{"id":6326,"date":"2015-09-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/2015\/09\/01\/god-and-government\/"},"modified":"2015-09-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-09-01T00:00:00","slug":"god-and-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/2015\/09\/01\/god-and-government\/","title":{"rendered":"God and Government"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAnyone who knows him, or at least about <\/em>him, will have a strong opinion about the Reverend Barry Lynn. A former
\n\t
\n\tAmerican Civil Liberties Union lawyer, Lynn has since 1992 been the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU). Thus,
\n\tyour sentiment about Lynn most likely depends upon what you think about Americans United: that it is one of the greatest defenders of the First Amendment\u2019s
\n\treligion clauses, a crucial bulwark in protecting Americans\u2019 precious freedom of religion; or it\u2019s a left wing anti-faith cabal of secular humanists,
\n\tatheists, and other spiritual miscreants determined to eradicate religious expression—indeed, even religion itself—from American life and culture. If the
\n\tformer, then the Reverend Barry Lynn is one of the nation\u2019s \u201cforemost champions of liberty of conscience, a modern Thomas Jefferson\u201d; if the latter, he is
\n\t(in the overblown words of the late Jerry Falwell) \u201clower than a child molester.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe truth, it would seem, both about AU itself and the Reverend Lynn, lies somewhere in the middle.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe Face of AU<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tRegardless of your opinion of AU or the reverend who runs it, you can\u2019t deny the impact and influence of AU and Lynn in what has been deemed (to use a
\n\tsomewhat outmoded phrase) the \u201cculture wars.\u201d Though AU predates Lynn\u2019s tenure by almost a half century, he has certainly been the group\u2019s most public face
\n\tin recent years, as he has (according to the AU Web site) frequently appeared \u201con television and radio broadcasts to offer analysis of First Amendment
\n\tissues. News programs on which Lynn has appeared include PBS\u2019s News Hour, NBC\u2019s Today Show, Fox News Channel\u2019s O\u2019Reilly Factor, ABC\u2019s Nightline, CNN\u2019s
\n\tCrossfire, CBS\u2019s 60 Minutes, ABC\u2019s Good Morning America<\/em>, CNN\u2019s Larry King Live, and the national nightly news on NBC, ABC and CBS.\u201d Plus, he and
\n\this organization have been involved with many of the religious liberty (and other) debates over the decades: everything from organized prayer in public
\n\tschools, the creation-evolution controversy, the Ten Commandments in public places, vouchers, gay rights, and faith-based initiatives. Needless to say, the
\n\tReverend Lynn and his AU have come down almost without exception (or maybe even without exception) on the \u201cliberal side\u201d of the arguments.<\/p>\n

\nIt has been (and will continue to be) a long and raucous ride by \u201cthe man the Religious Right loves to hate.\u201d And his new book,\tGod and Government: Twenty-five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom of Conscience <\/em>(Prometheus Books, 2015)—composed of
\n\t\u201ccolumns, testimony, speeches and other writings that I\u2019ve done over the past 25 years of \u2018in trench\u2019 engagement for the preservation of the separation of
\n\tchurch and state\u201d—is Reverend Lynn giving his side of the ride.<\/p>\n


\n\tSeparation of Church and State<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tDespite all the schoolbook mythology, America\u2019s early colonists didn\u2019t come to the New World to establish religious liberty for anyone except themselves
\n\t(and even in their own communities, the concept of \u201creligious liberty\u201d was radically different from what we would recognize today). The early colonies
\n\tweren\u2019t any more tolerant of religious dissent than were the Old World monarchies that they fled. By the time our Founders had the unique opportunity to
\n\tcreate a nation in which religious conscience and practice (especially for religious minorities) could have some protection, they had plenty of reasons
\n\tright here in the New World to know how crucial that protection was.<\/p>\n

\n\tHence, they built that protection in, or at least the precursor, which has evolved over the years to what we call today \u201cthe separation of church and
\n\tstate\u201d—a principle that has worked remarkably well in the United States. The gist of it could be expressed like this: government, by nature, must work by
\n\tforce, coercion (it\u2019s what is known as law); religious expression, by nature, and in contrast, must be freely given. Thus, how much better to keep them
\n\t(church and state) as separate as possible?<\/p>\n

\n\tThe guiding phrase here is as separate \u201cas possible,\u201d which hasn\u2019t always been easy. Hence, since the founding of the Republic, until in America\u2019s third
\n\tcentury, the relationship between church and state continues to challenge our nation\u2019s commitment to religious freedom.<\/p>\n

\n\tEnter the Reverend Barry Lynn and Americans United. Originally named Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the group
\n\tat first worked against government aid to parochial (read Catholic) schools, and since then has expanded to challenge what it sees as any attempt, in its
\n\teyes, to violate the establishment clause. By the time Lynn came on board, in the early 1990s, the big bogeyman had become the Christian Right and its
\n\topenly stated attempts to take over the country.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s not hard to imagine two more opposite worldviews than AU\u2019s and the Christian Right\u2019s. Hence, a great deal of Lynn\u2019s book deals with his battles
\n\tagainst this foe on many fronts, both in court and in public opinion.<\/p>\n


\n\tAU and the Christian Right<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tFrom the Ten Commandments being posted on public property, to prayer in school or even at government functions, to chaplains in the military, to the \u201cwar
\n\ton Christmas,\u201d AU and the Reverend Barry Lynn were in the face of the Christian Right. Early on in the book Reverend Lynn writes: \u201cI was sitting at a
\n\tValues Voter Summit, sponsored by the Heritage Foundation, the Family Research Council and a panoply of far right organizations in the fall of 2014.
\n\tSpeakers kept exclaiming that they wanted to \u2018take our country back.\u2019 Right. But to where: the sixteenth century?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLynn, in one sense, had a point; in another, he didn\u2019t. Notice the date: 2014. In political terms this was an eon away from the 1980s, when, under the
\nReagan presidency, Washington, D.C. was inundated by hordes of evangelical Christians. Bibles in one hand, Francis Schaffer\u2019s\tA Christian Manifesto<\/em> in the other, these folks rolled into town, breathing holy fire and threatening to vote out of office anyone who didn\u2019t vote
\n\tthe \u201cbiblical\u201d position on everything from Star Wars<\/em>, to aid to contras, to abolishing the Department of Education. And, at the time, they posed a
\n\treal threat.<\/p>\n

\n\tNow, though, long gone are the days when Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Ralph Reed, along with the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition, played a
\n\tpowerful role in American politics. And yet, reading Lynn\u2019s book, you could get the impression nothing has changed in regard to their threat.<\/p>\n

\n\tNo question, the issues remain, and we need to be diligent. However, with not just gay rights but gay marriage<\/em> practically a done deal in America,
\n\tone could argue that the fearsome clout of the Christian Right and the theocracy they wanted to create has all but petered out, at least for now.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd, to be fair, the Barry Lynn and Americans United had a role in that diminution, too. And for that they should be lauded.<\/p>\n


\n\tA Breach in the Wall<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIn God and Country<\/em> Lynn talks about AU\u2019s efforts in a host of other areas, such as the creation-evolution in public schools. Of course, AU was
\n\tagainst any attempt even to question evolution, much less present even the most generic form of purposeful design. When one state, for instance, wanted to
\n\tsupplement evolution with creation, the Reverend Lynn wrote that AU, along with the local ACLU, \u201cannounced a lawsuit against any school district in the
\n\tstate that tries to implement this statute.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNo matter the issue, the Reverend Lynn in God and Country<\/em> sees the wall of separation between church and state as thick, firm, and allowing for no
\n\tcompromise. School vouchers? A breach of the wall. Faith-based initiative? A breach of that wall. Any kind of official public acknowledgment of religion? A
\n\tbreach of the wall. \u201cProselytism\u201d at the Air Force Academy? A breach in the wall.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd, in essence, in most cases he\u2019s right.<\/p>\n


\n\tTwo Prongs<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tBut if there\u2019s one problem with this book—which reflects what many separationists have seen as a problem with AU as a whole—it is that it forgets that
\n\tthere are two prongs to the First Amendment religious clauses: the nonestablishment clause, and the free exercise clause. To the degree that AU seems
\n\tobsessed with any perceived challenge to the nonestablishment one, they seem blind to the free exercise one entirely. It has been argued that the whole
\n\tpurpose of the nonestablishment clause was to protect free exercise. Judging by the book, however, and the actions of AU over the decades, for Lynn the
\n\tnonestablishment clause is an end in itself.<\/p>\n

\n\tIndeed, AU sometimes seems more concerned about protecting gay rights than religious ones. When the issue of free exercise comes up at all in his book, it
\n\thas to do with a baker who refused, based on his Christian conviction, to bake a cake for a same-sex couple. Whatever the merits or details of that
\n\tparticular case, whenever this similar issue arises—which pits the free exercise of religion against gay rights—one doesn\u2019t need to be a prophet to know
\n\twhich side Lynn and Americans United will side with.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhich helps explain why AU and Lynn have been castigated as one of the premier anti-religious forces in this country. It\u2019s not necessarily a false
\n\taccusation. What an amazing shift, that separation of church and state, originally created to protect religious freedom, can become an effective cover to
\n\tattack it. It\u2019s no coincidence either that God and Country<\/em> was published by Prometheus Books, which for decades has been spewing out one
\n\tanti-religious screed after another. The Reverend Lynn and his new work seem to fit right in.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut how could that be? He is the Reverend<\/em> Barry Lynn. He was ordained by the United Church of Christ, a Protestant denomination that can often
\n\tmake Unitarians look a little like right-wing fundamentalists. Nevertheless, the moniker \u201cReverend\u201d has proved a powerful cover for what, in many cases, is
\n\tan anti-religious bias. Just as no one would expect someone with the title \u201cRabbi\u201d to be anti-Semitic, who expects someone carrying the title \u201cReverend\u201d to
\n\tbe anti-religious? But actions speak louder than words, even the word \u201cReverend.\u201d And it\u2019s certainly not hard—even for those who understand the principles
\n\tof church-state separation—to see Americans United under Lynn\u2019s leadership as going into a direction far different from the intention of its Founders
\n\t(which included Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, and Methodists).<\/p>\n

\n\tIt has been said that Joe McCarthy gave anti-Communism a bad name. Could one say the same thing about the Reverend Barry Lynn and separation of church and
\n\tstate? Yes, to a degree. Separation of church and state remains a noble idea, one created to protect religious freedom. Americans United appear at times to
\n\tforget that this freedom also includes and depends on free exercise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone who knows him, or at least about him, will have a strong opinion about the Reverend Barry Lynn. A former American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, Lynn has since 1992 been the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU). Thus, your sentiment about Lynn most likely depends upon what you<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[308],"tags":[140],"class_list":["post-6326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-september-october-2015","tag-september-october-2015"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}