Letters

July/August 2002

Observation on Editorials

Your editorials (aside from their lengthiness) reveal your observation and effort to write them. You are a fit successor to preceding editors Roland Hegstad and Clifford Goldstein.

In the January-February issue you refer to "these United States" and "these blessed states." The name of our country is "the United States." It is not a confederation; it is a union. Its governmental principle was described as early as 1830 by Daniel Webster in a speech that concluded with the familiarly famous words "Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable." ROSS THOMPSON Fresno, California.

Long editorials! I write them to fit. But thanks for the note of appreciation. I take the point on "these" and "the" without conceding a problem with language. The United States of America, truly one national entity, is composed of states that united to form a union, while retaining certain sovereign rights. It was the stuff of a civil war, settled forever in the favor of a union.-Editor.

Religion in Public School

The Bible states that he who displays his religion in front of men will not be welcome in his Father's house. It also states that one should go into a room alone and shut the door when praying. One should not make a public display like the pagans. In light of this it is hard for me to understand how religious people can justify forcing children to pray in public in their schools.

The Bible also states that we should give unto the Lord that which is the Lord's, and give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. The place for children to pray is in church, not in the public school. The public school is supposed to teach children how to live in this world.

I attended parochial schools as a youth. We said our prayers four times a day and had 50 minutes of religion every morning. Yet every time I turned my back in that school somebody stole something from me. Maybe the neighborhood I grew up in Chicago had something to do with it. But I can assure you, all that religion we swallowed seemed to have very little influence on the honesty of the children I grew up with. Religious people have too much of a tendency to claim things without proof. Not only do they not have proof that teaching religion in the public schools enhances children's character; they do not even have God's justification for doing it. WILLIAM MICHAEL FAGAN Arcadia, California

I might differ on the value of a religious education, but agree with William Fagan's point that the state should not be in the religion business. After all, true religion, as many know, is of the heart, not in the forms and conventions. -Editor.

Admirer of Liberty

I am a long-time admirer of your magazine. I have always admired your position on church and state separation and your understanding about what religious freedom in a multireligious nation really means. ROBERT SANDLER Miami, Florida.

Appreciates Balance and Insight

Congratulations for publishing a fine, balanced, and insightful magazine.

I'm a born-again cradle Catholic-one who took a few detours before coming home. I am extremely skeptical and wary of faith-based news reporting, particularly from sources not sanctioned by the church. However, I must say that I find your efforts to be most rewarding, and I recommend everyone find time for Liberty.

Keep up the good work-and for Pete's sake (pun intended), come home to Rome. PATRICK JOSEPH FETTER Saint Simons Island, Georgia.

Thanks to Patrick Fetter for his kind comments. Like many thousands of lawyers who receive Liberty, he finds our approach reasoned and persuasive-well, almost! We seem not to have warned enough of the dangers to religious freedom inherent in the "come home" message!-Editor.

True to the Sabbath!

I have been a subscriber to Liberty magazine for a year. The articles I read about Seventh-day Adventists keeping the Sabbath at any cost seem very inspirational, yet what disturbs me is the impression that the Sabbath is Saturday. The Sabbath begins Friday at sundown and ends Saturday at sundown. Could it be that these inspirational stories of religious freedom are not inspirational after all? Do these individuals, such as Air Force major Allen Davis, face the same challenges when sundown begins on Friday? The Godhead did not follow the Gregorian calendar during Creation and on the day of rest (sundown to sundown), nor should we. GLORIA WRIGHT Whitehall, Ohio.

Not sure what point Gloria is making. She appears to be in favor of the same biblically based stand as the Seventh-day Adventists we featured. There is little question that the injunction of the fourth commandment in Exodus 20:9-11 is for the seventh day-Saturday-and that the weekly sequence was protected by the Jews from that point till now. And the observance of Sabbath from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday is specified in Leviticus 23:32.-Editor.

Church Zoning

When the "Dover amendment" was passed, megachurches didn't, for the most part, exist. In my part of this fine country the neighborhoods don't object to churches in general, nor to their location within properly infrastructured residential areas-with one caveat. Once a church passes a certain size (current numbers being bandied about are based on sanctuary seating exceeding 500 or so), it is no longer a "neighborhood" church. It has transformed into a regional entity, and its primary thrusts-despite its roots-much more closely resemble a business. That being so, mega-churches belong in business, or at least office zoned areas. NORM FLOYD Planning Commissions Member, Little Rock, Arkansas.

Good point, which explains a dynamic of why church zoning has become a more contentious issue. We must still address the issue of community prejudice against certain religious groups. We cannot have selective religious liberty. -Editor.

An Educator's Ditto

I appreciate the consistent stand that Liberty takes against the acceptance of state aid by religious schools. As an educator for more than 50 years I have witnessed the adverse effect of the acceptance of government funds by Christian schools in many places of the world, including Trinidad, Grenada, Fiji, Nigeria, and even tiny Pitcairn Island. History records that in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) the Seventh-day Adventist Church alone retained its schools in the 1960s because it had accepted no state funds.

In the mid-1970s, while I was president of Columbia Union College, a Seventh-day Adventist college in Takoma Park, Maryland, we refused Maryland state funding. Twice I saw the wisdom of this decision.

1. We were informed that we could not add an Allied Health Department until the State Board of Education approved it. However, when we informed the board that we accepted no state funds, we were able to proceed immediately.

2. While I was secretary for the Association of Maryland Independent Colleges and Universities, the presidents of all the member schools were informed that no new programs could be added unless approved by the state board. I explained that three of the colleges, including Columbia Union College, accepted no aid from the state. This exempted these schools from state intervention in program development.

Your journal is on the right track. Not only is state or federal funding a violation of the separation of church and state; it also deprives Christian schools of their freedom to operate solely according to their understanding of God's leading. COLIN D. STANDISH Rapidan, Virginia.

Kingdom Awareness

Like you, I am a strong advocate of the wall that separates church from state. Like you, I am a Seventh-day Adventist. I am concerned that my church, which believes so deeply in the separation of church and state, would use the state (courts) to solve disputes. This seems to me to be a real violation of principle and should not be acceptable as a means of solving such disputes. The Word of God makes it quite clear that we are to take no brother to court (1 Corinthians, chapter 6). It would seem far better to take our losses than to bring the law into our problems: After all, we are really accountable to a wise God, not the state. TOM EICHORST,

This letter touches on an area of vulnerability in church-state relations. Biblical counsel is quite clear that the church should stay clear of political matters, and in behavior between fellow believers avoid legal contentions. The traumas of the Middle Ages show how far church reliance on state power can go. Even the Roman Catholic Church has "apologized" for this approach in a recent Vatican document entitled "Memory and Reconciliation." But there is a practical side to how a church organization deals with legal issues. A church has to deal with zoning and safety regulations; it has to protect its employees and guard against misuse of message and facilities by nonauthorized persons. The law provides reasonable means for a religious entity to guard its integrity and defend the purity of its standing. Where the letter writer and others may be right is in identifying an incipient trend toward substituting secular legal means for missionary persuasion.-Editor.

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