In a recent op ed piece for The Dayton Daily News I expressed my belief that creation science should not be taught in public school science classes.  Some of the responses to that article have indicated that I am an atheist.  That is an absurd claim.  Others suggested that I am trying to make sure religion has no place in the public school curriculum.  That is not true.

There’s a Dutch book titled Everything Is Political!  But Not Everything Is Politics.  When Christians convert from theological power to a political force, they hurt Christianity and they hurt the country.  For Christianty to embrace one political party smacks of idolatry.  It also suggests an acceptance of the political power Jesus rejected in the temptation experience. Therefore, I protest the too-easy alliance of Christianity with the politics of the right or the politics of the left.

This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be involved politically.  As Jerry Falwell learned years ago, not to be political is to be political.  That is, if you remain neutral, you create a void.  That void will be filled.  So if a person doesn’t go to the polls and vote, he/she is actually voting by not expressing his/her personal opinion. Any religion that is not political is simply being irrelevant. What I imagine is a noisy conversation in a crowded parlor where an incredible amount of diversity combines with the multiplicity of factions to produce a red hot flaming issue.  Then when one member steps out and starts a really big fight, everyone else fires back with their own understandings and arguments.  In that way we remain a free country.  No one religious understanding gets to be crowned king. (Read Thomas Paine and James Madison - what an unlikely pair - for more on this thought).

In our current situation, we have one group of Christians wanting to run the whole show.  They want to teach religion in public schools, but only their religion.  They want students to pray in schools, but only their prayers.  When other Christians, such as myself protest on the grounds of the separation of church and state, we are criticized as secularists, atheists, and worse.  They want to impose their reading of the Bible on everyone else.  This approach simply won’t wash.

What I argue for is the separation of church from state.  What I want is for non-evolution to be taught as part of a religion course.  I am all for prayer in schools as long as every person gets the opportunity to offer her prayer from her religious tradition, and as long as an atheist is allowed to read the morning meditation from some philosophy treatise of his choice.  I think it is absurd to believe that we can understand world history or human development apart from religion.  I believe liberals are being stupid for trying to keep all religious instruction out of public schools.  No wonder the Fundamentalists call liberal Christians a bunch of secularists.

This, of course, puts me at odds with Fundamentalists and Liberals.  Fundamentalists want their religion taught as the truth about life.  They want our students to accept as scientific fact that the world was created in six twenty-four hour days and that the world is only about 12,000 years old.  Show me the science in that.  This doesn’t mean that creationists shouldn’t hold this particular belief.  I’m not attacking beliefs; I’m advocating more religious instruction in schools. 

My point is that the Jewish creation story (It is Jewish and not Christian, by the way) should be taught along with other ancient creation stories from other religions.  That means teaching the Navajo creation story.  Remember the original Americans?  Shouldn’t their story be told?

Not according to the Fundamentalist Christians.  They don’t want us to teach anything but one particular narrow version of Christian faith.

As a liberal, I want religion taught in all our schools.  There are excellent resources available.  A complete curriculum is available that will introduce students to religion historically and currently.  Students will learn about all religions. All my children have studied the other religious options in our world, but none of them has joined the Muslims, the Buddhists, or the Hindus.  They learned a lot about human nature and they learned a lot about the nature of religious truth.  For the life of me, I can’t understand why Christians, professing to believe “in the power of the Gospel,” would be afraid to allow other points of view to receive equal billing.

This multi-cultural teaching of religion doesn’t belong in a science class.  It belongs in an anthropology or social science class, but not in a laboratory.  There is simply no science in creationism or its better-dressed cousin, Intelligent Design.  You can’t check out the claims of religion in a test tube or with a scientific test.  You have to believe in God, have a tradition, a sacred text, a believing community, but you can’t prove any of it.  Now, as a believer in God, I’m not interested in proof, so I don’t get all worked up about teaching creation science.

Christians unfriendly to my position, and more often than not, also unfriendly to me, will rant about my secularism and my persecution of true believers.  These Christians, due to some kind of subconscious insecurity, lack the ego integrity to allow their belief system to go toe-to-toe in the academic world with all other belief systems.  They want to be privileged to the exclusion of other religious teachings.  They want the government to prop up their version of Christianity.  They want to rewrite the Bill of Rights to exclude all minority positions.

I don’t think most Christians would agree with the “dominion” theory of these pushy Christians.  They push and push for power and more power.  Then when someone pushes back they cry and say they get no respect and wonder why everybody’s always picking on them.  Well, I’m picking on these Christians because their agenda is bad for our schools, bad for our students, and bad for our nation.  I don’t want them to leave the debate, but I wish they would be more mature and less inclined to whine about mistreatment.

The way to fight back is not to whine and complain, but to engage in the cultural conversation.  That means that everyone has an invitation to the debate.  There will be plenty of secularists at the table.  Many of them are incredibly intelligent and committed people.  We wouldn’t have civil rights for minorities, equality (such as it is) for women, or freedom of the press if passionate secularists hadn’t marched and protested and argued.  What my secular friends need to realize is how much religious people can bring to the table.

I am much more content in a interfaith setting with all the Muslims, all the Jews, all the Baha’is, all the different kinds of Protestants, all the Hindus, all the Buddhists, and all the secularists than I am in a meeting of theocratic Christians.  As an American I protest any arrogance suggesting that I can’t be a Christian if I don’t accept their version of God, their reading of the Bible, and their way of worship. As a Baptist I refuse any religious authority on the grounds that theological dictatorship can’t be allowed to tell me what I can and can not believe.  In fact, if such a theocracy came to pass, I would disagree as a solitary Baptist and gladly go to jail in protest.  I am, after all, an American Baptist.

There are signs of hope on our horizon.  At Oakwood High School I have been privileged to participate in a multi-cultural class that studies the religions of the world.  What an exciting time of honest and open dialogue with bright high school students who want to know what others think and believe.  I left that class envious of the teacher and wishing that I could have that much honesty in church on Sundays.