The focus is rightly on Senator Ted Kennedy today, as his cancer diagnosis has left heavy the hearts of Americans. Among other virtuous positions, Kennedy has been a stalwart defender of religious liberty and the separation of church and state. My brother e-mailed to remind me of his powerful speech, entitled "Faith, Truth and Tolerance in America", delivered at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in 1983 (back when politicians weren't afraid to speak to groups they disagree with). Read (or watch) the whole thing. Here's an excerpt:
The separation of church and state can sometimes be frustrating for women and men of religious faith. They may be tempted to misuse government in order to impose a value which they cannot persuade others to accept. But once we succumb to that temptation, we step onto a slippery slope where everyone's freedom is at risk. Those who favor censorship should recall that one of the first books ever burned was the first English translation of the Bible…. Let us never forget: Today's Moral Majority could become tomorrow's persecuted minority.
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There must be standards for the exercise of such leadership, so that the obligations of belief will not be debased into an opportunity for mere political advantage. But to take a stand at all when a question is both properly public and truly moral is to stand in a long and honored tradition. Many of the great evangelists of the 1800s were in the forefront of the abolitionist movement. In our own time, the Reverend William Sloane Coffin challenged the morality of the war in Vietnam. Pope John XXIII renewed the Gospel's call to social justice. And Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was the greatest prophet of this century, awakened our nation and its conscience to the evil of racial segregation.
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President Kennedy, who said that "no religious body should seek to impose its will," also urged religious leaders to state their views and give their commitment when the public debate involved ethical issues. In drawing the line between imposed will and essential witness, we keep church and state separate, and at the same time we recognize that the City of God should speak to the civic duties of men and women.
He goes on to outline "four tests which draw that line and define that difference." Good stuff. My thoughts and prayers, and gratitude, are with Senator Kennedy and his family.
