My (earnest, irate) thoughts

I just received an e-mail forward about why, if Americans are not going to post the Ten Commandments in government buildings, or keep “in God we trust” on U.S. currency, government officials should work on Christmas and Easter, and mail should be delivered on Sundays. It’s a little tongue-in-cheek attempt to “keep the Lord in our country,” according to the bottom of the e-mail. Though it was clearly written without a whole lot of thought, it got me thinking.

When exactly was the Lord part of American public policy? I’d be very curious to hear an example of when religion went more than lip-deep for politicians hoping to court a faithful public.

A little refresher in U.S. government/history: the U.S. is a constitutional republic, a government founded with a rather thick wall between personal religion and public policy. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution actually prohibits the U.S. government from establishing a state religion. This is what makes the U.S. different from a theocratic state like Iran (since 1979), which has established Shi’a Islam as its state religion.

When it comes to U.S. currency, we’ve got to admit that the god worshipped by the vast majority of citizens is actually Mammon (e.g. Christmas, on sale now!). So to stamp our god “in God we trust” is dripping with irony and symbolism — and is hypocritical enough to be adorably American.

Though I agree with the Ten Commandments, why should we spend taxpayer dollars to post them in public buildings? Maybe if they were already posted in the buildings, we could leave them up as a tribute to a more pious past, and not waste money erasing them. Money shouldn’t be spent unnecessarily, either way. There are plenty of children to feed and educate, and that’s got to come first. Especially for religious folks (one would think).

Evangelical Christians are fond of saying America is a Christian nation, a rather dubious claim. The majority of Americans do identify personally with Christianity, but that does not equate to Americans expecting Christian theology to inform public policy. Biographies of the lives of the Founding Fathers prove they were Deists and agnostics who feared theocratic regimes, fled Europe, and created a government that was decidedly separate from faith. Some say it was so a man’s faith would always be a personal choice, so that government would be powerless to control a man’s religion. Others say it was so government would be free of the tyranny of religious fanaticism.

I cannot think of one compelling reason to spend public dollars posting religious instructions, especially ones that most people have no intention of following. Like “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Though I’m sure most people find adultery morally troublesome, adultery is also incredibly common. There is a disconnect here: people may know it’s wrong in some vague cosmic sense, but they’re not going to necessarily restrain themselves if they meet someone they like. Americans seem to have a shape-shifting, incredibly adaptable sense of morality. As a people, we must look incredibly lost: we say one thing and do something else. We go to the club on Saturday and church on Sunday. A nation of puritanical hypocrites — do as I say, not as I do. This is just another example: let’s post the Ten Commandments where everyone can see ‘em, but let’s not actually follow ‘em. It looks nice, but it rings hollow.

I suppose it is exactly this perceived moral laxity that causes a certain sect of the Christian faithful to want to “bring God back” into the public sphere. Why do they assume God is so fragile — that God has left? God is closer to you than your jugular vein. God is in the stomach of every person who hungers, in the skin of every person who shivers. How do they imagine that God requires our outward appearances, but not our internal passion? It all sounds like so much nonsense to my ears. In the name of God, they scream, while they criminalize the homeless or militarize the borders.

A certain sect of evangelical Christians seem to want to force religion on the masses as a matter of law, rather than enlighten the masses as a matter of cultural awakening. But religion cannot be pushed upon others, nor virtue obtained through compulsion. It is a matter of the heart. People must compel themselves to believe and follow a faith. It is self-discipline, the only form of law that has ever worked in the history of the world.