The First Amendment to the United States Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” In 1925 the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that this applies also to state and local governments. It seems fairly simple.
The framers of our government were a religiously plural group of people who had long since rejected the tyranny of state-sponsored religion in Europe, and had moved far and away from the blurred lines of religion and government in Puritan New England. Religious freedom is risky, as can be demonstrated by the actions of people like Jim Jones, David Koresh, or even the KKK. But one may not violate civil law in the practice of religion. Jesus taught his followers to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” a principle we follow every time we pay our taxes.
That being said, the First Amendment is facing new challenges on the streets of lower Manhattan. A group of Islamic American citizens have purchased the site of a former Burlington Coat Factory store on Park Place, about two and a half city blocks from the site of the World Trade Center. On that site they wish to open a community center, a plan that has been approved by the city of New York. The plan has ignited a firestorm of political and cultural hysteria, making it necessary for us to think clearly about what it means to be a progressive, open, and affirming church.
Emotions will always run high with regard to what happened nine years ago. Our nation was attacked by extremists from other parts of the globe who assimilated themselves into American culture, enough so that they were able to get training in flight schools and subsequently turn airliners into weapons of mass destruction. It was an unbelievably horrible act, an aggressive act of war. That is without question.
Yet, it is even more disheartening to see what we have allowed this act to do to us. Do we now live in a society that reveres cable news at the expense of the Constitution? When will we realize that peace-loving Americans who practice Islam enjoy the same protection under the law as Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Catholics, Unitarians, and Protestants–including Congregationalists? If we are saying that an Islamic center cannot be built in lower Manhattan, then what right has Trinity Church to exist there? What about the mosques, synagogues, churches, and other places of worship in the same vicinity? If we limit the rights of others then we must be prepared to surrender our own.
Jesus said, “Peace, I leave with you. My peace I give to you.” If we indeed call ourselves “Christians,” then let us follow the practice of Jesus whose compassion stretched across religious, cultural and ethnic boundaries. He did not “racially profile” the Samaritans, and neither should we.
