Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 7, 1995 TAG: 9507110024
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TOMMY DENTON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
``Do you want peace, `shalom' or 'salam'?''
I beg your divine pardon, I answered. Is there really a difference?
``I didn't think so, but from that mess at the University of Virginia that made its way to the Supreme Court, I am eternally perplexed by the determination of you humans to be at each other's throats in my name.''
Officials at the university, I quickly recalled, had denied a student-activity subsidy to a group of Christians who wanted to publish a magazine espousing their religious beliefs. The officials said that financing such a publication transgressed the bounds of separation of church and state contained in the First Amendment. The students countered that they were entitled to the equal protection of the law under the freedom-of-expression clause in the same First Amendment.
The Christian students noted that a subsidy had been granted to a group of Muslim students who published a magazine that included Islamic doctrine. University officials responded that the publication was a cultural, not religious, activity.
``Frankly,'' God continued, ``this dimension that you humans call history has been a mighty frustration for me. Not only did Adam and Eve get off on the wrong foot with their original sin, but I've had to put up with all manner of so-called believers during the Crusades, the Inquisition and assorted other religious wars, including the current diabolical nastiness in Bosnia. From the looks of things, this prayer session was going to be a good deal longer than I'd bargained for. So I settled in.
``I thought that little revelation I beamed into the hearts and minds of that group of men in your part of my creation a little more than 200 years ago was just the trick,'' he said, ``the part about letting the state handle temporal matters and leaving the people free to rest in the quiet of their own souls with me.
``I'd been dropping hints all along, of course, like the one about rendering to Caesar the things that were his and to me the things that are mine, but you people are a little slow on the uptake. I've yet to see a state that didn't eventually confuse the power of faith with that inferior power peculiar to you humans that insists on coercing belief and behavior.
``Those folks running the University of Virginia seem to be everlastingly confused. Here my beloved Muslims are working for all they're worth to defend and propagate their religious faith - to some excess, I might add, in the efforts of some to establish Islamic theocracies in various parts of creation - and the state recognizes their creed only as some cultural expression. There's an unholy disconnect in there somewhere, don't you think?''
I took that as a celestial rhetorical question and listened intently in silence.
``Now my beloved Christians want equal time and a rendering from Caesar, and the Supreme Court says, well, the state can underwrite the propagation of religious beliefs after all, so pay up. Is it any wonder that confusion reigns and tensions run high?
``As a God of providence,'' he continued, ``I've seen to it that America has been blessed with an abundance of material wealth - such an abundance that at times I've had second thoughts, given the way you people handle it - If the Christians at Charlottesville need money for a magazine, they ought to drive down U.S. 29 to Lynchburg and pay a call on Jerry Falwell - to whom, heaven knows, I've been more than generous.
``That First Amendment seemed to have such promise, but the bickering down there has been incessant.
``Frankly, states bore me, despite the mischief they continually cause. Remember, all those kingdoms, governments and constitutions that have been the source of so much passionate consternation, bitterness and bloodshed were your doing, not mine.
``I choose to deal with my creatures one soul at a time, and I haven't placed many demands on them - 10 to be precise, all based on loving me and each other, and yet most of you treat them as the Ten Suggestions. If you people don't straighten up, the plague of a flat tax will be the least of your worries. Any questions?''
No, oh, no. Amen.
Tommy Denton is senior editorial writer and columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
- New York Times News Service
by CNB