worth explaining why I feel that way.
I once took some flak for a Missoulian piece from a reader who didn’t like that I called the Freedom From Religion group “half-crazy.” Yet it may surprise you to know that I stand by that comment. There are plenty of respectable atheists out there – truly. So I am not trying to say that all atheists are half-crazy (they are not, and most of them are perfectly sane as far as I can tell). Nor am I saying that everyone who supports Freedom from Religion is necessarily half-crazy. Though not all atheists do support it – I’d encourage you to read atheist Jack Shifflett’s excellent piece on the Whitefish Jesus via this link. (And more broadly I’d encourage you to check out his thoughtful blog. I often read it myself).
So there are plenty of intellectually respectable atheists for sure. But the leaders of Freedom From Religion aren’t respectable atheists as far as I can tell, any more than the gay-haters who picket gay funerals are respectable Christians. They are simply people who hate Christianity so much that they run around the country trying to stop anything that smacks of it. They would use any stick they could find to beat us with. Logic, reason, argument, law: What are these? As someone I know once said to me: YOU CAN’T ARGUE WITH CRAZY. Nevertheless, because I apparently am half-crazy myself, and because I assume my readers are not crazy at all, I will attempt an argument here.
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Like most of the actions of Freedom From Religion, the whole Whitefish Jesus episode shows a complete misunderstanding about what separation of church and state means. (Maybe if they would read the Christian monk, William of Ockham, who is credited with inventing the idea of church/state separation, they might understand it better. Of course, then I’d actually have to read him, too, and even though I’m a Christian, I’m not sure that sounds like a fun afternoon. So I’ll stop this long and utterly hypocritical parenthetical note to go watch Captain America: The First Avenger).
(I’m back. I thought it was a decent movie, for those who care. Definitely better than reading William of Ockham). First, let me say: I believe in the doctrine of separation of church and state. I don’t want other people telling me or my church how to run their religious affairs, and conversely I don’t want anyone to believe what I believe under compulsion from the government. I want them to believe it for the same reason that I do: Because I think it’s true. I strongly feel that forcing people to believe it is counterproductive, and history shows that the church is at its worst when it is most directly involved in government. Thus, for example, I was in favor of removing prayer from schools when removing prayer from schools wasn’t “cool.”
All the same, when I signed on for separation of church and state, I wasn’t signing on for the crushing of religion by the state. And there is a difference between those two things, a difference which Freedom From Religion does not seem to understand.
I wrote a Missoulian piece once explaining why this matters – I’m not going to reiterate the whole argument, so if you want the longer piece, a link to the article is here. But the nutshell is this: Separation of Church and State doesn’t mean the government should remove religion entirely out of all governmental discourse. What it means is uncontroversial in both legal and logical circles (two circles that rarely converge, so when they do we should listen) – it means equal access. So when I ask for the Whitefish Jesus to remain on public land, I’m not asking for special favors for my religion. I’m not asking the government to set up an official state religion in my favor. I’m merely asking for the same rights all other religious and non-religious groups have. Those groups have rights to do things in public space. A problem only occurs if the rights aren’t equal.
But what’s happening now in this country is that groups like Freedom From Religion are attempting to get a “free pass” to crush religion in the public venue because “atheism” isn’t “religious.” But atheism is religious when it tries to crush my religion. Atheism is entering the world of public religion when it uses its influence to remove all traces of my religion from history books, from courthouses, from Montana State fairs, and yes – even from Whitefish Mountain.
If some veterans had placed a statue of Buddha on public land, I would not object to it, though I am not Buddhist. If they had placed a statue important to Islam, or Hinduism, or Taoism, I would not object to its being on public land, though I do not subscribe to those belief systems, either. And if there were a famous atheist statue on public land, I would salute it as I walked by and not think twice about the separation of church and state.
Some veterans wanted to pay homage to Jesus. Some atheist organization wants to remove it. Is this really what separation of church and state means?
Excellently written and cogently argued, as usual, and it doesn’t strike me as “whiny” in the least; more to the point, it agrees with my position on this issue. I would mention one complication, though, which you actually hint at with your tongue-in-cheek reference to the erection of “a famous atheist statue”: while you’re certainly correct that “separation of church and state” means “equal access” (the government can’t show favor or disfavor to any particular religion), that idea has lately been expanded to also mean something like “the government must be neutral between religion and no-religion (agnosticism) and even atheism (anti-religion)”. That makes things trickier. Christians could get their Bibles back in public schools, I guess, if “equal access” were granted Korans and Talmuds and so forth; but what sacred texts would represent, or satisfy, atheists? Something by Robert Ingersoll, or Bertrand Russell, or the later work of Mark Twain? In practice, in order to avoid such consequences and dilemmas of “equal access” (and, of course, because access was never equal in the first place, but always tilted toward the dominant Christian faiths), it does seem simpler just to keep the “public square” devoid of any religious references or iconography at all–pretty hard to do, though, what with all those cathedral spires looming over the city, and the church bells ringing every Sunday.
Actually, even the original and more narrow use of “equal access” was and is problematic. It leads, both in principle and practice, to the government having to decide what qualifies as a “religion” (and is therefore entitled to that access); it leads to government dispensing tax breaks to faiths that meet its standards (that is, of qualifying as a “religion”), and to using some faiths (but not others) to help provide tax-funded social services. That might seem fine for those who belong to one of the approved faiths, but I’ve always been uncomfortable with the idea that the government graciously bestows its imprimatur (I grew up Catholic) on particular religions, while the others have to fend for themselves. To paraphrase someone, I’d just as soon Caesar stay completely out of the God business.
All that aside, thanks for your post (and for citing me and my blog): entertaining and informative as always.
Touche, Jack! Well, you’ve certainly exposed a problem in my too-simple argument. Yes, there is a lot of gray area. It isn’t as simple as I implied to determine equal access, and you’ve correctly stated why.
About the schools: I don’t disagree. I don’t want religion taught explicitly there for the same reason you don’t: I don’t trust the government to do that fairly. But right now, if anything is taught there, it is in fact explicitly atheist. And that’s not right either, whatever else is. To argue from my own academic world: My colleagues are allowed to use their class time to bash my religion, but I’m not allowed to use my class time to defend it. Well, we can debate about what things go into the “equal access” hopper versus the “no discussion” hopper — a reasonable debate. But what I want is for both sides to abide in the same hopper at the same time in the same arena. So what I’d prefer is that my colleagues and I BOTH not be allowed to discuss religion in our classes, and try the stunning experiment of doing our jobs instead. That’d be great with me — no discussion at all on either side. But if they get to bash my religion on the government’s dime, then by all that is reasonable I ought to be allowed to defend it on the government’s dime, too.
None of that is a disagreement with what you said, only trying to parse out the very difficult corner I backed myself into! Thanks as always for your reasonable comments.
Luke–I didn’t think I was “exposing” anything; I was just thinking out loud about the question(s) you raised. Though you didn’t raise this point, I’m aware of the argument that taking religion completely out of schools implicitly denies its value and promotes an areligious (if that’s a word), secular point of view; I’m not unsympathetic to that argument, but I still think such a situation is the lesser of two evils, since families and churches can still teach, preach, and live their religions in their own gung-ho ways. I guess I’d rather have religion implicitly dismissed than explicitly forced on anyone (if those are our only choices; again, all this is me thinking out loud, and giving myself a headache).
I’m in complete agreement with you that your colleagues should be teaching their subject matters, not promulgating their personal religious (or irreligious) views. So unless they’re teaching a course on religion, or on the history of religion…actually, even there they should keep their opinions to themselves, since the point of such classes is (I assume) to broaden and deepen students’ understanding so that they can then make their own choices in the matter; and so that they can develop respect for other faiths–which can hardly be promoted by a professor denigrating one or all religions. There should indeed be a level playing field in which “all abide in the same hopper in the same arena” (I don’t know that I’d want to abide in a hopper, or even in an arena, but that’s just me), and it’s certainly not fair to you (or to anyone) if that’s not the case.
Finally: I love your phrase “the stunning experiment of doing our jobs instead”; you must have a lot of fun at faculty meetings.
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