Religious wars, fact or fiction?

Thursday, April 29, 2004

Religious wars in the United States

By BONNIE ERBE
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST

We're at war, all right, but not just against terrorism. We're fighting an even more massive and ultimately divisive conflict: our internecine battle over America's religiosity and the extent to which we want our secular laws dictated by certain religious beliefs.

Example A: Went down to observe the abortion-rights march in Washington last weekend. Stopped at the spot along Pennsylvania Avenue where pro-life opponents of abortion had a permit to protest. The protesters perorated evangelical themes as wave after wave of marchers walked by. Very few marchers carried signs with religious messages except for the occasional proclamation, "Catholic for Choice," or "Please, Lord, Deliver me from your followers."

The pro-life protesters relied heavily on images of Jesus. One sported a huge picture of Jesus with the caption, "Don't Kill Jesus' Children." Another carried a sign with evangelical overtones proclaiming the merits of murdering abortion providers. (Not all evangelicals support this view. Let's hope quite few do. What's shocking is that even one would feel free to publicly display this sign.)

Example B: Last week's pronouncement by a top Vatican cardinal ordering priests to deny communion to Roman Catholic politicians who support abortion rights. Cardinal Francis Arinze stopped short of saying whether it was right for presidential candidate John Kerry to receive communion (Kerry subsequently did), but rarely in recent times have church officials felt so free to meddle in the political realm. One Catholic friend asked, "What's next? Denial of communion for Catholics who use birth control?"

Whether they are Buddhist monks, Wiccans, Episcopal priests, Methodist ministers, followers of the Dalai Lama or rabbis, etc., church officials ask for nothing short of armed conflict when they meddle in politics.

Consider how differently each group views the world. Consider how starkly religious interpretations vary not only between faiths but within faiths on how life began and what God means.

To cast aspersions on the views of one group is to debase them all. If America is to lurch forward as a cohesive melange of peoples and cultures, and starkly opposed political and religious beliefs, we are cultivating cultural and religious warfare by translating one group's zealous beliefs into national law. Further, we do little but emulate our enemy, the Taliban, by allowing religious conviction to determine public policy.

A Pew Research Center poll released in 2002 found that Americans, "as a religious people," overwhelmingly view religion's influence in the world and the nation as a good thing. But with some important caveats.

Americans did not see all of religion's effects as positive. A solid 65 percent told pollsters "religion plays a significant role in most wars and conflicts in the world" (to wit, ultimately our own). Right now, we only need look at the Middle East for confirmation of the fact that religious differences spark violent conflict. In Iraq, Sunni and Shiite Muslims murder each other for political gain. Palestinians are several years into a bloody intifada against Israelis who, according to each side's religious texts, spring from the same ancestors. Yet more and more, by encouraging religious participation in government, we invite similar conflict between our peoples.

Most respondents told pollsters they consider the United States a "Christian nation," while conceding by an 84 percent majority that a person can be a good American even if he or she does not have religious faith. Yet we're wisely wary of dismantling the division between church and state. By a huge majority (more than 3-to-1) Americans reject the idea that "churches or other houses of worship should endorse political candidates."

How else can one characterize Arinze's action, if not an endorsement (or stated opposition to) a political candidate for his public policy views? How else can one honestly characterize the abortion wars than a religious drive to reform government policy?

One can wish for a demilitarized zone that could hold out the possibility of compromise. Unfortunately, where religious fervor is concerned, there rarely is one.

Bonnie Erbe, TV host, writes this column for Scripps Howard News Service. E-mail bonnieerbe@CompuServe.com