An object lesson in religious faith

The first question my aunt from the former East Germany asked me, when she could finally travel after the fall of the Berlin Wall, was why there were so many churches in the United States, sometimes on every corner of a crossroads.

I explained that in America, we have freedom of religion so any like-minded group of people can form a congregation and build a church if they have the financial ability to support it. While many are affiliated with major denominations, belief could pull people together even in an ordinary storefront.

Her eyebrows and silence suggested this was excessive. She came from a generation in which churches were still government-supported with taxes.

I'm also struck by the sustained silence of America's mainline denominations during the loud showdowns over religious displays that end up in court. Like now, as the Supreme Court takes up the Ten Commandments as installed in Kentucky courthouses and on the Texas Capitol grounds.

Certainly the justices know the origins of law going back to Moses -- and other ancients of vastly different philosophies than Judeo-Christian.

The cultural context for religion in America has a wobbly neutrality. As a human experience across centuries, it's a given, of course. But as a code to be depicted with government authority - authority granted and respected by a pluralistic population in which minorities are assured of equal freedom and protection - the medium of inscribed granite or bronze, or a cobbled-together Nativity, can be perceived as an intrusive and disrespectful message.

The literal objects championed by vocal Christians in public power centers are not standing with space reserved for a Buddhist icon, say, or Muslim calligraphy. Not that I've heard.

As articles of faith, these Christian monuments we're arguing about seem meant to be instructional aids. Why else put a plaque in a courthouse except to teach a criminal right from wrong and enumerate the steps to conversion and repentance. All one has to do is believe to begin again. That, after all, is Christian doctrine -- and why all our churches were built.

But aside from the distinction between justice in this world and other realms that one may or may not believe exist, the prospect of finding abiding faith in a metaphysical supreme being by seeing a thing in an institutional corridor or grassy mall is simply extraordinary. Yes, faith is likened to the simplicity of the child, and the extraordinary is simply a miracle in religious parlance. And the religious believe in those too. But faith isn't so simple.

It's a mystery that for several millennia has tormented thinkers and seekers to labor toward understanding through countless permutations. Showing off a few sample texts is extraordinarily superficial even of Christianity.

If the object of these monuments is to lead the inspired to a church congregation for deeper instruction, that's proselytizing and not our government's job.

All over Europe there are churches that are splendid monuments without parishioners. Connoisseurs take in their fine materials, craftsmanship and decorative treasures, and make note of the inspiration for them, but that's cultural tourism, not worship. Public holy days that Americans typically don't observe are occasions for mass exodus to the ski slopes and beaches there, just as holidays are here. "Holiday" is a contraction of "holy day."

Believers make pilgrimages too. But the Old World's experience is a much more jaded version of the American argument that public religious symbols ought to be allowed as a testament to our founders' heritage.

Rather than inspiring a great awakening, America's evangelists could be in the position of putting up architectural bric a brac to be maintained at government expense.

Contact rtruschel@delawareonline.com.

© 2005 delawareonline.com/The News Journal