In 1751, the Pennsylvania Assembly
ordered a bell to mark the 50th anniversary of Pennsylvania’s
constitution. This Charter of
Privileges, penned by William Penn in 1701, outlined the
rights and privileges of the people.
This “State House Bell” was apparently rung to gather Philadelphians
together on July 8, 1776 to hear the first public reading of our nation’s Declaration
of Independence, a document that
formally declared “certain unalienable Rights,” among
them “life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” as it severed ties to
Britain. Thirty-six years later (1837), a picture of
that State House Bell appeared on the front page of a New York anti-slavery
periodical entitled, Liberty. Another anti-slavery publication, The Liberator, reprinted a poem about this
now famous bell, entitled, The Liberty
Bell, thus providing the first documented use of this now universally known
name of what is a beloved American icon.
The Liberty Bell, named by the
abolitionists who adopted it as their emblem, became an iconic symbol of
the abolitionist movement in large part due to the verse, and specifically the
King James’ translation of the verse, from this Parashat Behar that was
(and remains) engraved on the bell:
U’kratem d’ror ba’aretz
l’chol yosh-ve-ha,
as translated by the Church of England’s official bible, “You shall proclaim
liberty throughout the land, to all of its inhabitants.”
We can imagine why the abolitionists
of the 19th century were drawn to the bell as a potent symbol of
freedom. They viewed this verse as a
declaration that even the bible, God no less, mandated the release of slaves. Yes, God.
Religious sentiment was central to the mindset of both our founding
fathers who used the religious notion of the yuval, the biblical Jubilee, to mark political independence, and, a couple of generations later, of the
abolitionists who seized on that notion of d’ror
– release - for their cause. Who among us could possibly argue against
the use of a religious text, a text attributed to God by religious groups, in
their desire to eradicate the practice of slavery from our country? I certainly can’t.
At the same time, we must remember that in the years
between the Declaration of Independence and the start of the abolitionist
movement, our nation’s governmental leaders wrote a Constitution and
immediately recognized the need to clarify a number of issues, number one: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;… The separation of Church
and state. How do we separate these two
institutions when history has had them meshed so tightly together? That is the dilemma our nation’s Supreme
Court tried to address in Monday’s decision to allow prayer and specifically
explicitly Christian prayers in the public sphere. In the majority of the court’s view, a
majority it must be noted that is entirely Christian, specifically Catholic, forbidding sectarian prayer falls under the “prohibiting the free
exercise” of religion.
I couldn’t
disagree more. The free exercise of
individual freedoms, including the practice of religion, must often be tamed
for the sake of community. I think it
is clear that what we have here is a Christian majority that has no sense of
the potential that Christ-laden language has to alienate others. To the court’s defense, there is little room
for consensus of this issue. For many Christians,
any rejection of Jesus of Nazareth as God is a plain rejection of God. For non-Christians, the equating of God with
Jesus is viscerally unsettling and runs counter to our understanding of history. And, for non-God believers (or others who
feel God belongs outside of the governmental process), the sheer mention of God
can be viewed as a derogatory commentary on personal religious practice.
So which
is it? Do we model the abolitionists’
use of theology as a vehicle for forwarding issues of social justice, issues that
ultimately must be taken up by our government? Or, do
we remove God entirely from all things having to do with the state and hope for
the motivation remains?
The
Torah’s Holiness Code, which comes to a conclusion in Behar, unapologetically does
the former. In the ancient mind-set,
when no separation existed between civil and religious authority, it was
necessary and appropriate to use theology to promote proper behavior. Can we
do the same while still demanding a separation of Church and state? Those who advocate for prayer, particularly
sectarian prayer, in the public sphere argue we can. I’m not so sure.
Justice Kagan, the spokesperson
for the minority opinion, has it right.
As has been recorded in numerous news outlets this week, she stated,
“When the citizens of this country approach their government, they do so only
as Americans, not as members of one faith or another. And that means… they should not confront
government sponsored worship that divides [us] along religious lines.”
Sectarian
prayer, in particular, certainly has no place in government institutions. I also question whether any God-language really
belongs there as well. Theology and
religious practice must motivate us towards betterment, towards activating
social justice in our world, towards welcoming those on the outskirts of
society. Placed in the hands and mouths
of governmental leaders, God more often than not leads instead to dissent,
isolation, and alienation. That, I
expect, was the last thing intended by the author who penned: Ukratem
dror ba’aretz l’chol yoshveha, or by our forefathers who chose this verse
for what would be come our nation’s emblematic symbol of liberty.
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