Opinion ID: 2040077
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Propriety of Religious Discipleship in a Secular Society

Text: The examiner's disposition of the basic issue in this case was as sweeping as it was superficial: Owens' religious beliefs are sincere but, when put into practice in a commercial service business, simply irrelevant. [11] To say, as the examiner said, that [t]he essence of the employer's business is not a `discipleship for Christ'    but rather the operation of an exercise emporium is impermissibly to substitute the examiner's business judgment for Owens' business judgment. The examiner, at the same time, decrees a dichotomy between Owens' beliefs and practices, divorces the sacred from the secular, does not distinguish praying on one's knees on Sunday from preying on other persons in the marketplace on Monday, and perceives no significant difference between the commitment of conviction and the detachment of a possibly more casual Sabbath ceremony or community convention. The examiner's view seems to reflect what Harold J. Berman, James Barr Ames Professor of Law, Harvard University, calls [t]he fundamental changes that have taken place in our legal institutions during the past two generations [as] part of a transformation of the entire Western legal tradition, marked particularly by its disconnection from the religious foundations upon which it was built. He concludes: [A]s a matter of historical fact the legal systems of all the nations that are heirs to the Western legal tradition have been rooted in certain beliefs or postulates: that is, the legal systems themselves have presupposed the validity of those beliefs. Today those beliefs are postulates  such as the structural integrity of law, its continuity, its religious roots, its transcendent qualities  [which] are rapidly disappearing not only from the minds of philosophers, not only from the minds of lawmakers, judges, lawyers, law teachers, and other members of the legal profession, but from the consciousness of the vast majority of citizens, the people as a whole; and more than that, they are disappearing from the law itself. The law is becoming more fragmented, more subjective, geared more to expediency and less to morality, concerned more with immediate consequences and less with consistency or continuity. [12] Contemporary theologians of national scholarly stature address more cogently the premise advanced in this Part I, preliminary to reaching the fundamental constitutional issue in all these cases. Martin E. Marty, Ph.D., [13] wrote in U.S. News & World Report: We tend to underestimate the power of religion in people's lives, because for many years in America religion had become a private affair.    I do not believe in turning schools into churches, but our children would be well served by courses teaching about the role of religion in human life. Schools should teach reality, and media should cover reality; yet we've largely screened out the reality of religion in society. A youngster can watch 15 years of children's TV and learn about the mailperson and the grocer but never see a rabbi, monk or minister.    The group I would regard as the next frontier for religion is that huge class of young adults  the high-rise, high-tech people  who devote tremendous energies to their careers and take the pressure off through a kind of hedonism. There are religious stirrings among them, yet few of them are attracted to established churches. This group and millions of other Americans are likely to pursue religion entirely privately, which can be a fine expression of personal freedom but a problem when it comes to reaching people and reforming society. U.S. News & World Report 46 (Sept. 24, 1984). Peter J. Gomes, Ph.D., [14] writing in the Minneapolis Star and Tribune, Oct. 12, 1984 (Commentary) at 19A, wrote: In what we like to describe as our secular and pluralistic republic, our problem is with those who now appear unwilling to leave well enough alone in the business of religion. The problem with religion, of course, is the religious, those who take it seriously, those who are unwilling to be among Swift's Anythingarians. They know what Edmund Burke meant when he wrote, Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference, which is, at least, half infidelity. To such as these, a general religion is no religion at all. James Hitchcock, Ph.D., [15] in an October 1984 address at Hillsdale College, reported in its February 1985 issue of Imprimis, said: In recent years there has been a coming together of Catholics and Evangelicals motivated by a growing recognition of the threats to Christianity itself posed by both the secular culture and by liberal Christianity. Liberal Christianity can be defined as the assumption that religion is under an obligation to adapt itself completely to changing cultures. Ultimately, it does not believe in transcendent divine revelation but conceives religion as born of the on-going religious consciousness of the human race. Virtually everything in religion, including finally even God, is regarded as a human creation, which human beings therefore can, and even must, change in order to meet changing human needs. By contrast, orthodox Christians believe that the source of their religion is God's self-revelation of Himself to His people. It is at this point    that the widest gulf exists in contemporary Christianity. It is not a gulf which runs between denominations, but cuts across practically all denominations, running through the middle of many. Richard John Neuhaus, [16] interviewed in the National Catholic Register (reprinted in The Presbyterian Layman 10 (Nov./Dec. 1984)), gave this answer to the question, How can Christians instill Biblical values into a pluralistic society?: What we need in this society more than anything else, is exemplary communities of Christian virtue, both private and public. Secondly, Christians should be uninhibited in articulating their beliefs in the public arena. The third task, which is terribly important, is to find points of agreement with those who are not motivated by the same biblically based values that motivate us. Orthodox Judaism, no less than Christianity, has no sterile dichotomy like that imposed by the examiner as dispositive in this case. Milton Steinberg, [17] in his excellent book for non-Jews, Basic Judaism, writes: Judaism, being more than a church, is broader in its interests than theology and ethic. It is, in fact, no less than a full way of life. Wherefore it seeks to mold not only the beliefs, morals, and worship of the Jew, but his every act, his eating, drinking, work and play. Ritual is the instrument designed to this end, carrying the Jewish religion into every nook and cranny of his being until nothing he does is untouched by Judaism. M. Steinberg, Basic Judaism 136 (1947). The above-quoted views of professionals occupying prestigious positions in academia and pulpits in the United States are confirmed by parishioners in the pews of Minnesota churches. The Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research, located on the premises of St. John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota, recently undertook a 5-year, $200,000 study to learn how Christian faith affects the lives of church members in Minnesota, in order to gain information concerning the internal condition of the churches and their relation to society. The nature of the study and its extensive findings were published in a 1983 book entitled Faith & Ferment: An Interdisciplinary Study of Christian Beliefs and Practices (hereinafter Faith & Ferment ), edited by Robert S. Bilheimer, a Presbyterian minister and executive director of the Institute. The study consisted of questionnaires sent to some 2,000 church members and ministers in various denominational churches in demographically representative counties, followed by intensive personal interviews with, among others, several of those who had responded to the questionnaires. The study was an interdisciplinary collaboration, with the design of the inquiry developed by a professional group of anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists from the University of Minnesota. [18] Sister Joan D. Chittister, O.S.B., Ph.D., the project coordinator and a professional consultant to religious organizations, prepared a unified presentation of the project's major findings, which appears in the first part of Faith & Ferment. The next part of Faith & Ferment presents a historical and theological analysis of the data by Dr. Martin E. Marty, a co-producer of the project, followed by a third part made up of supplemental essays by lay and clerical members of the Institute. Veteran religion reporter Willmar L. Thorkelson, a lay member of the Institute, said, `Monumental' is the word that journalists would use to describe [it]. Faith & Ferment at 273. It is a study that has not been replicated in any of the other states. The most important finding, as reported in Faith & Ferment: In the minds of these respondents, work and faith are clearly interrelated. More than three-fourths of them (79%) see their work as being in harmony with their Christian faith. Some (13%) say that the work they do for a living has little or nothing to do with their faith. Few (7%) believe that what they do to earn their livelihood conflicts with their faith. But regardless of their answers, most of them see faith as an acceptable and intelligent guide in the marketplace. It directs their conduct in their daily work. Many (81%) try to be an example for Christ while at work. And in a society that urges people to keep a proper distance between their religious convictions and their public activities, faith requires a surprising number (39%) to tell others on the job about Christ.    [O]ne thing is all but certain: whatever is going on in the American marketplace is perceived by Christians in Minnesota to be within the purview of faith. [19]