The difference between what a speaker says and what
his listeners hear can be immense. As a priest I
experience this sometimes after Mass when people thank
me for something they “heard” in the homily, which has
nothing to do what I actually said. And sometimes they are
offended by what they think they heard. This phenomenon
came to mind when President Obama sought to reassure
the Islamic world of the U.S. good intentions on his visit to
Turkey and proclaimed to them that the United States is not
a Christian nation. What much of the Islamic world took
from that is that we are a “godless” nation, something they
already believe. To speak of religious freedom to people
who do not believe in it is rather like spitting in the wind.
Although Turkey sought long and hard to build a secular
culture and government the rising tide of radical Islam is
reversing this drive. And even at its most secular, Turkey
was still a place where the small pockets of Christianity
rested uneasily with the Oecumenical Patriarch of the
Eastern Orthodox Church, living in a situation not unlike
house-arrest. Many, if not most, in President Obama’s
Turkish audience favour not religious freedom, but rather
the imposition of Sharia, Islamic religious law. I can well
imagine that Turkey’s few (and embattled) Christians
understood the President’s words to mean that they are
being thrown to the lions … again.
The framers of the U.S. Constitution sought to ensure
religious freedom by forbidding the establishment of a State
or Government Church or Religion (all the while never
using the expression “separation of Church and State”). In
doing so, they were working within the broader framework
of their Judeo-Christian upbringing and heritage which
enshrines freedom of conscience.
The United States of America is not a Christian country,
but it is a country that arose out of Christianity, its founders
imbued with the strong Judeo-Christian ethic that respects
the dignity of the individual with God-given rights. The U.S.
House of Representatives pays tribute to great lawmakers
of the past, including not only ancient Greeks and Romans,
but also Moses, a pope or two and even Mohamed.
(Although from the point of a few traditional Muslims,
portraying the prophet Mohamed constitutes blasphemy).
And the highest court of the land has the Ten
Commandments represented on a wall.
Our Christian heritage, as Americans, is part and parcel
of not just who, but what we are. It is because of that
heritage that we enjoy the freedoms we do, and if we forget
that heritage we do stand in serious danger of losing those
freedoms we cherish.