Gunn, T. Jeremy

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But this is Our Country: Religion, Identity, and the Culture Wars

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University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Genderand ClassVolume 6 | Issue 1 Article 2But this is Our Country: Religion, Identity, and theCulture WarsT. Jeremy GunnFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/rrgcPart of the Religion CommonsThis Conference is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UM Carey Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in University ofMaryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UM Carey Law. For moreinformation, please contact smccarty@law.umaryland.edu.Recommended CitationT. J. Gunn, But this is Our Country: Religion, Identity, and the Culture Wars, 6 U. Md. L.J. Race Relig. Gender & Class 1 (2006).Available at: http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/rrgc/vol6/iss1/2BUT THIS IS OUR COUNTRY:RELIGION, IDENTITY, AND THE CULTURE WARS*T. JEREMY GUNN**"0 wad some Power the giftie gie usTo see oursels as ithers see us!"- Robert Burns, Ode to a LouseI. "OUR" COUNTRYSeveral years ago, I was sent by the U.S. State Department toCentral Asia to meet with government officials in order to assistreligious minorities, including some Evangelical Christians, who weresuffering from discrimination by governments as well as social groups.On my return flight, I was seated next to an American woman whoboarded the plane at Frankfurt, Germany. In a very outgoing way sheintroduced herself by saying that she was an Evangelical Christianfrom Texas, the wife of an Army chaplain, and that she had been on aspeaking tour talking to the wives of other chaplains. She then askedme what kind of work I did. When I told her that I was involved inpromoting religious freedom internationally, and that I was returningfrom Central Asia, I naively hoped that she might approve. But I wasmistaken. Referring to the United States, she said, "but we don't havereligious freedom here," as if to reproach me for focusing my effortsabroad when there were far more compelling problems at home.Beliefs such as "we don't have religious freedom here," or that"Christians are persecuted in the United States" are strongly held by asignificant slice of the American population. One organization,coincidentally from Texas, sponsors conferences about the "war onChristians" in America. Knowing this, and against my betterjudgment, I asked my traveling companion what compelling example* Dr. T. Jeremy Gunn was the keynote speaker at the University of Maryland LawJournal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class symposium entitled God's Law in the People'sLaw: A Discussion of Contemporary Issues Arising from Religion and the Law. These are hisremarks.** Ph.D., Harvard University; J.D., Boston University. Dr. Gunn is the Director of theACLU's Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, a Senior Fellow for Religion andHuman Rights at Emory University School of Law, and a member of the Council of Expertson Freedom of Religion or Belief of the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rightsof the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.2 U. MD. L.J. RACE, RELIGION, GENDER & CLASSshe might have of a lack of religious freedom in America. Sheimmediately replied, with the air of triumph in giving me a proof-text,that "the Supreme Court has prohibited us from praying before footballgames." She was obviously referring to the Santa Fe v. Doe decision,which held that school-sponsored prayers before football games atpublic schools are unconstitutional.'Of course, in Texas, it is high school football that is the truereligion. If my sources are correct, my traveling companion shouldhave had no fear that her religious freedom was endangered. EveryFriday night in Texas, while high school football rivals are preparingto crush their opponents on the gridiron, God's blessing continues tobe solemnly invoked (Supreme Court be damned).But rather than arguing facts or scripture with my pleasantthough insistent fellow passenger, and with no unwarranted optimism,I suggested to her what I hoped would be a meaningful response to herbelief that true religious freedom mandates school-sponsored prayers.I suggested to her that outside the United States, EvangelicalChristians do not want governments or public schools to promoteprayers at schools. If Kazakhstan were to promote prayers at schools,Evangelical Christians would be pressured to prostrate themselves inthe direction of Mecca. In Poland they would be pressured to crossthemselves and pray for the Holy Spirit to lead the Holy Father. Suchgovernment-sponsored school prayers would obviously ostracize anychild who resisted conforming to the dominant belief in thecommunity.In an ideal world, my interlocutor would have had a moment ofquiet reflection followed by an epiphany. She would have said: "Youknow, I never thought of it that way. I would not want my child to bepressured to offer prayers that differ from our beliefs and it is not rightthat other children should be pressured to pray in a way that I believeis right." This was not, of course, the answer that I received. Instead,she replied, "but this is OUR country."And therein lies the problem.When a religious community dominates in any given politicalsystem, it all-too-frequently-whether in Kazakhstan, Poland, or westTexas-wants the political system to promote its own particular1. Santa Fe Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290 (2000).2. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus advised "And when thou prayest, thou shalt notbe as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the comers ofthe streets, that they may be seen of men. ... But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thecloset, and when thou has shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret .. " Matthew6:5-6 (King James).[VOL. 6:1BUT THIS IS OUR COUNTRYreligious values that are spoken of expansively as being "our values."Wherever a religious community is in a minority, it typically has littledifficulty understanding principles of equality, non-interference, theunfairness of social pressure, and freedom of conscience. But when itis in a position of dominance, it is more likely to prefer "our religiousvalues," "our country," "our history," and "our traditions." Such usesof "our" do not in fact refer to "everyone," but to the beliefs of thedominant community. Using the word that suggests apparent unity-"our"-the practical consequence is to divide the predominant "us"against the disfavored "them."II. RELIGION AND LAW IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVEEvery country in the world regulates religion in an entirelydifferent way. While there are certainly different national approachesto other legal subjects, such as securities law, contract law, criminallaw, and even property law, the differences are relatively small andtypically reflect variations of relatively minor legal choices. Forexample, while the question of the exact moment at which a contract isformed in one country may be different from that of another, the corecontract principles will be recognizable across most cultures.However, when the legal issue pertains to religion, and particularlywhen the religious issue comes close to touching on the perceivednational identity, countries will seize on dramatically different issuesand debate their highly idiosyncratic concerns. There are dominantgroups of people in each country who, like my Evangelical Christianinterlocutor, will assert strong opinions about what the preeminentvalues should be in "our country." These differences will reflectdifferent notions of national identity that will not only provide forcontrasts between countries, but also heighten divisions withincountries.The "religious" issue that perhaps most divides the Japanesepeople, for example, involves the permissibility of governmentofficials, particularly the Prime Minister, visiting the Yasukuni Jinja(Yasukuni Shrine) in Tokyo. The Yasukuni Shrine is a multi-acreShinto memorial located near the Imperial Palace in Tokyo that honorsthose Japanese soldiers who died in service of the Emperor,particularly during the Second World War. Its symbolic importancefor the Japanese might be said to compare roughly to ArlingtonNational Cemetery in the United States.2006]4 U. MD. L.J. RACE,.RELIGION, GENDER & CLASSAlthough Yasukuni is a war memorial and not a cemetery, thenames of the deceased "spirits" of the war dead are "enshrined" onhandwritten scrolls and their spirits are respected through "ancestorworship." The military museum housed on Yasukuni grounds tells itsversion of the Second World War, where Japan was repeatedlythreatened by Korea, China, and ultimately by the United States. Thebombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, according the Yasukuni militarymuseum, was not an unprovoked aggressive attack by an expansionistmilitary power in the Pacific, but was a justifiable and purelydefensive response by the peace-loving Japanese people againstunwarranted American aggression. -Japanese soldiers were notinvolved in barbarities in Korea and China, but were bravely givingtheir lives to maintain the peace against violent terrorists.The Japanese Constitution provides for a separation of religionand the state. For those who support the Yasukuni Shrine there isnothing unconstitutional about official state visits. A frequentargument is that the Yasukuni Shrine is not "religious"; rather it is aneutral monument that honors the brave soldiers who gave their livesfor their country and their Emperor and that it commemorates simplywhat it means to be "Japanese" (Nihonjiron). But many of those whobelieve that the visits violate the Constitution argue that Yasukunisymbolizes the official "State Shinto" religion of "Emperor worship,"and that such worship was in part responsible for one of the darkestperiods in Japanese history, where its armies and aggressive conquestsin Manchuria and Korea led to horrendous war crimes. It does notsimply commemorate sacrifice, but it is a place inhabited by the"spirits" of the deceased soldiers. Moreover, famous war criminals arethemselves enshrined at Yasukuni, and official visits not only violatethe Constitution, but are shameful reminders of past misdeeds. Whena Prime Minister visits the shrine, the pages of Japanese newspaperstypically are filled with arguments by constitutional lawyers andpolitical leaders about whether the Constitution has been violated.(The newspapers in both of the Chinas as well as both of the Koreas donot debate the issue; they unequivocally condemn the visits.)The propriety of a Prime Minister's visit to Yasukuni promptsa vociferous debate about what it means to be Japanese. From adistance, the conflict over the Yasukuni Shrine easily appears to beless a debate about the legal interpretation of words in the JapaneseConstitution and more about a conflict over what it means to beJapanese and which parts of history are to be admired or reviled. For[VOL. 6:1BUT THIS IS OUR COUNTRYmany, Yasukuni is a memorial that merely commemorates "ourcountry."Remember the Evangelical Christian woman who believed thatreligious freedom demands prayers before American public schoolevents because this is "our country." I suspect that if she, as anAmerican, were to visit the Yasukuni Shrine and examine the militarymuseum on its grounds, she would not think that its sponsors wereneutrally portraying what in their minds was "our country," but thatthey were advancing a particular interpretation of Japanese history thatwas both militaristic and nationalistic.While I was not able to transport magically my fellow-passenger to the Yasukuni Shrine (I did think wistfully of WoodyAllen's ability to make the real Marshall McLuhan appear at just theright moment in Annie Hall), I later had an interesting encounter witha Japanese national in Tokyo who also was an Evangelical Christian.Following my discussion with him about Japanese law and culture, heasked me a question about something that he said had always troubledhim about religion and the Constitution in the United States. Whatsingle question might you think would trouble a Japanese EvangelicalChristian about religion and the Constitution in the United States? Hisquestion was, "why does the president-elect place his hand on theBible when taking the oath of office?" For him, this was a significantinconsistency in America's supposed principles. Though he did notsay so explicitly, I understood him to be suggesting that, from hisperspective, he would not want a Japanese Prime Minister to take anoath of office with a hand placed on Shinto texts such as the Nihongior the Kojiki. While the majority of Japanese might see such a gestureas an entirely fitting tribute to "our country," it would not have beenneutral from the point of view of a Japanese Evangelical Christian.III. AMERICA'S CULTURAL WAR OVER RELIGIONLet us consider further this issue that troubled my EvangelicalChristian interlocutor from Japan: the propriety of the president of theUnited States taking the oath of office with his hand placed on theBible. Suppose that some civil liberties group-I will not mention anynames here--decided to file suit to enjoin the oath-taking practice thatis not prescribed in the Constitution but that has become a traditionsince it was first introduced by George Washington. What do weimagine the Japanese Christian's co-religionists in America might say2006]6 U. MD. L.J. RACE, RELIGION, GENDER & CLASSin response to such a suit being filed? Would they be troubled, as washe, by the propriety of a politician undertaking an ostensibly religiousact in support of his unequivocal political agenda (with all of thepotential hypocrisy and cynicism that this might entail)? Or wouldthey more likely think of it as yet one more example of secularhumanists attempting to drive religion out of the public square anddenying America's religious heritage? It is not difficult to imagine theresponses to such rhetorical questions.We are undergoing what is increasingly referred to in Americaas a "culture war." (The term came into widespread use in the early1990s, perhaps not coincidentally with the collapse of the formerSoviet Union.) During culture wars, battles are fought over symbolsthat are often mistaken for substance. The vocabulary that is usedevokes battles, struggles, enemies, and survival. Opponents arevilified, caricatured, distorted, and impugned. In a culture war, one isless concerned with historical accuracy and more concerned with usinghistory to advance the national or ideological agenda. In an actualwar, most do not think of it as wrong to lie to or about an enemy.In the midst of a culture war we lose our perspective on whatought to be our underlying values and fall back on simplistic notions,both of our national identity and of our opponents. Culture wars mayactually be less about struggles over culture-or over religion-andmore about struggles over the displays of symbols for politicalpurposes and for insisting on an exclusivist interpretation of thosesymbols. When we (or the Japanese or the Russians or the French) say"but this is OUR country," we ought to carefully weigh ourfundamental values rather than noisily trumpet our symbols.[VOL. 6:1

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