Is America Too Damn Religious?

Feb. 1, 2007 — -- As a minister, I certainly don't think people in the United States are too religious.

The United States is a remarkably diverse country where both nonreligion (atheism, humanism and freethinking) and religion have flourished, and people are proud of what they believe.

However, as someone who takes spirituality seriously, I do think that the fact that religion has tastelessly been overpoliticized, oversubsidized and overcommercialized is "damnable" and in my opinion there is certainly too much of that in America.

Let's use Christianity, at the moment the most statistically robust religion in America, as an example. I suspect that Jesus would be astonished by what Americans do in his name.

Many conservative Christians say that even committed gay couples should not have rights equal to heterosexuals because that offends biblical teaching. However, Jesus says in Matthew 22:35, that Christians must love their neighbors as they would have themselves be loved, without any sexual-orientation-specific caveats.

Jesus has become a poster child for anti-choice activists who fail to acknowledge that the topic is never even mentioned in the Christian Bible. By the way, all this does is demonstrate the temptation to cherry-pick Scripture, since the United States is not to be guided by biblical "truth" but constitutional doctrine.

Dec. 25, the day Christians celebrate the birth of Christ, has been overrun with tacky plastic Nativity scenes, "blowout" sales and playthings like Elmo and Wii. In one poll this year more respondents indicated they wanted to see a creche at City Hall than said they actually planned to attend services at Christmas.

That's tacky as well.

Religion has been wrenched from the personal and prophetic to the partisan and political. Once thought too sacred to spoil with politics, religious belief has become a de facto requirement for public office.

No politician dares to end a speech without "God Bless America," lest they be thought irreligious, if not downright demon-possessed. Presidential aspirants now hire religious consultants to show potential voters how devout the candidate is.

There is an affirmative effort to avoid using the words "separation of church and state" lest it be construed as "hostile toward religion."

The Rev. Barry Lynn is executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. A longtime civil liberties lawyer and ordained minister, Lynn has a daily talk show, "Culture Shocks," which is heard on radio stations around the country. He is the author of the book "Piety and Politics: The Right Wing Assault on Religious Freedom," which was released in October 2006. For more information about the debate series, go to www.iq2us.org