My
brother Ray is my hero. What makes him heroic is his commitment to continuous
spiritual growth. But that evolution has not been without its trials. When he
and I were in our late twenties, I noticed that Ray was drifting away from me. It
was a strange feeling. We had always been best pals, going one-on-one under the
backyard basketball hoop in what was always “the match of the century.” But a few years out of college, I sensed a
shrouded reservation. Something was wrong. I could not pinpoint the source, but
I could feel the heat.
I finally kindled enough courage to
confront him. “Ray, what’s going on?” I asked.
“What has separated you and me?”
Then he said the words that broke my
heart. “Don’t you know? The Bible teaches us not to be unequally yoked with
unbelievers.”
I was speechless. In fact, we both
were speechless—for thirty years.
Then, after the death of our
parents, Ray had an awakening. “Allen, I’m sorry,” he said in hushed tones. “I
have not been a good brother to you. Can we try again?”
“It’s all I’ve ever wanted,” I said.
“But I have one condition. Can we both be nonjudgmental?”
“I think I can do that.”
“I think I can too.”
Today, my brother and I meet every
Saturday morning for breakfast. I would not relinquish that time together for
the world. I soon discovered that Ray had grown exponentially during those
long, silent years. He had learned about tolerance, reconciliation, and
unconditional love. Most of all, he had learned how to embrace his renegade
brother.
Ray tore down the wall of
exclusivity and judgment—embracing Saint Paul’s definition of love as that
which “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves.” That’s
why I call him heroic. He broke the chains of legalism and replaced them with
gossamer strands of brotherly love.
With that model of tolerance in
mind, there is another wall to consider—not one to tear down, but one to
buttress.
On the first day of 1802, Thomas
Jefferson quoted the First Amendment in a one-page letter to the Danbury Baptist
Association. He declared:
Religion is a matter which
lies between Man and his God” and that the “legislature should ‘make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.
That wall of separation is a sacred tenet of our American history. In
1962, the Supreme Court heard the case of Engle v. Vitale and determined in a
six-to-one decision that it was unconstitutional for state officials to require
the recitation of an official prayer in public schools—that it was a breach of
“the constitutional wall of separation between Church and State.”
In the 1968 case of Epperson v.
Arkansas, the Supreme Court ruled that the State of Arkansas violated the
constitution by forbidding the teaching of evolution in any public school. The
court decreed that “the state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or
all religions from views distasteful to them.”
Some American believers may argue
that God’s law trumps man’s law. That may be true in the private domain of
believers, where religious doctrines do not conflict with social laws. But in
the public domain—the domain of the state and constitutional law—it is another
story. As the Supreme Court has ruled, the state has no obligation to protect
the church from distasteful views. Conversely, the church has no authority in
matters outside its domain. Religion may rule the heart, but it does not rule
the state.
To his credit, Saint Paul astutely resolved
all controversy by proclaiming that state law and God’s law are one.
Let every person be subject
to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and
those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the
authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur
judgment. (Romans 13:1-2. Revised Standard Version.)
Both august authorities—the
authorities of the state (in the voices of Jefferson and the Supreme Court) and
the authority of the church (in the voice of Saint Paul)—are in agreement. They
have both commanded their citizens to obey the law of the state.
What does this mean in today’s
American society? It means it is time
for all citizens—believers and nonbelievers—to acquiesce to the law of the land.
And yet acquiescence is not always the first choice for recalcitrant Americans.
For example, on June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that the ban on same-sex
marriages was unconstitutional. And yet, despite the affirmations from
Jefferson to Saint Paul, believers have rallied to protest and even seek to reverse
the decision in whatever way possible. Missouri’s Dent County commissioners
voted to lower the courthouse flag “below half-staff” one day a month for a year
out of mourning over the Supreme Court’s decision. Most 2016 republican presidential
candidates have voiced their disapproval, some couching their displeasure in
Christian language and pledging to reverse the decision through a constitutional
amendment.
Perhaps those politicians have
ignored or do not fully understand the tenet of “the wall of separation.” Or maybe they are unfamiliar with Romans
13—especially with Paul’s admonition in verse 10: “Love does no wrong to a
neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”
So here is my sacred pledge: To
honor the wall of separation of church and state, yes, but to crush the wall of
judgment and declare with clarion conviction, “I may not believe as you—democrat,
republican, gay, straight, believer, nonbeliever—but that disparity will never diminish
my love for you.”
My brother has proven to me that
even the most devout believers can come to love an earnest nonbeliever. Can
Americans build on that kind of private victory and extend it to a public
victory—to expand their love for a brother to the love of all humankind?
That model of democratic love is
reflected in the closing paragraph of Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury
Baptists. Despite his affinity for deism over traditional Christianity, the
president wrote these words of inclusiveness: “[I] tender you for yourselves
& your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.”
Isn’t it time for Americans to hold
others—apostles and apostates—equal in “respect and esteem?”
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