Religion, Society and Public Policy Study 2006

An exchange trip organised by The Asia Foundation
Funded by the Freeman Foundation 
April 21 to May 7, 2006

Report by LOH FOON FONG, Malaysia.
(The ASEAN participants flew to the United States for the study trip while the Americans left for ASEAN countries during the same period.)

The Malaysian participants from left: Umran, the human rights activist, Shan, the lawyer, Khal, the academic and Foon Fong, the journalist.

New York: Separation of state and religion 
The First Amendment to the United States Federal Constitution requires that the Congress makes no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise of religion.

On the first day of the programme proper, Morris L. Davis, Asst Professor on History of Christianity at the Drew University in New Jersey explains over lunch at the Bronxville Episcopal Church that the separation of state and religion was introduced by the early founding fathers who wanted to turn away from the oppressive established church experience in Europe.

Davis points out that allowing the church to be the state’s established church would create a situation where no one is going to agree on which denomination or whose religion gets to the win the seat, and the struggle can lead to war and persecution. Besides the church’s pastor Daniel Gunn, other members of the Episcopal church members, United Nation’s Ombudsman James Lee and Judge Colleen McMahon were present during a dialogue on religion in America.

 The boundaries of religion in the public sphere is continuously being challenged and debated. Dr Ann Pellegrini, associate professor on Religious Studies and Performance Studies at the New York University says that many of the court cases on religion have been interpreted through the Protestant's perspective.

For instance, polygamy was banned in 1878 and the Mormons, who practise polygamous marriages, had to adhere to the law, however, when the Amish community sued the government for imposing their families to send their children to school until age 16, the former won the case. The Amish families had wanted their children to come out of school after Grade 8 for they have a long tradition of religious practice on working in the farm.

The other issue that is still being questioned, says Pellegrini, is: “What does democracy mean? Does it mean that the majority rules or that it has space for everyone, including the minority groups?”

She says among other issues that could link to religious beliefs and are constantly being debated include evolution versus intelligent design in school education, sex education and health policy.

R. Gustav Niebuhr, associate professor in Religion and the Media from the Syracuse University points out an interesting facet of America’s religious life. Quoting from the Gallup Poll, he says 95% of Americans believe in God or a higher being and this is unlike Europe, Australia and Canada where most people do not believe in God anymore. He says from the studies, 80% of America said that their belief in God was very important and 40% attend religious gatherings.

Gallup started asking these questions in 1939 and the statistics today have not changed much, says Niebuhr. The paradox is that since religion is voluntary compared to Europe, people seem to be more fervent and sincere in their faith, hence the vibrant religious life of the Americans. In the US, 50% of Americans are Protestants while another 25% are Roman Catholics. The Jews, Mormons, Hindus, Buddhists and atheists make up the other 25%.

Niebuhr says that in 1620, when the Protestants landed in Massachusetts, there was a creation of legally uniformed governing believers. There were no one dominant group from the eastern sea band that landed in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. There were different denominations of Protestants as well as Roman Catholics.

James Madison 1784-86 engaged in a landmark debate in Virginia about whether tax payers’ money should be used to hire and pay teachers to teach Christianity. Madison said religion is beyond the law and difficult to legislate. Moreover, he pointed out that the Congress cannot establish a religion. However, the state did not disassociate itself from religion until later.

In 1791 when the US achieved independence, there were not many churches then but there was a Revival from 1800-1860. In various period of history, there were people who were very adept at keeping the religious vitality. For instance, there was Chas Finney, an attorney who persuaded and preached daily from his office, Billy Sunday, a baseball player who used the language of baseball to win the people to Christianity and in the last century Billy Graham, an evangelist.

From Niebuhr's perspective, people used religion to change society. Slavery, child labour, women’s rights and alcohol abuse have been fought through the Protestant’s moral conviction. Rauschenbusch introduced the “social gospel.” He believed that the gospel should not change only individuals but society. This has an enormous impact on Martin Luther King, Jr. whose father promoted social gospel. King led the African Americans in the civil rights movement from 1955-65.

The struggle for respect and the place of religion in the public place is the most important issue in the US’ religious life, says Niebuhr. In 1962, they banned prayer in school.

“When a mayor introduces a certain religion or establishes a certain religious practice, that is constantly being worked out in the Courts,” he says.

On the discussion of the controversy over the Danish cartoons, he says all the editors in the US decided not to use the cartoons except for one. While the Europeans defended their stand based on freedom of expressions, Niebuhr feels the question should be: “Does having the right to do something should mean one should do it?”


Interfaith initiatives
The meeting with Rabbi Laurence A. Sebert from the Town and Village Sygnagogue was a fascinating experience. He told us about Judaism, read/sang to us the Torah in Hebrew.

Rabbi Sebert showing us the Torah in the Town and Village Sygnagogue in New York.

What was most encouraging was, when asked if there was any point in time that the conflict between the Jews and the Muslims in Middle East has any carried-over effect for them in the US, he said, “No.” In fact, after the Sept 11 bombing occurred, he went to the Imam of the mosque near him, and the Christians, and they got together to mourn and pray, each in their own ways. They also had dialogues to forge better understanding of each other.

At the Russ & Daughters Appetizers kosher food store in New York.

Another interfaith initiative was the “Seeds of Peace” – where Jewish, Muslim and Christian youths go to camp together. 

The Interfaith Centre in New York experimented with several approaches to interfaith initiatives. The liberals are liberal in theology and politically and started to invite the Conservatives but they are not interested because they do not find the need to learn about other religions, says Raffaele Timarchi, Program Manager of the Interfaith Center of New York. However, when they began to focus on social work, the different religious groups were more willing to work together.

Side note: A discussion was also held with Asian American staff workers who briefed us on the bad working conditions of immigrant workers especially the undocumented ones. The churches were helping out with their needs.


Atlanta: African American civil rights movement
The tour to the Martin Luther King’s Center in Atlanta revealed King’s vision and peaceful methods of protest.

At the Ebenezer Baptist Church where Martin Luther King Jr used to preach.

Dr Drew Smith, director of the Public Influences of African-American Churches Project at Morehouse College in Atlanta, explains to us the role of the African American churches in leading the civil rights movement.

The civil rights movement started in the 1900s and peak in the 1950s, he says. Most protests took place in the south eastern part of the US, especially Montgomery, where King held peaceful demonstrations.

The best progress seems to be not insisting on the rights of the African Americans but to start with meeting their social and educational needs. It is basically to start where one is and not to dream too far off goals, says Drew.

Interestingly, the support from the churches for the civil rights movement were only 10% while most were more interested in evangelising rather than be involved in social activism.
Nevertheless, those involved were a main force in the struggle (there were other social organisations involved too), says Drew.

Before 1960s, policy that rolled out addressed discrimination that had existed for centuries. The number of lobbyists in the 1960s increased tremendously and by mid-70s, the US saw social lobbying moving to the governmental level.

The struggle of the African-Americans led to new claims of demands from other Asian ethnic groups. The Latino community (14%) which is larger than the African Americans (13%) have not been able to function like the African-Americans who have officials in at the governmental level, hence, they go to the streets.

Health and social welfare issues are still the main policy concern for African Americans. The African American women draw a distinction between them and the white American women and call themselves Womanists and not Feminists because they perceive that in the latter, the males were demonised.

African American Muslims
The visit to the Atlanta Masjid of Al Islam in Atlanta was another highlight. The believers shift through Islam and were careful in not adopting the cultural elements from other countries and this requires a lot of critical thinking, says Imam Plemon El-Amin, a native of Atlanta and Harvard graduate who converted to Islam in 1974 at age 24.

Lunch at the Atlanta Masjid of Al Islam

  
The challenges faced, he says, are the ignorance about Islam. Most of the time, Islam is portrayed through the lense of the Middle East. He says that America is the best place to practice Islam because of the freedom of religion provided for by law.

It is interesting to note that the Imam akin the issue of apostasy to the laws on traitors - the apostasy referred to in the Quran was those who turn in the midst of battle and hypocritically went to the other side to defeat the Muslims.

For the ordinary people who want to come out of Islam, he says, they are free to do that because the Quran says that there is no compulsion in religion. This interpretation is totally different from many Malaysian Muslims who believe in death punishment for apostasy.

Most of the Muslims in the US are African Americans. When a question was posed on why it was so, Plemon says that when the Africans were taken away as slaves in West Africa, their Islamic religion was also taken from them. The slave masters were white Christians and they see it as the religion of the oppressor. They were forced to convert to Christianity but now they decided to return to their original religion.

Asked about their view on setting up an Islamic state, Yusef Burke, Council on American Islamic Relations in Atlanta says it is not possible to set up an Islamic nation. “It was a beautiful system but I don’t believe that it will exist again. It is impossible in a pluralistic society. It may work in a small country.”


Iowa: Federal funding for religious groups
The meeting on federal funding for faith based social service programme at the Governor’s office revealed that those with religious background volunteered the most in social work and gave the most money to charity.

While religious bodies are not taxed, the US does not provide financial support to religious organisations for spreading their religious faith. The non-faith organisation have to file tax information but religious organisations, such as the churches, do not have to.

If mega churches supply social services to everyone, and are more concerned with helping people rather than converting them, they can get government funds, says Stanley (full name not available). This support was introduced by President Bill Clinton.

Richard (full name not available) says for substance abuse, faith-based treatment has been the most successful. There is also high demand for faith-based prison rehabilitation programme. However, the challenge is: should those who have committed severe crimes be given opportunity to be rehabilitated in communities and for sex offenders, should they give notices to their neighbours about their offences?

On the issue of funds, most volunteer work are considered “private” but since money is contributed by members of the public, hence, NGOs have to be transparent, he says.

The problem in the US is if money is not given to faith based organisations, very few groups would give social services. Actually, receivers of funds are also skeptical about receiving government funding because of a possible government control.

The session with Iowa Commission on Volunteer Service on how the state-wide vision for national and community service initiatives are integrated into state-wide program and debate surrounding the notion of using public funds to support religious organisations were not presented.

Hispanic outreach
Kirk Martin, coordinator of the Hispanic Community Outreach Program from the Catholic Charities Diocese of Des Moines says the churches are speaking up for the immigrants. As many Iowa people are ageing and the young moving out, immigrants are moving in. Around 60-70% of Hispanics are from Mexico, while others are from Latin America.

For undocumented workers, people get injured and are not compensated and they cannot complain because they do not have documents. Many undocumented workers came because of their families. The church feels that using military force to keep people out is not a humane way.

Children of immigrants can enrol in schools but not eligible for food stamps and medical emergencies.

Side note: On an overnight homestay programme over a weekend, participants are linked up to hosts with faiths similar to theirs for participatory purposes or they could choose just homestay and interact with hosts in relation to the topic of this study trip. I homestayed with Denise and attended a church service at the Lutheran Hope. She considers herself a conservative Christian but says she does not support Bush’s foreign policies, contrary to media stereotype reports. She says the Christians in the US are very diverse in their thinking and could not be categorised rigidly as often portrayed by the media.

Awww... just when I thought I managed to capture a perfect pix of us.... On the way to Kalona City, Iowa, with the ASEAN participants.

When meeting a representative from the Amana community (they are a bit similar to the Amish community), the writer had asked why the communal living and allocation of jobs and resources could work in their community while the communist system had failed, the rep said it was due to their faith in God. (The Amish and Amana communities are a rare group of Christians in the United States who have  shunned modernisation, unless they are necessary.)

The visit to a Japanese Buddhist church showed how immigrants assimilated by adopting some Christian exterior practices such as calling their priest “Reverend,” and building a temple like a church with church pews but with idols in the front of the temple.


San Francisco: Conclusion

The American and ASEAN participants converging in The Asia Foundation office in San Francisco.

 Some of the points discussed relevant to the Asian group were:

•    Separation of state and religion seems to be a model that works well for a pluralistic society. There is also space for people to hold discussions to resolve issues without turning to violence. 

•    The debate on pluralism and interfaith efforts – does it mean coming together to learn of each other’s religion or coming together to address social structures and problems?

•    The philanthropy in America is unique and should be emulate. Why do people set up foundations? Based on religious conviction and to get tax exemptions.

•    The meaning of democracy should also be explored – is it determination of choices by the majority or that everyone, including the minorities also have a say?

The exchange trip was a fruitful one and it certainly enabled the Americans and the South East Asians see how pluralistic society operates in the two regions. The US experience showed how a pluralistic community could live together in peace and harmony while they have their rights protected.

The Golden Gate in San Francisco.

End of trip - at Julia's house in SF.