One Nation, Under Vishnu?

[Guest guest]

A judge in the U.S.'s Ninth Circuit appellate court last week ruled

that the country's Pledge of Allegience was unconstitutional, because

it contained the phrase "under God" (as in "One Nation Under God") --

which, the court opined, violated the U.S.'s constitutional

separation of church and state. There's been much passionate

commentary on the decision, but very little intelligent analusis. But

here's a beautiful consideration from San Francisco's "SF Gate":

 

ONE NATION, UNDER VISHNU: In the most religiously diverse country in

the world, why should God get the only plug?

 

To hell with the separation of church and state. Forget the Pledge of

Allegiance and "under God" and all this bipartisan puling about

prayer in schools. Maybe we've had it wrong all along.

 

Let's try this instead: Maybe there should be no such separation at

the school level. Maybe God and Vishnu and Kali and Astarte and

Dionysus and Allah and Zarathushtra and Lao-Tzu have not only a vital

place in the educational system, but also a fervent need to be heard

and felt and imbibed, just like cafeteria Coke and meatloaf and badly

written textbooks and nonexistent sex-ed and the capitals of all 50

states.

 

Maybe barring religious practice from our national places of learning

is just about as ignorant and small-minded and spiritually

degenerative as, say, bombing another country over oil or land or

power or ego. Let's just say.

 

Ah, but maybe you agree with Dubya that America is Christian country

and its "rights were derived from God." Maybe you think the current,

adorably hypocritical separation of church and state, with its

sanctimonious mentions of a patriarchal Christian God everywhere, is

the righteous path, the common wisdom, the properly loving sentiment

expressed by many a fervent patriot as we drop our bombs and thump

our bibles and let God sort 'em out.

 

You would be wrong.

 

Because America is also the most religiously diverse country in the

world. America is teeming with saris and yarmulkes and monk's robes

and funky prayer beads and glorious ornate temples of every shape and

size. There are more Muslims in the U.S. now, for example, than there

are Jews or Episcopalians. America, spiritually speaking, is not what

most people think it is.

 

A quick look inside any apartment building in any major city outside

of, say, Vermont or maybe Montana reveals a veritable kaleidoscope of

faith and divinity: Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Jew, Atheist, Wiccan,

Pagan, Sikh, Atheist and Buddhist, living side by side and borrowing

cups of sugar or sticks of Nag Champa from each other, stealing each

other's newspaper and bootlegging each other's cable TV. It's a

beautiful thing, really.

 

But nowhere is religious funk and spiritual diversity more prevalent

and visible than in the classroom, which since the mid-'60s has seen

an explosion of immigrant cultures and beliefs, a dazzling and

unprecedented intermixing of faiths and backgrounds and languages and

deities and kids with names that give your tongue a workout.

 

And hence it would seem to require negligible rationale or subtlety

of mind to see that "under God" is really rather inane and

exclusionary and insulting to a vast and increasing chunk of the soon-

to-be-voting populace.

 

Alas, Conservatives still believe little Johnny should be kneeling in

school and praising Jesus (and no one else) for the glory that is his

math quiz every day, whereas Liberals believe he should keep that

sort of thing in the church or risk warping his little mind.

 

Meanwhile little Daniel and Sunjat and Tenzin and Amir and Uma Das

Gupta and Moonstarr and Ling Tso sit idly by, rolling their eyes and

sighing sadly and wondering why there's so much intolerance and

misunderstanding in the Land of the Free.

 

So maybe there should be prayer in schools. A lot of prayer. Say a

half hour a day, every religion allowed its rituals and practices,

quirks and screams and chants and head-bobbings and blood sacrifices

to the great Lord Zorkon.

 

Immediately followed by a class on religious appreciation and

diversity, with each kid talking about his/her beliefs and traditions

and occasionally uptight dogmas and beautiful similarities and why

the hell they have to wear that funny thing on their head and can't

eat bananas on Tuesdays.

 

Maybe every major religion gets one week during the school year where

the kid and he kid's family and their rabbi or priest or guru or

teacher come in and share stories and teach everyone their

traditions, and everyone eats that culture's food and recites that

faith's prayers and everyone learns to tie a turban and decorate a

robe and dances and laughs and learns.

 

It's what famed author and Harvard professor Diana Eck, in her book

"New Religious America: How a 'Christian Country' Has Become the

World's Most Religiously Diverse Nation," termed "religious

pluralism" -- more than mere tolerance and acceptance of other's

religious beliefs, an active and dynamic engagement in the public

sphere, classrooms and workplaces and fetish dungeons, an ongoing

dialogue, a spiritual exchange.

 

It's messy and complicated and imperfect; we are trained to be

suspicious, we resist change, we fear the unknown and erect walls and

barriers of all kinds to keep foreigners and strange people out.

Anxiety is our cultural modus operandi, and many spiritually uptight

believers -- Christians in particular -- are loath to allow their

kids to be "tainted" by exposure to other beliefs.

 

But this is the only way it will ever work. People of all religions

must intermix and communicate and share ideas and find common ground,

and there is no one better to take us there than children, as yet

untainted by their parent's prejudices, their government's

ideologies.

 

Lack of such integration and communication means cultural stasis,

social breakdown, prejudice, ignorance, hatred, violence, zealotry,

terrorism, war, increased and inexplicable proliferation of the Bush

clan. Not necessarily in that order.

 

It means situations like the Middle East, full of checkpoints and

barriers and razor wire and children being trained in hate, without

ever learning the viewpoint of the other side.

 

It means we continue like we are right now, segregating ourselves and

living in relative ignorance of who lives down the hall, looking over

our shoulder suspiciously at the guy in the silk gown or the woman in

the head wrap, wondering what crazy thing they're always chanting

about.

 

So yes. Dump the inane "under God" provision of the Pledge. And maybe

replace it with "One nation, under whatever noble and/or beautiful

belief system you want, or maybe nothing at all, or maybe a little of

this and that, just don't be a freak about it, because this is

America and we're nothing if not about religious freedom, even though

that may be difficult to believe right now, but just bear with us,

indivisible...."

 

Sure it's a little verbose. But it sure beats the religious status

quo.

 

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Friday, June 28, 2002

©2002 SF Gate

Web source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-

bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/06/28/notes062802.DTL