Here are three recent comments
responding the the recent court decisions on school vouchers and the
Pledge of Allegiance.
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Church-state lines are still blurred ... and
complicated [7-3-02]
The two recent court decisions - on the Pledge of
Allegiance and school vouchers - reflect two conflicting attitudes
toward the role of religion in public life - and those two attitudes
reflect long-standing tensions in our culture and within many of us
individually. Teresa Watanabe analyses these internal conflicts in
the L.A. Times, suggesting that many Americans may being
looking to religion as a balance to what they see as the excessive
individualism of our culture; others may see church-state cooperation as
an answer to the "threat" of religious pluralism.
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Thanks to onReligion.com
for pointing us to this article.
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"Is God so small he needs a Pledge for
validation?"
So runs the headline in one of the most theologically
Protestant comments I've seen on the flap over the Pledge of Allegiance
decision in California.
Columnist Tony Norman, writing in
the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, likens the gathering of House
members to recite the Pledge to the gathering of the priests of Baal
confronted by the prophet Elijah.
He continues: "What kind of vapid,
nondenominational god are politicians so hell-bent on restoring to the
Pledge of Allegiance? Would any self-respecting deity allow itself to be
patronized by such opportunistic poseurs? What kind of god do these
politicians imagine the American people want to pledge their allegiance
to, anyway?"
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School vouchers: What does the Supreme
Court decision mean?
A
Christian Science Monitor article explores some of the
varied opinions about the significance of the recent Supreme Court
decision allowing the use of government-funded vouchers to pay for
private education. Some say this opens the way for all kinds of
government aid to religious activities in education and social welfare,
while others see the decision as limited to parental choice for the
education of their children.
Some see this shift as opening the door to a positive
role for religion in American life, and to a non-discriminatory policy
affirming all religions. Others fear a renewal of religious conflicts as
various groups compete for funding, with some winners and some losers.
