Free Press –
American Gospel Faith Base Initiatives
Dear Friends,
Good morning. Jim Scanlon’s decision to seek a position with more challenges didn’t surprise me. The popular Quakertown School Superintendent will probably be gone from his current post by October. His shoes will be difficult to fill. Over the past 30 years, the parade of superintendents has not always been a positive experience. Jim’s arrival here seven years ago was like a breath of fresh air.
We’ll miss him. I’ll have more to add next week. Stay tuned.
Today, space won’t allow my criticism of the presidential veto on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. That will have to wait. For me, the Philadelphia Inquirer lead editorial (July 21) stated the position correctly. “The bill would have extended [embryonic stem cell] funding to research using discarded embryos from fertility clinics. Thousands of embryos that could have been used in research will now simply be thrown away.
“Polls show wide support, including up to 70 percent of Republicans in some polls.”
But the president’s base of political support comes from the conservative and religious far right, which opposes embryonic stem cell research. My bet is that George W. will finally understand his error in November when he loses control of the congress.
And now to
business.
In the six years of this
presidency, “W” has made two decisions, which make sense to me…a moderate
Republican. The first is to let
Five years
ago, our glorious leader identified the axis of evil as
The second position, which I support, is his faith-based initiative. Wouldn’t you agree that Christian, Jewish, and Moslem organizations are better equipped to administer social programs than the federal government? Certainly, the major concern is to prevent religious institutions from selling their beliefs as the price of admission. The feds should provide the oversight…something that bureaucracies are used to doing.
Separation of church and state drives this argument of course. It doesn’t take much to get that conversation heated. Should there be prayers in the schools? Should we drop “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Should statues of the 10 Commandments be removed from public places?
The church and state argument fascinates me.
The op-ed piece in USA Today (July 24) reminded me of a book which I’m reading. Jon Meacham is the managing editor of “Newsweek.” In his “American Gospel,” Meacham writes that religion shapes our public life without controlling it.
“Debates about religion and politics are often more divisive than illuminating,” Meacham says. “Secularists point to a “wall of separation between church and state,” while many conservatives act as though the Founding Fathers were apostles in knee britches. Neither extreme has it right.
“At the heart of the American experiment lies the God of what Benjamin Franklin called “public religion,” a God who invests all human beings with inalienable rights, in a nation that protects private religion from government interference. It is a great American balancing act, and it has served us well,” Meacham continues. His story tells how the founders created a nation in which belief in God is a matter of choice.
The “USA
Today” piece says that faith and nationalism are indivisible in
“All the
traditional hymns of praise to the
“Then conquer we
must, when our cause it is just, and this be our motto: In God is our trust,”
are the final lines of the Stars Spangle Banner’s third verse. What would
secularists have us do with “
“Defenders of secularism might argue that we will enjoy a brighter, better future by severing the associations between faith and nationalism,” the op-ed piece concluded, “but they shouldn’t attempt to mischaracterize the past- or to suggest that they’re returning us to an era of absolute church-state separation that never existed.
Interesting, yes?
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith