Two OpEds to meditate on this Sunday
January 14, 2007
Two OpEds that appeared in prestigious national newspapers made headlines last Sunday. Both dealt with tough topics concerning the state of religion in America.
In last Sunday’s USA Today, Oliver “Buzz” Thomas writes about the role of religion in his One Country, Many Faiths. Thomas describes the lay of the land: “We have a big group on the far right and a big group on the far left, and both groups plan to stick around. How, then, do we live together with such deep differences? Better still, how do we remain “one nation, indivisible?” Is there any real hope for finding common ground?”
Meanwhile, in the Washington Post, the Rev. Yates and Os Guiness explain, Why We Left the Epsicopal Church. These leading lights of American Protestantism explain that: “The American Episcopal Church no longer believes the historic, orthodox Christian faith common to all believers. Some leaders expressly deny the central articles of the faith — saying that traditional theism is “dead,” the incarnation is “nonsense,” the resurrection of Jesus is a fiction, the understanding of the cross is “a barbarous idea,” the Bible is “pure propaganda” and so on. Others simply say the creed as poetry or with their fingers crossed.”
I suppose the lesson is this: while faith communities (either religious or secular) may wage internicene battle, the Public Square must accommodate us all. This of course goes against the teaching of the secular left as well as the religious right, as both extremes attempt to show the true heathen the chapel door. In the end, faith communities, whether environmental or theological, can excommunicate while governments are public-legal communities that cannot.
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