It
is being hailed as a ‘major ruling’ and a ‘sea change’:
But
it is not quite so. Why is that? We will answer this in a moment, but first
let us go over some of the good parts of the opinion:
-It
does not require that the memorial cross to be removed, modified, etc.;
-It
all but scraps the convoluted Lemon test in Establishment Clause cases;
-It
severely criticizes the ‘offended observer’ theory of gaining standing in the
courts.
The
major problem with the ruling, however, and the reason why we say celebrations
should be largely muted, is that the majority based the constitutionality of
the display of this cross on the fact that it is a secular and not a religious
symbol. Over and over again, Justice
Alito writes in this vein:
The existence of multiple purposes is not
exclusive to longstanding monuments, symbols, or practices, but this phenomenon
is more likely to occur in such cases. Even if the original purpose of a
monument was infused with religion, the passage of time may obscure that
sentiment. As our society becomes more and more religiously diverse, a
community may preserve such monuments, symbols, and practices for the sake of
their historical significance or their place in a common cultural heritage. Cf.
Schempp, 374 U. S., at 264–265 (Brennan, J., concurring) (“[The]
government may originally have decreed a Sunday day of rest for the
impermissible purpose of supporting religion but abandoned that purpose and
retained the laws for the permissible purpose of furthering overwhelmingly
secular ends”).
--pgs. 18-9
With sufficient time,
religiously expressive monuments, symbols, and practices can become embedded
features of a community’s landscape and identity. The community may come to
value them without necessarily embracing their religious roots. The recent
tragic fire at Notre Dame in Paris provides a striking example. Although the
French Republic rigorously enforces a secular public square,19 the cathedral
remains a symbol of national importance to the religious and nonreligious
alike. Notre Dame is funda-mentally a place of worship and retains great
religious importance, but its meaning has broadened. For many, it is
inextricably linked with the very idea of Paris and France.20 Speaking to the
nation shortly after the fire, President Macron said that Notre Dame “ ‘is our
history, our literature, our imagination. The place where we sur-vived
epidemics, wars, liberation. It has been the epicen-ter of our lives.’ ”
--p. 26
That the cross originated
as a Christian symbol and retains that meaning in many contexts does not change
the fact that the symbol took on an added secular meaning when used in World
War I memorials.
--p. 28
The cross is undoubtedly a
Christian symbol, but that fact should not blind us to everything else that the
Bladensburg Cross has come to represent. For some, that monument is a symbolic
resting place for ancestors who never returned home. For others, it is a place
for the community to gather and honor all veterans and their sacrifices for our
Nation. For others still, it is a historical landmark. For many of these
people, destroying or defac-ing the Cross that has stood undisturbed for nearly
a century would not be neutral and would not further the ideals of respect and
tolerance embodied in the First Amendment. For all these reasons, the Cross
does not offend the Constitution.
--p. 31
It
appears that the only reason the Bladensburg cross survived this examination by
the majority is because of a dishonest sleight of hand: They have emptied this cross of all Christian
significance; they have made it a secular monument - there is no longer any way
it can ‘offend the Constitution’ or anybody else from a religious point of
view.
We
appreciate much more the honesty of Justices Thomas, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor in
their separate opinions because they recognize the inherently religious nature
in choosing a cross as the design for this WWI memorial, though they take
different views on what this entails. We
agree with Justice Thomas that this is wholly a concern for Maryland, that the
1st Amendment is addressed to Congress alone, that a State may have
an established religion if it so wishes.
Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor take the usual Leftist line of
separation of church and state.
***
The
majority in this ruling, and many Evangelical leaders in the States, dwell a
lot on religious freedom, tolerance, and inclusivity as benefits for the
States, as conferring peace, harmony, and contentment upon all. However, this is flawed reasoning. A couple of analogies:
First,
since a country is a large family, let us look at this from the vantage point
of a single nuclear family. Suppose it
is made up of members of different sects:
The father is an Episcopalian, the mother a Southern Baptist, one child
is Mormon, another is Pentecostal, another Roman Catholic, another a Seventh
Day Adventist, and so on. In all
honesty, would this family be able to live and work together in harmony? Of course not! They would not even be able to agree on basic
things, like what day of the week it is appropriate to worship on. The only way they could get along with one
another is if their religious beliefs were shoved into the background and other
more secular concerns became the sole focus of their communal life together.
That
is precisely the problem with the focus on religious freedom as a great social
virtue in the States. It leads to
exactly this sort of secularization of public life in its attempts to deal with
all the different religious sects that the people adhere to (or else to the
equalization of all faiths, the relativization of all ‘truth claims’; e.g., https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/449660-hail-satan-opening-prayer-at-alaska-government-meeting-prompts-walkouts).
This
leads us to the next analogy. Consider a
factory. It has one goal: to manufacture an automobile. The foreman of the factory has given the
workers the plan for piecing it together.
As long as the workers follow his blueprint, the factory functions
well. But then, one by one, the workers
decide to deviate from the plan because of a secret enlightenment each believes
he has received that he thinks will make the vehicle better. Will that factory in the end produce anything
valuable? No! It will end up making a completely useless
jalopy! Will the foreman be pleased with
their work at all? No! He will chastise them for their presumption,
howsoever hard they may plead with him for the authority they claim is theirs
by virtue of the priesthood of the assembly line worker to interpret the
blueprint according to his own inner convictions.
It
is the same with the people of a country.
It has one main goal: The
salvation of the people. There is one
way to accomplish their salvation:
Follow the Orthodox Faith given to the Holy Apostles by the Lord Jesus
Christ. When a hundred different sects
arise, then the faith of the people is shipwrecked. Nothing of permanent value is made, and the
Lord Jesus will say to them, ‘Depart from me.’
Nothing
good comes from making religious freedom the highest value of a society. It leads to a secular public square (as the
Bladensburg case demonstrates once again) and apathy toward truth in general
and the Christian faith in particular.
Hear
well the Holy Apostle Paul:
[4] There is one
body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;
[5] One Lord, one
faith, one baptism,
[6] One God and
Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
--Ephesians 4:4-6, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx?type=DIV1&byte=5182024
One
faith, not dozens. One body, not
hundreds. Unity is paramount in
Christianity. To rip the seamless robe
of the Orthodox Church into a hundred different fragments only serves the
devil’s interests. But the States have
rejected those truths for the idol of religious freedom, and they will suffer
the consequences of ongoing spiritual confusion and death until they repent.
--
Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England,
South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð,
unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
No comments:
Post a Comment