One of my mentors at Providence College was the late Rev. Tom Coskren. He was a Dominican Roman Catholic priest who taught an Arts Honors class called “Modalities of Religious Consciousness”. One day in that class had a great effect on me.

Fr. Tom brought out five different drinking glasses. They had different shapes. He then filled each glass with water. He explained that the water represented religion. Although it takes a different shape in each glass, it is still water. His message was clear: religion takes on different shapes whether it’s Christian, Muslim, Buddhism, etc.

It was an egalitarian and, in my belief, American way of accepting all religions.

That’s why I’m suspicious of emails sent to me explaining that the preambles of most state constitutions mentions God. The emails’ purpose is to scold the ACLU and federal judges for what most of us would say is upholding the laws.

Frankly, I’m tired of these misinformed missives. And it’s time to set the record straight.

What the Christian Right wants us to embrace is their form of religion; the same one that denies the credibility of the theory of evolution; believes that women should be subservient to men; and anyone who doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ as their savior is damned to Hell for eternity.

That form of religion in any American constitution contradicts American values and wastes our time. At a time of economic strife, a questionable war, and a financial crisis facing our kids’ futures, we’re arguing whether the Ten Commandments or a Nativity scene should be on the town hall lawn. I’ll give the Christian Right their right to argue against abortion, although I disagree with them and their tactics. But when they interfere in people’s private lives like the Terry Schiavo case with no scientific or legal basis, they deserve rebukes.

Read John Meacham’s book, American Gospel. Meacham explains that the Founding Fathers’ religious belief was based on a God of Nature and Reason. Although Meacham sees religion’s benefits to society and American society, he dismisses the Christian Right’s belief that the Founding Fathers would be on their side.

Our Founding Fathers understood the oppression of religion. In fact, it was a 14-year-old boy who understood what religion has become in modern society.

“Through the reading of popular science books, I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state though lies; it was a crushing impression.”

The book’s author goes on about the boy.

His “rebellion against religious dogma had a profound effect on his general outlook toward perceived wisdom. It inculcated an allergic reaction against all forms of dogma and authority, which was to affect both his politics and his science. ‘Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience, an attitude which has never again left me,’ he later said. Indeed, it was this comfort with being a nonconformist that would define both his science and his social thinking for the rest of his life.”

Obviously, his suspicion of religion hurt his career. The 14-year-old boy was Albert Einstein. Those are excerpts from the book, Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson.

Go back to the “religion speech” of Mitt Romney. As I wrote in a previous blog, I quoted New York Times columnist David Brooks who pointed out that “Romney didn’t paint a picture of religious freedom in America, but a country of believers versus non-believers; in short, a war between the religious and the secularists.” This is a candidate pandering to the Christian Right.

It’s too bad that most of the Christian Right fails to adhere to the writings of St. Paul.

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.

Posted January 27, 2008