DATE: Thursday, September 25, 1997          TAG: 9709250008

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B11  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Opinion 

SOURCE: Patrick Lackey 

                                            LENGTH:   80 lines

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE ON TINY TANGIER ISLANDIT WAS PRACTICALLY A CRIME AGAINST NATURE WHEN THE TRANQUILLITY OF THE ISLAND WAS SHATTERED BY RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES HALF A CENTURY AGO.

This year on Tangier Island in the middle of Chesapeake Bay, one church turns 100 years old and the only other one turns 50.

The second church was formed because of a difference over religious doctrine that split the original congregation and even led to violence.

The Rev. Lawrence W. George, a former Methodist pastor there, wrote in his book, This Is Tangier Island, that ``90 percent of the feeling came from misunderstanding, misquotations, embarrassment and even fear.''

For whatever reasons, the feelings could not have been more real. Some residents believed that a doctrine of sanctification suddenly being espoused meant that their ancestors were damned to hell for eternity. Scars from emotional wounds suffered way back then endure today.

Young Tangier Island men left a harmonious island to fight World War II and returned to find their village bitterly divided, perhaps even their families split, and lifelong friends no longer speaking.

John I. Pruitt, head of The Pilot's Suffolk bureau, grew up on the island and spent the first 17 of his 52 years there before leaving for college. During the religious turmoil, his family remained in the Swain Memorial United Methodist Church, but his cousins and aunt joined the spin-off New Testament Congregation. In a family across the road, the husband and wife ended up in different churches. In some cases, parents attended one church, their children another.

Through the worst of the turmoil, however, the public school continued to educate the children and the local government continued to govern.

The principal went to the new church and many students, like Pruitt, remained in the old. But that didn't matter. They were educated.

The island continued to function because of the separation of church and state. The turmoil in the former did not destroy the latter.

There was no squabble over which church's prayer to recite.

Fortunately, electrical service was not tied to religious doctrine.

Both churches had members on the town council, which kept everything working.

Whenever an organization or politician seeks to erode the separation of church and state, I envision quaint Tangier Island, a fishing village that seems to float on the Bay about an inch above sea level.

I almost could say that the most peaceful night of my life was spent on that tranquil island. (I can't actually say it because a goat tethered just outside my open window, probably the only goat on the island, began, shortly before dawn, to demand to be set free.)

It was practically a crime against nature when the tranquillity of that island was shattered by religious differences half a century ago, but matters would have been far worse if religion and government had been mixed together.

Combining those two is like bringing together a burning match and gasoline.

Still, an effort is under way to amend the U.S. Constitution to more closely mingle religion and government. Rep. Ernest Istook, a Republican from Oklahoma, is pushing what's called the ``Religious Freedom Amendment.''

According to Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington watchdog organization, the amendment would ``allow organized prayer in public schools, require tax support for religious schools and other church enterprises and permit government endorsement and support of majority faiths.''

At the recent Christian Coalition conference in Atlanta, Pat Robertson made clear the amendment was a top priority of the coalition, which he founded.

``I have seen a steamroller of liberalism trying to crush faith out of our life,'' Robertson told coalition leaders. ``It's all under the rubric of `separation of church and state,' and you know that's a distortion of what the framers of the Constitution intended. They never intended to take God out of the public life in America. These people have used that to beat us up and take us out of any kind of voice in our society.''

Actually, Robertson credits the Christian Coalition with the Republicans' capture of Congress in 1994, so conservative Christians must not be entirely voiceless.

Personally, I favor keeping matches and gasoline apart.

Because the framers of the Constitution had the wisdom to separate church and state, an island in the middle of the Bay and a great nation flanked by oceans have endured. MEMO: Mr. Lackey is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot.

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