Church, state and doing what comes naturally

[psychic_serpent]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "naamagatus" <naama_gat at h...> 
wrote:
> The problem is that the principle of tolerance is *not* accepted by 
> a large number of Muslims. Of course, it's also not accepted by a 
> large number of Christians, either. The difference is, that in what 
> we call Christian countries the ruling doctrine is secular, not 
> religious at all. Therefore, the inherent intolerance of 
> Christianity is segregated from the political arena. 
> Historically, this split (of secular vs. religious spheres) 
> developed from Christianity itself. From early times it was seen as 
> proper that there should be pope and king - seperate rulers of 
> seperate domains. 

Actually, this isn't strictly true.  Historically, the monarch has 
been synonymous with the religious leader of the nation (often, in 
ancient civilizations, the queen or king was the high priestess or 
priest of the prevailing religion) and the "secular" leader was the 
head of the army (often a sibling of the monarch, a sort of 
consolation prize for not being king).  This went back and forth over 
time--sometimes the king would also be the leader of the army and 
take troops into war, while there was a separate priest leading the 
spiritual arm of the government.  Not surprisingly, there were often 
coups when the king WASN'T the one running the army.  If you're a 
king and you put someone else in charge of the people with the pointy 
weapons, you take your chances.

For a while, in some countries that had monarchies with real power 
(rather than constitutional monarchies), the king was head of the 
Church and political leader as well.  This was why it was so 
dangerous to be a member of a minority religion, such as Judaism, in 
a Christian state.  (Anywhere in Europe, in other words, for hundreds 
of years.)  Without any warning, the king could decide to run all of 
the Jews out of the country (actually killing a lot of people in the 
process, rather than just ejecting them).

Many countries, including Britain, had a religious litmus test for 
being elected to office of any kind, whether it was Parliament or the 
mayor of a town.  If you weren't C of E (Church of England) you 
didn't qualify.  It wasn't until relatively recent times that ANY 
country separated one's religion (or lack thereof) from the rights 
and responsibilities you have as a citizen, or whether you have to 
support a state church with your taxes.  (Or even whether you can do 
business on a Sunday, or take the Lord's name in vain without being 
slapped with a fine.)

One of the many reasons for the Reformation, in fact, was that kings 
weren't happy with the Pope being in charge of religion in their 
countries, especially as the Inquisition tended to waltz in and start 
charging people with crimes, which was considered to be the purview 
of the state.  For monarchs who wanted more autonomy concerning who 
ran both the state and the church, it wasn't a hard sell to get them 
to convert to Lutheranism, and once the king (now head of the state 
church) did it and said it was the law of the land, you DID it.  (Or 
you suffered, which many Catholics did who refused to convert.)

Christians have definitely not cornered the market on being 
reasonable and tolerant of other religions, or even on separating 
religion from the political sphere.  I mean, here we are in 2003 and 
congress is actually considering passing a constitutional amendment 
to say that marriage is only a union of one man and one woman, and 
the political debate has been rife with religious arguments about why 
this should be, with nary a word about the fact that Christianity is 
NOT the law of the land.  

Many, many houses of worship across this country and in Canada and 
other countries have been been blessing the relationships of same-
gender couples for decades now.  To codify one religious definition 
of marriage into federal law--which has not historically been 
concerned with marrage--is religious descrimination on a par with 
blue laws and requiring public school students to pray and read 
scripture every morning.  It is also blatant sex discrimination and 
for it to be in the Constitution would be an abomination.  This has 
historically been the bailiwick of state governments, but ironically, 
many of the people who have in the past spent a lot of time screaming 
about states' rights are in favor of this amendment because they 
don't like what SOME other states have done or might do (like Vermont 
and Massachusetts).

There are STILL people who see nothing wrong with posting the Ten 
Commandments in courthouses as some sort of model for behavior, 
despite the overwhelmingly religious nature of the document (remember 
the Sabbath day to keep it holy, don't take the Lord's name in vain, 
having no other gods, etc.).

When we have finally decided to uphold human wisdom and understanding 
as the ultimate touchstone in our legal system and culture, rather 
than the tenets of any one religion, then I think we can start 
pointing fingers at cultures with religiously-based laws that we 
deem 'backward' or 'intolerant.'  It has historically been human 
nature to be intolerant in this way, and the US still has a long way 
to go to overcome this history.  While this sort of xenophobia helped 
to protect human cultures in ancient times and is probably programmed 
into our marrow, that doesn't mean we shouldn't fight this tendency 
with every ounce of our being.  In today's small world, this bred-in-
the-bone attitude is killing us, not protecting us.

Plenty of things are "natural" to humans that should be considered 
abhorrent in a civilized society; rather than aspiring to do what 
is "natural" (the anti-marriage pro-amendment folks are very fond of 
talking about what is "natural") we should aspire to what has been, 
historically, incredibly UNnatural for humans: living side-by-side 
with people who are not identical to us in every way and NOT 
demanding that the other people change to become identical to us--or 
else.  Being natural is easy; being unnatural is the hardest thing in 
the world, and therefore we need to keep trying to do this every 
moment of every day. 

Peace (another unnatural thing to which we should aspire) to everyone 
this holiday season.

--Barb

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Psychic_Serpent
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