Ten Commandments Monument, Church and State

The Ten Commandments monument controversy, which the Supreme Court effectively decided last week by refusing to review the appeals court decision against the monument's advocates, makes me feel sad more than any other felling. I support the separation of church and state. Government sponsoring religion makes for both bad government and bad religion.

But a strict separation of church and state is not absolutely essential to protect freedom of religion. Great Britain manages to have a state "established" church, the Church of England headed by the British monarch, without persecution of non-members. (Religious conflict in Northern Ireland is a different issue.)

Germany and Austria both require chuch members to pay a church tax to support their churches. I've often wondered what would happen to the high rates of church attendance in which Americans often take such pride if church members had to pay a church tax. But both those governments handle that direct involvement with churches without persecuting dissident believers. Neither Germany nor Austria has an official state church.

But government sponsorship of religion, even in those cases, is a two-way street. Members of Parliament in Britain debate personnel decisions of the Church of England.

In Austria, the government by agreement with the Vatican has the right to veto appointments of Catholic bishops. This power was exercised informally a few years when Rome indicated they intended to appoint Kurt Kremm, the reactionary and highly controversial Bishop of St. Polten, as Archbisop of Vienna. The leaders of the People's Party (Austria's Christian Democratic party) quietly notified the Vatican they would seek to invoke the government veto if Kremm were appointed.

Do Southern Baptists - or the United Methodists or any other American church group - really want Congress debating their selection of church officials? Do they want either the Democratic or Republican parties to have that kind of veto?

Aside from the particular legal issues in cases like the Ten Commandments monument, militant Christian groups in America may want to take the advice of the Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly: "Be careful what you pray for/You just might get it."