Column: Is there a place for The Compassion Forum in the political process?

This is a column I submitted to The Allentown Morning Call after Sunday night's The Compassion Forum at Messiah College. They ran it here with a few edits.

Note: If this had not been a general readership newspaper, I would have used the term צניעות Tzniut, privacy, to describe the third point below, toward the end of the article. Public discussion of deeply personal beliefs seems to defy that צניעות we are taught to hold dear.

Is there a place for The Compassion Forum in the political process?

Is it hypocritical to wish for spirituality in our political representatives, but to wish equally that they not discuss it in public?

I found myself pondering that question as I sat in the audience at The Compassion Forum at Messiah College on Sunday night, April 13th, watching Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama answer faith-oriented questions both personal and political. As a guest of the Orthodox Union I felt honored to have been invited, but as a Jewish American I felt more than a little uncomfortable.

Certainly, I find nothing inappropriate in a politician incorporating religious beliefs into decisions; just as they rely upon education, upbringing, friends and advisors, so our elected officials may draw on religious beliefs. More, their application of religious beliefs to practical policy displays an encouraging sophistication of faith and depth of thought. Nonetheless, this sort of forum does trigger deep discomfort in many Americans - myself included.

In my view, one problem is that these discussions unnecessarily spotlighted disagreements for voters of different religious persuasions. Many Americans vote based on practical policy and track record and overlook differences in religious philosophy, and many of those voters don’t want to have the underlying religious disagreement waved in their faces.

As a member of a Jewish minority, and as a member of an Orthodox minority within even that Jewish population, I have disagreed with basic religious beliefs held by every political candidate for whom I have voted in the past eighteen years. My own sensibilities have survived that conflict - but I do appreciate the candidates who don’t emphasize those differences.

A second issue is that these interviews flew in the face of our American freedom of religion. As a nation, we have valued that freedom since the colonial period. As a Jew, I particularly appreciate the fact that my right of worship is honored in our great country. No American should ever be made to justify, or even explain, his own religious ideals - but that was exactly what happened on Sunday night.

There was an awkward resemblance between Sunday’s public dialogue and the savage religious persecutions of the past millenium. Placing a political leader - or anyone - on a stage to answer questions like, “Do you believe God punishes nations in realtime,” and “Do you believe God created the world in six days,” white leather chairs and glasses of water notwithstanding, calls forth images of the Catholic Inquisition in the late Middle Ages and the Mutazilite Muslim Inquisition of the 9th century.

And to this I would add a third piece of the problem: The role of public display in religion, altogether.

Certainly, the Bible itself is mixed regarding public declamation of religious belief. At no time in the Pentateuch are the Israelites instructed to spread their Sinaitic tradition to other nations. On the other hand, Canaanites who opt to adopt Judaism are accepted into that early Jewish nation.

As a viewer whose tradition is ambiguous regarding evangelism, and whose personal beliefs include the words of the prophet Micah (6:8), “and walk modestly with thy God,” I mistrust a forum in which a politician is called upon to publicly answer the question, “When did you experience the Spirit?”

I attended the Forum out of curiosity, and my curiosity was duly satisfied. More, the Compassion Forum did highlight elements in both candidates’ beliefs with which I could agree, and which likely resonated with people of many faiths. Senator Obama spoke about the way his bible-based faith had inspired his work with impoverished people in the south side of Chicago. Senator Clinton voiced a very Jewish belief when she said that her response to suffering is not to ask why God permits it, but rather to ask how she can help. And yet, for all three of the reasons outlined above - spotlighting religious differences, the resemblance to an Inquisition and the public display of personal beliefs - I was less than comfortable with The Compassion Forum.

May our political representatives always remain strong in their beliefs, but - so far as I am concerned - may they keep those beliefs to themselves.

In the beginning… there were billboards

Along a semi-rural highway, just yesterday, I was taken aback by a LARGE billboard mural of the cosmos – planets, sun, various stock images that convey ‘intergalactic’ – with two outstretched arms flanking it, and the logo, “In the beginning, GOD created heaven and earth,” running across the picture. There may have been stigmata on one of the hands; I drove past too quickly to be sure that wasn’t just a large bird dropping.

The mural, presumably sponsored by some local church or national Evangelical Christian organization, said many things to me.

A Plus: Cultural respect for religion
As a rabbi I respect noted to me recently, it’s easier to be religious when surrounded by a religious culture, even if it’s not your own. (Of course, this is not as true if the external religious society is directly, overtly hostile to your own… say, living as a Jew in downtown Mecca…)

I agree with him. It’s certainly easier to live in, and interact with, a world in which belief in Gd is not intellectually associated with subtle insanity. When observers’ reaction to your ritual practice is a sincere interest and respect rather than hostility, cynicism or a patronizing smile, the religious life is easier to maintain.

A Minus: Lumping us in with the Evangelicals
That said, I’m still not comfortable with the billboard; as a highly visible representation of Bible-based religion, it will likely be among the first images in local people’s minds when they read about, or encounter, people who believe in the Bible.

When people who have seen this billboard associate me with biblical religion, they will assume that I am one of those people who would put up such a billboard, who would attempt to foist his own belief on society, who denies the validity of scientific method, who wants children to study Creationism (or its not-distant-enough cousin, Intelligent Design) in the public schools, who believes that the United States of America should ban all abortions, etc.

I don’t want to have to find clever ways to inject into routine conversation, “You know, Judaism doesn’t agree with the Church on many issues.” Or, “Isn’t it interesting to note the significant philosophical and practical differences between different Bible-based religions?” These don’t really lend themselves to snappy dialogue.

A third point: Public religion
And a third thought: Even if I disagree with their substance as well as method, I appreciate and respect their pride in expressing their religious belief publicly. Maybe it’s just that they don’t realize how the rest of the world sees them, but I don’t think so – I think they are proud of their religion, and they have no qualms about letting people see it.

So many Jews rely anachronistically on questionable justifications for keeping their yarmulka, their tzitzit, their menorah, their mezuzah, invisible. Anti-Semitism is certainly not gone, and a public yarmulka may well earn a Jew odd looks in certain contexts, but, really, how dangerous is it to have a menorah in my window, in 95% of the USA? How hazardous is it to have a mezuzah on my doorpost (assuming I don’t live in one of those stubbornly resistant co-ops)?

In this, perhaps we could take a lesson from the Evangelicals’ billboard, even if it is overdone. Religion shouldn’t be a subject of shame, and a good way to dispel people’s misconceptions about Judaism – aren’t you like those Evangelicals? - is to expose them to the real thing. Perhaps we could benefit from becoming ‘billboards’ of our own, living Kiddush HaShem, in daily life.