2 COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY JIM BURTNETT/ILLUSTRATION BY VIC TAYLOR September/October, 1981

audience. Their laughter seems to be in the Cantonese dialect. His Being the story of my visit to performance over, he goes to his room, strips off his makeup, and the Maryland Censorship Board slips into something more comfortable. In Occidental films it is usually the female who does that, and even preachers know what the and of lessons of love on a code communicates. I "gird my loins"—the King James Version of facing up to responsibility—and vow that, come Hades or high tide, park bench. I will do my duty as visiting professor of censorship. Quickly, the plot thickens. The clown, clad now in baggy andy is dandy, but sex won't rot your teeth." trousers and T-shirt, slicks back his hair, dabs on after-shave lotion, 14,0 I saw the sign in the projectionist's booth of the Maryland and enters a bedroom. He tiptoes to a bed. On it is a recumbent Board of Censors. Past tense. After 65 years of protecting the female, covered, it appears, with only a sheet. He reaches for the morals of Marylanders, the board expired on June 30 when the state sheet, and visions of X-rated sugarplums dance in my head. senate refused to renew its mandate. "That's his mother," a disembodied voice informs me from I wondered whether the sign was the projectionist's silent protest behind a desk lamp. "She died just before you came in. The clown against the decisions made by the censors outside his booth. In any had tried to earn money to save her life. She had great hopes for her case, Candy of one type wasn't dandy to the board; they refused son and taught him always to be a good boy and remember his their Seal of Approval to the Erotic Adventures of Candy and Candy responsibility to society." Goes to Hollywood, among other films. So much for visions of X-rated sugarplums. Still, Maryland moviegoers hardly languished for lack of sexual Having renewed his vows to his mother, the clown goes for a themes under the board's stewardship. During their last year of walk. He sits on a park bench beside a lithesome lass with almond work, the board licensed more than 500 films, including such eyes and complexion. He speaks to her. She speaks to him. We nonclassics as Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, Charlie and the learn she is blind. He tells her of his mother's death, but, in the best Hooker, Dance of the Drunk Mantis, Emmanuelle in Tokyo, The circus tradition, informs her that the show must go on. "Some say Furious Monk From Shao-lin, Gas Pump Girls, Intimate Confes- life is like a mirror," he philosophizes. "You smile, get smile back. sions of a Chinese Courtesan, Itchy Fingers, Naughty Girls on the Not true." Loose, Unidentified Flying Odd Ball, and Yum Yum Girls. "He even drops tears," the subtitle informs us. During the same period, however, scores of full-length We learn that the young woman is trying to earn money for an pornographic films shown in the District of Columbia weren't even operation to restore her eyesight. "Her optic nerve is out of work," submitted to the Board of Censors for showing in Maryland, and we are told. She fumbles in her purse and pulls out a wad of paper fourteen hundred peep shows were removed from the market. money worthy of Daddy Warbucks. "Will you count my money for Though LIBERTY is a magazine for adults (lacking, however, the me?" she asks her new acquaintance. He does, and tells her she is hedonistic philosophy generally communicated under that cate- still ten thousand Chinese dollars short. He returns the money. (I'm gory, and having center spreads that reveal nothing more than the thankful she didn't pull that stunt on a park bench in Washington. shape of church-state affairs), I'd just as soon eschew the imagery D. C . !) many banned titles convey. As the clown gazes soulfully at her, another caption rhapsodizes, Humanity does have more than teeth to rot. "She butiful." Yes, butiful. Suddenly I realize where functional On a rainy June day I sat with the board in one of its last sessions, illiterates go when they are gratuitously graduated after flunking to view The Clown, a Chinese film with subtitles and subtleties their ABCs; they get work writing grammatical pornography for equally incomprehensible to the Occidental mind. Little did I expect Chinese film subtitles. that it would contain one of the hottest love scenes to be seen on any Now comes the big sex scene, right there on the park bench. I can screen this year, a variation on the celebrated oscillating-fingers hear deep breathing behind me. The censors are on heavy duty. I'm ploy. And certainly no editor, whatever his views on censorship, hardly able to breathe at all. The clown's lips approach the girl's would have passed some of the captions. ear, stopping a mere half-meter away. "I will earn the money for [NOTICE: The following film review may offend some readers. you," he murmurs. "The poor should have feeling for the poor." In the spirit of full disclosure, I recommend it only for mature We see a close-up of his eyes. They look like a cross between Eddie readers. Even Nicholas von Hoffman rated it R, and Art Buchwald Cantor's when he talked about Ida, and Al Jolson's when he sang refused to read it at all.] "Mammy." (Younger readers may think in terms of John Travolta The Maryland Censorship Board meets at One South Calvert and Robert Redford.) Street in offices that appear to have been rejected for viewing by the The camera moves discreetly to her shapely hand. Gently she Baltimore Board of Janitors. Just after 11:00 A.M. I slipped into the places it on his. Minds desensitized by Flyntlike porno can easily darkened theater on the eighth floor. Thanks to a Baltimore miss the delicate charm of Oriental erotica. His fingers—watch his policeman bent on censoring violations of the city's bluenose fingers. Like a blade of grass caressed by a spring breeze, they begin driving code, with whom I had carried on a polite but unintellectual to quiver. A gentle G-rated quiver. Tension builds as the quiver conversation, I was late. graduates to a PG-rated twitch, and the twitch, in turn, to a At the back, on a platform just below the projection booth, three full-blown R-rated oscillation that carries its own sonic boing. We gray metal desks stood end to end. Behind them, in high-back are well into the next scene before I am rational enough to recognize swivel chairs, sat the three reigning matriarchs of the Censorship that I have been subjected to the centuries-old Chinese oscillating- Board. At the moment they appeared to be simply three amorphous finger ploy. First Amendment or no First Amendment, I understand presences, peering (I assumed) over hooded desk lamps and why a Censorship Board is needed in Maryland, indeed, why one formidable tablets of legal-sized yellow paper. I groped my way to a should be mandatory in every state exhibiting Chinese films. To wooden chair just in front of them. For some incongruous reason the expose sex-satiated American youth to the erotica inherent in a setting reminded me of a midforties scene in the inquisitorial subtle finger movement would be unconscionable. Next they would chambers of a Big Town D.A. All the scene lacked were the curls of learn of the Chinese toe twitch, which no refined Mandarin will cigarette smoke from behind the lamps and a gravelly voiced even permit his children to see. And then, they would experiment presence reading me my First Amendment rights. with the Chinese Communist refinement of the Korean earlobe It is the clown who short-circuits my compulsion to place my one-allowed call to my attorney. In the Barnum tradition of lugubrious poignancy, he is cavorting before an appreciative Roland R. Hegstad is the editor of LIBERTY.

LIBERTY (ISSN 0024-20551 IS PUBLISHED BIMONTHLY AND COPYRIGHTED® 1981 BY THE REVIEW AND HERALD PUBLISHING ASSN., 6856 EASTERN AVE., NW, WASH., D.C. 20012. SECOND-CLASS POSTAGE PAID AT WASH.. D.C. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE 54.25 PER YEAR. PRICE MAY VARY WHERE NATIONAL CURRENCIES ARE DIFFERENT. VOL. 76. Na 5. SEP..00T.. 1981. POSTMASTER: SEND FORM 3579 TO SAME ADDRESS.

3 LIBERTY

wiggle or the Vietnamese eyebrow hitch—which, in its most Instead of prosecuting violations under the Maryland State Board virulent strain, decimated whole battalions of American fighting of Censors Film Licensing Statute at $100 each, the state now will men. have to act under the Maryland State Obscenity Statute, which Duty calls me back to the screen. The clown hires out as a process requires hearings, pretrial hearings, motions, and even sparring partner to earn money for the operation. He earns $50 Hong years of litigation. Either Marylanders will be putting out millions Kong dollars for each punch he can absorb as the partner for a of dollars a year to keep out obscene films, or there will be no ponderous but hard-swinging heavyweight. Thwack! Thump! prosecutions, they say. They estimate the cost of the average Crump! Smash! Crunch! Our hero yo-yo's, ketchup spewing from process at $10,000. If the court levied even moderate fines for his mouth, eyes swelling to slits, face puffing into grotesqueness. violations of the Licensing Statute, they assure me, the state would But each time he goes down, a vision of loveliness impels him to recover around $350,000 a year. arise. The subtitle reminds us, "The poor should have feeling for Board members do not appear to be overpaid at $4,500 a year. the poor." Do they just like movies? "It wasn't easy working here," sighs The clown, now so battered he could act his part without Mary, perhaps inadvertently already using the past tense. "The make-up, takes a job mourning at funerals. As in other jobs, skill young—it was something for the young. What did we offer brings reward; according to Mourners' Union rules, crying without them . . ." tears is worth $200; with tears, $500. A faint brings $1,000. He sobs So the board's demise will cost money. But what about First freely—but at the wrong funeral; at the right one he sobs with tears Amendment rights? Will not due process return something worth for the "dear departed mother." Alas, it is the father who has died. more than money? At last comes the Great Day of Recounting. Enough money is in Says Martha: "In 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that hand. The "butiful" girl has her operation. The clown buys a suit, obscenity is not legally speech, is therefore unprotected by the First which, thanks to an opportunistic tailor, advertises his profession Amendment, and may be prosecuted. Since that decision (Miller v. even off stage. "I'm not good-looking," he tells his love as her California) the board has not examined films to determine whether bandages are unwrapped. "You're the best guy of the world," she they debase or corrupt morals, or even incite crime. We have sought reassures him, "the first one I want to see." only to determine whether a film is obscene under the Maryland A caption breaks the news: Her optic nerve is still out of work. State Obscenity Statute; that is, whether it caters to prurient "I'll work again," the clown promises. "You can [sic] give up. interests, contains patently offensive representations of ultimate sex You'll see again!" acts, normal and perverted, actual or simulated, which, taken as a A few days later, not wanting to be the object of his pity, the girl whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." leaves the city. The clown finds her note and runs to the train station, At times, says Martha, the board has invited the Attorney arriving as the train is pulling out. Desperately, he chases after it, General's office to send someone to view a film with them—as, for outpuffing the engine, but to no avail. example, when viewing Emmanuelle Around the World, which Months later, he is in his clown suit entertaining children in a contains hardcore scenes. playground when we see her walking toward him. Can she see? Will Emmanuelle made the world, but not Maryland. they marry and live happily ever after? Will Maryland moviegoers What are the best movies the board has seen? Their list could have opportunity to learn the answers? come right out of the Academy Award nominations: Kramer vs. "How do you decide what to license for showing in Maryland?" Kramer, Ordinary People, Coal Miner's Daughter, Superman, I ask Mary Avara, board secretary and twenty-one-year veteran of Beginning of Wisdom, and, interjects Mary, "one that had Sally Censorship Shoals. A grandmotherly type who admits to being just Fields in it, when she fought for the unions in the cotton fields." north of 70 and a charismatic Catholic, she assures me that neither No one can remember the title. she nor her fellow board members evaluate films by a personal What are the worst movies they've seen? subjective moral standard. "We cannot censor language, violence, Virtually all the peep shows. "One filled with bestiality was so crime, sacrilege, use of drugs, or nudity. We can determine only bad it didn't even have a title," says Martha, "just a number." whether the film is obscene as defined by the Maryland State But among the full-length movies? Obscenity Statute. Mary Avara is emphatic: "Wanda, the Wicked Warden. She "We can't be prudes," she adds. "I'm from a family of 18 stuck pins in a girl and laid on her in a lesbian scene." children. It dawned on me early that Father didn't just play Martha shudders as she recalls Zombies, with cannibals eating tiddlywinks in his off hours." people. Ash-blonde Martha Wright, vice-chairman of the board, is in her Mildred Joerdens nominates a made-in-Baltimore film, Multiple early 50s, but looks younger. She is in her second term on the board, Maniacs. It contained, she says, sex with a crucifix, lesbianism, and between assignments, I learn, became a born-again Christian. I cannibalism, and hardcore pornography. ask her whether her perspective is the same as during her All agree that Motel Hell was terrible, Mother's Day despicable, "unregenerate" first term. She confesses that some of the films she Dawn of the Dead cannibalistic, Used Cars filthy, Airport 1980 viewed then did, indeed, stimulate "carnal desires." "But no homosexual and cheap, Bloody Valentine an all-round bad film, and more," she insists. "I'm a different person now. And I refuse to let Prom Night violent and demonic. In one sequence a human head the scenes get into my mind." rolls down a ramp and seems to bounce right into your lap. Does she vote to license films she finds personally offensive? During the presentation of the 1981 Academy Awards, Fay "Emphatically, yes. We all do. And we all have walked out on Kanin, president of the Motion Picture Academy, said, "Struggles films at times. People are misled by the term 'Censorship Board.' of human beings to stay human, that's what films show. Movies will We suggested some time ago that the title be changed to Maryland help us preserve our humanity." Film Licensing Board of Review." From what I heard at the Censorship Board, dehumanization I turn to Mildred Joerdens, a five-year member of the board, and, seems a more likely result. again, a "somebody's mother" type. "Why are there no men on the Says Martha Wright, "If, as President Reagan has said, 'Films board?" I ask. are a picture of how we look and sound and how we feel,' the "Oh, there have been a number through the years," she replies. country's not far from a bloodbath in a king-sized sexpool." "One, Dr. Jerusa Wilson, is now chairman. He's out of the office On the way back to my car I walk through Baltimore's Block, today. And we have male inspectors. They visit theaters to be sure where sex shops advertise everything the matriarchs of censordom unlicensed films are not being shown, and that the board's Seal of have included on their "worst-movie" list—being shown, I Approval is displayed." assume, without the board's seal of approval. The women were emphatic that abolishing the board will cost And a clown walks beside me. I join him in dropping tears for the Marylanders where it hurts most—not in their consciences but in millions so dehumanized by pornography that they will never know dollars and cents. the joy of hand on hand and the awestruck wonder of innocence. ❑

4 September/October, 1981

-NM - THE PROTESTANT SEMINARY I WAS TO DESTROY WAS LO- TO PROVE I WAS ANTI-CATHOLIC I CAUSED UNREST AMONG THE STUDENTS BY GOING CATED IN COSTA RICA. IT WAS INTER-DENOMINATIONAL. I WOULD ARGUE. IN FRONT OF THE AGAINST THE STRICT RULES OF SEPARATING THE BOYS OTHER STUDENTS. WITH THE JESUIT PRIESTS FROM THE GIRLS. I WOULD HOLD HANDS WITH CARMEN. TWO BEAUTIFUL GIRLS WERE ASSIGNED TO WORK WITH WHO CAME TO THE BIBLE COLLEGE MEL ME. BOTH WERE FROM A CATHOLIC YOUTH ACTION GROUP POSING AS FUNDAMENTAL. EVANGELICAL. BORN-AGAIN WHAT'S HAPPENING TO THIS SCHOOL? BIBLE-BELIEVING CHRISTIANS

WELL. I NEVER, THE LADY TEACHERS OH yES IT WERE MISSIONARIES WAS ALL AN ACT! AND SINGLE. THEY WERE OUTRAGED REPORTED EVERYTHING ABOUT MARIE WAS ASSIGNED THAT SCHOOL TO THOSE PRIESTS CARMEN, WAS TO BE TO DESTROY PASTORS I SET UP A FEW HANDSOME CATHOLIC BOYS POSING AS MY GIRLFRIEND IN THE AND INTRODUCE SEX CHRISTIANS TO SEDUCE THE YOUNGER LADY TEACHERS. I BIBLE COLLEGE. IN TURN, THEY PASSED IT ON TO THE AMONG THE STUDENTS. HOLY OFFICE IN THE VATICAN. VISITED THE GIRLS' DORMITORY AFTER HOURS.

ONE NIGHT CARMEN AND I ALLOWED OURSELVES TO BE CAUGHT i DRESSED AS A SLOB, ALWAYS LATE.I STARTED FIGHTS MARIE HAD BEEN BUSY MANY OF THE 17 STUDENTS ON THE GROUNDS OF THE GIRLS DORMITORY. SHE WAS P4 HER WITH THE TEACHERS AND THEN ACCUSED THEM OF NOT SHE SEDUCED HAD BEEN EXPELLED. NOW WAS THE TIME TO NIGHTGOWN. HAVING CHRISTIAN LOVE. WORK ON THE PASTORS. ALL THE GIRLS ARE DOING THE SAME WHEN I SAW A HUGGY. KISSY CHRISTIAN CHURCH AND A THING WITH OTHER MALE STUDENTS. PASTOR WHO WOULD OFTEN TOUCH MARIE AND WATCH THE DISGUSTING' WAY SHE WALKED I WOULD TELL HER TO DESTROY HIM.

STOP PICK- OH, PASTOR ING ON ME! WHY .. I CAN'T STAY ARE YOU ALWAYS AWAY FROM 'PERSECUTING YOU. ME? YOU SOUND LIKE A PRIEST!

0 MY GOD . HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? mai 'tiAtfil' AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY, I CONVINCED THEM THAT THERE WERE MANY GOOD CHRISTIANS IN THE CATHOLIC INSTITU- IT CREATED A SCANDAL IN THE NEWSPAPERS. A JESUIT TION AND THAT THE CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WERE BEST PRIEST WROTE THE STORY. THE COLLEGE WAS SHAKEN . . BECAUSE OF DISCIPLINE. NO COVER-UPS . . NEVER A IT WAS BRANDED AS A PLACE OF CORRUPTION. SCANDAL!

TO HASSLE The Selling of

ALBERTOBy Betty Gibson

released Alberto, an exposé allegedly based aisles; and teen-agers congregate in a short Could this controversial on the story of Alberto Rivera, a Jesuit- hall dominated by the space-age whine comic book be hazardous trained Spanish priest. Alberto says he of electronic pinball and the smell of infiltrated and destroyed Protestant pizza. to Christian bookstores? churches until his conversion to Christ in the Upstairs, in a space so small that four mid-sixties. At that point he did an about- shoppers at a time would be a crowd, the he bottom of an advertisement for face, making it his mission to expose the Bible Book Shoppe displays Christian TCrusaders comic books carries the villainy of the Catholic Church and to win literature. Along with the books are circular warning: "Caution: This set of books could "lost" Roman Catholics to Christ. racks holding greeting cards and Chick's change your life." Alberto is being sold by evangelical Crusaders comic books. But Alberto is Christian booksellers are finding that the Christian bookstores across the United missing. comic books are changing their lives, States. One such store is the Bible Book The proprietor, who asked that his name though not in the way the publisher Shoppe, tucked away on the upper level of intended. Some would prefer a paraphrase the Valley Mall near Hagerstown, Mary- of the Surgeon General's warning—"Cau- land. Betty Gibson is a free-lance writer living in tion: It has been determined that selling On a weekend evening the mall has the Oxon Hill, Maryland. Her writing has these comic books may be hazardous to color and feel of small-town America. appeared in William Willoughby' s Religion your health." Older couples enjoy an evening out at the Today and in various arts publications. She Selling Crusaders comics became haz- Friendly Ice Cream Shop; barbershop quar- is also president of the Alexandria, Vir- ardous when Jack T. Chick, of Chino, tetters harmonize in red jackets and blue ginia, chapter of the National League of California, publisher of Crusaders comics, bow ties; parents push strollers through the American Penwomen.

A PAGE FROM ALBERTO 5 LIBERTY

not be used, is an affable, bespectacled man in his 40s with a firm handshake and even firmer convictions. He explains that when Alberto was published, he carried it for a month or two with no problem. His troubles began when he ran a newspaper ad for the comic that said that it was the "testimony of a Jesuit being born again." "We'd only been selling one or two copies (of the comic] in a weekend, — he said, "but on Friday and Saturday several people came in to protest what was in it. We'd see 'em walk in and they'd fuss, and they never even picked up a copy to look at it. We asked if they'd read it. They said No, they already knew what was in it. "By Monday, the mall manager had been saturated with phone calls. They called him day and night, protesting. It was some of the local priests and a number of Catholic people. They were threatening a boycott of the whole mall, all ninety to one hundred stores, if I didn't remove Alberto from our shelves. It's written in all the mall store leases that if we sell something that hurts the sales of other stores, our leases can be broken. These people knew that by putting pressure on the whole mall they could put pressure on one store in particular." Mall Manager Bill Bulla's recollection of the incident is somewhat different. "About the only thing that happened." he said, "was that I had calls from several ministers who were concerned about the type of material being sold in a 'so-called Christian' bookstore. To my knowledge no calls came from any Roman Catholic Upstairs in the Hagerstown, Maryland, Valley Mall, the tiny Bible Book Shoppe priests. One of the complaints came in from displays a range of Christian literature. But Alberto is missing. an individual who said he was the superin- tendent of a Sunday school. He was going to have all of his people boycott the mall $10,000 Offered for the because he didn't feel Alberto should be Alberto there, that it wasn't fit reading material for Proving of children and young people. "If people call up and tell me who they Our Sunday Visitor, a national weekly Roman Catholic newspaper, has offered $10,000 are," Bulla said, "I try to comply. But for the proof of any one of fourteen allegations about Catholics made in comic books when they won't give their names, I just published by Jack T. Chick. hang up. In this case, they gave a name like The Catholic League has asked the California attorney general to investigate Chick's Jones or Smith—probably phony. My only firm, based in Chino, California, on the basis that he has been involved in "a program of concern-was whether it was going to hurt the deceptive advertising" by promoting the comic as factual when he has failed to document mall." the allegations. Bulla says a compromise was reached Our Sunday Visitor found more anti-Catholic allegations in other comics published by when the bookstore owner "most gra- Chick. Editor Richard McMunn said Chick has dredged up anti-Catholic lies that have been ciously complied" with his request that he around a long time. "The sad thing is that Chick's lies are so hard to refute. They are so huge not display the material about which there and monstrous that Catholics can only respond that the charges are purely and simply had been complaints. false." The bookseller says that at this point he In an effort to "place the burden of proof where it belongs," Our Sunday Visitor is decided to follow the Scripture teaching offering $10,000 to anyone who can prove any of the charges made about Catholics in "So far as it lies with you, live at peace with Alberto. The newspaper will have the evidence evaluated by a jury of three people—one all men" (Romans 12:18, N.E.B.).* selected by Our Sunday Visitor, the second selected by the claimant, and the third to be "And so we put it under the counter," he agreed on by both parties. The charges include allegations that the Pope interferes with American politics, Catholics worship images and statues, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln was a Catholic *From The New English Bible. © The Delegates of the Oxford University Press and the Syndics of the plot, and Our Sunday Visitor is the American publishing arm of the Holy Office. Cambridge University Press 1961, 1970. Reprinted by permission.

6 PHOTOGRAPHS BY BETTY GIBSON September/October, 1981 says. "It was a difficult time for the stores in Alberto Exposed the mall, with some going under. To have had a boycott by a sizable portion of the as Fraud population could have really put some stores in financial hardship. When I sold the comic under the counter, the protesters never did press the idea of a boycott. The "Alberto is a true and actual account, and I will face a court of law to prove the events interesting thing was that the whole contro- actually took place," declared Alberto Rivera in a sworn statement a year ago. versy helped sales. People heard so much According to researcher Gary Metz in Christianity Today, Rivera may need to do just about Alberto that they wanted to see it for that. Here are listed a number of claims made in Alberto and its sequel, along themselves." Double Cross, with their discreditation resulting from Metz's investigation. Asked whether he would have backed down had the threatened boycott and revocation of his lease gone through, he replied, "No. I'd have let my lease be CLAIM REBUTTAL broken rather than back off totally. By 1. Rivera says he was raised and trained in No diocese in Spain has any record of nature I don't create issues, but I generally a Spanish Jesuit seminary, serving as a Rivera's ordination. "Official" church don't back down on them either. As it was. celibate Jesuit priest during the 1950s certification shown in Alberto was de- we went ahead with the understanding that I and 1960s. nounced by the Spanish archbishop's office would bend and not break." as a forgery. Rivera lived for a time in Costa Other Christian booksellers have met Rica with Carmen Lydia Torres; the couple similar objections to the selling of Alberto. had three children. Helen Stewart has run the Glad Tidings Christian Supply in Rockville, Maryland, for the past seven years and has carried 2. Rivera claims to have a Master's degree No documentation exists for any of the Crusaders comics for much of that time. in psychology and three separate Doc- degrees. Rivera never even graduated from Alberto was sold without incident until last tor's degrees. high school but was enrolled in a Costa February, when a local newspaper publi- Rican evangelical seminary, which expelled cized the comic book's anti-Catholic bias. him for "continual lying and defiance of Then, says Stewart, "I got a lot of flak. seminary authority." Rivera once admitted Some of it nasty, some very hateful. People that his degrees came from a "diploma came in person to complain. They said it mill" in Colorado. was terrible that I would do such a thing. How could I be a Christian? A few called 3. Rivera says he became disillusioned and In August, 1967, five months after his saying they were proud of me and encourag- began to expose the Catholic "ecumeni- conversion, Rivera gave a newspaper ing me to keep up the good work. But the cal plot" in 1967, causing his incarcera- interview promoting the Catholic Church, negative calls far outweighed those." tion by church officials in a Barcelona and claiming to have been doing ecumeni- Stewart decided to withdraw the comic sanitarium, where he was starved and cal work for them in Spain from February early in March, after reading an exposé of given shock treatments. Rivera pin- through August, 1967—when he was sup- Alberto in Christianity Today. (See accom- points his conversion to March 20, posed to have been held in the sanitarium. panying box.) "I had decided that I should 1967, soon after which he was mys- not carry anything that tears up the body of teriously released from the sanitarium. Christ," she says. Soon after, he defected from the church. In the past few months Chick's Alberto and a sequel entitled Double Cross have 4. Shortly after his conversion, Rivera flew received increasing media attention, most Rivera's sister was actually a maid working to London to rescue his dying sister from in a private London home, according to of it unflattering. A long article in the Los an English convent. Angeles Times called the comics, "lurid, Delmar Spurting, who supposedly helped Rivera rescue her. violent, virulently anti-Catholic." Christi- anity Today pronounced them "a fraud." Publisher Jack Chick denounces his 5. Rivera is a devoutly religious person Rivera has been sought by police for such critics as "determined to slander this work who hates corruption. criminal activities as bad-check writing, of God and destroy Alberto by using credit-card fraud, unauthorized automobile information supplied to them by the Vati- use, embezzlement, and fraudulent solicita- can. . . . They are carrying on the Vatican's tion of funds. desperate plan to stop the conversion of Roman Catholics." 6. Rivera is willing to go before a court of Rivera has three times failed to appear for a The question of Alberto Rivera's integ- law to defend his story. lie-detector test and has refused an open rity remains. But for Christian booksellers interview with Metz to clear up the discrep- there is another question. Can they continue ancies in his story. the peaceful pursuit of business if they choose to carry material offensive to some person or group? Or will the threat of harassment and boycott cause the Surgeon General to declare comic-book selling a Condensed from Christianity Today 1981. Used by permission. new health hazard? ❑

7 LIBERTY "Give Me the Liberty to Know... By Judith T. and William J. Parr

ive me the liberty to know, to utter, and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet Gto argue freely according to con- distinguish, and yet prefer that which is science, above all liberties," John Milton truly better, he is the true warfaring declared in his Areopagitica.* A tract Christian. addressed to England's Parliament in 1644, "I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered it urged that body to free the press from virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that restrictive licensing. never sallies out and sees her adversary, but From July 11,1637, by order of the Court slinks out of the race where that immortal of the Star Chamber, permission to publish garland [the crown of life; cf. James 1:12] is anything was subject to the judgments of to be run for, not without dust and heat." two archbishops, the Bishop of London, The race Milton writes about is not just an and the chancellors of Oxford and Cam- idle sport but a necessity. Milton believed bridge universities. The ultimate effect of that the original sin of Adam and Eve tainted this was that one man, Archbishop Laud, all mankind. He believed that people are for example, could forbid publication of any born with that impurity and that what book to which he objected. purifies people is the race, the strengthening That one man or a few men could have the of the racer's moral muscles by trials "power of determining what was true and successfully confronted, challenged, and what was false, what ought to be published overcome. and what to be suppressed" angered John Only by the exercise of freely reading Milton. The product of his indignation, freely published ideas, the good and the Areopagitica, is not simply a protest bad, could people build their stamina, their against a particular act of licensing virtue. Truth could best be confirmed not ut a testament to the importance when it was forced by licensing or any other of intellectual freedom for all means to avoid confrontation with error, but b people. when truth successfully prevailed against Milton believed that the power to sepa- error. In Milton's words, "Though all the rate truth from falsehood is vested in the winds of doctrine were let loose to play informed conscience of every person. He upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we urged people to acknowledge and obey "the do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, voice of reason from what quarter soever it to misdoubt her strength. Let her and be heard speaking." All opinions, he said, Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth "are of main service and assistance toward put to the worse, in a free and open the speedy attainment of what is truest." encounter?" Freedom of the press would allow the Milton considered licensing of the press publication of books that undoubtedly to be "the greatest discouragement and would be offensive to some people. To this affront that can be offered to learning and to Milton did not object. Rather, he quoted a learned men." Any regulations of the free verse from the New Testament: "Prove all enterprise of disseminating and collecting things; hold fast that which is good" ( I ideas was anathema to John Milton. "More Thessalonians 5:21). If there be evils or than if some enemy at sea should stop up all heresies, people can better defend them- our havens and ports and creeks, it [licens- selves against them and even aggressively ing] hinders and retards importation of our attack them if people know about them. richest Merchandise, Truth." ❑ Even "bad books . . . to a discreet and judicious reader serve in many respects to discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to * John Milton, Complete Poems and Major Prose, ed. illustrate." "A wise man, like a good by Merritt Y. Hughes (New York: The Odyssey Press, 1957). All quotations of John Milton used in the article refiner, can gather gold out of the drossiest are from this edition. volume, and . . . a fool will be a fool with the best book." Milton admired the person who Judith T. Parr has a doctorate in English could face the competition of hostile from Ohio State and has taught in several ideas and emerge victorious. "He universities. William Parr, M.B.A., is a that can apprehend and consider systems analyst at a large manufacturing vice with all her baits and company in the Midwest.

8 September/October, 1981

es New York, police arrest a clerk in rejected reenactment attempts in 1656, Directed first at blasphemy in plays, the F.1..La bookstore for handling porno- perhaps in part as a result of criticisms such law was broadened in 1650; thereafter it graphic material. In a Western town the as those John Milton had expressed in made use of informer's fees and graduated state prosecutes employees of a supermar- Areopagitica.4 penalty provisions.' A duke, marquis, earl, ket for selling groceries on Sunday. In A new type of taste statute prohibiting viscount, or baron was fined thirty shillings; Maryland a judge fines a man for using blasphemy began to appear during the a baronet or knight, twenty; an esquire, ten; profanity on Main Street. seventeenth century in England. At first the a gentleman, six shillings, eightpence; and To these incidents we could add others law was directed to "the preventing and all inferior persons, three shillings, four- involving wearing beards, allegedly inde- avoiding of the great abuse of the holy name pence. It was a graduated fine in another cent dress (or undress), censorship of films, of God in stage plays, interludes, May sense, in that fines were doubled from the and, in the political arena, restrictions on games, shows and such like," so that second offense to the ninth. The penalty was unpopular political activities and require- thereafter anyone acting in a play, pageant, also imposed on women; a wife or widow ments for loyalty oaths. paid according to the rank of her husband, The common denominator is that each while a single woman paid according to the issue stems from legislation based on taste rank of her father. If the offender was a child under twelve years of age, he was put in the

in moral and political beliefs. We call such stocks or publicly whipped in lieu of the laws taste statutes, and they are nothing fine. new. Take, for example, a couple of laws Every During this same period the prevalence of belonging to the time of Edward III, in tippling and drunkenness, even among fourteenth-century England. clergymen, brought about a statute that One regulated the number of courses an Man to provided that only travelers and, during Englishman could serve for dinner'—pos- their dinner hours only, artisans and sibly to create a larger source of funds that laborers, were permitted to drink in inns and the king could tap for his own purposes, His Own alehouses .6 including the conduct of wars. The other Like Edward III, James II undertook to provided that none but the high (and they regulate the playing of games and other were also the mighty) should wear fur. No Taste amusements, but not without making cer- man or woman in England, Ireland, Wales, tain exceptions that were objectionable to or Scotland except the king, the queen, their By Samuel D. Estep the Puritans. The Puritans gained revenge, children, and certain nobles and churchmen however; during the Puritan Revolution could wear any fur in or on his clothes. The they burned James's Declaration of Sports guilty forfeited the fur and received further or similar activity must not "jestingly or and destroyed all copies of it.' It was a token punishment "by the King's will." Z A profanely speak or use the name of God, protest: by this time most of the original quarter of a century later Edward III Jesus, Christ, the Holy Ghost or the sumptuary legislation had ceased to have encouraged archery, so vital to the defense Trinity." If he should do so, he must much effect. of England, by requiring regular contests in "forfeit ten pounds for every offence, the use of the bow, but he forbade handball, one-half to go to the King, the other half to football, cockfighting, and other games.' anyone who should sue in any court of "Every Man to His Own Taste" first In spite of the efforts of officials of the record at Westminster." Englishmen may appeared in the Michigan Law Review and king and the church, enforcement of such have seen some irony in the fact that the then in the March-April, 1969, issue of prohibitions was not effective. Parliament king, who received half the fine in each LIBERTY. Samuel D. Estep is a professor of repealed all apparel statutes in 1604 and case, swore obscenely. law at the University of Michigan.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY JEFFREY DEVER 9 LIBERTY

Taste statutes go back much earlier than who expected to have a wedding in his shortening of men's outer garments, which fourteenth-century England, however. His- house was required to go to the rathaus and at first had reached the ground, outraged the toiians have found austerity statutes enjoin- read the laws and then give his word that he sense of propriety of those in power. The ing the Spartan life in early Greek groups, and his wife would obey them. The law council tried to stop the length of these particularly regarding the Dorian races. protected informers against oppobrium, jackets at the point to which the arms Laconia allowed no drinking at entertain- incidentally. extended, but they were not able to stop the ments and tolerated no furniture that was Later a Nuremberg statute prohibited tide of fashion. They did insist, however, more elaborate than could be made with ax ladies from serenading on the streets as part that the mantle should cover the fly of the and saw.' Perhaps at the outset encourage- of wedding festivities because such trousers. The reason lay in the then current ment of a Spartan existence was essential activities did not "become a fashion that made flies of a color contrasting for survival, but these regulations became maiden and matronly with that of the breeches and had the flap taste statutes. stuffed and enlarged.'6 In considering how As early as 215 B.c. the Romans prohib- changing are tastes in clothes, it is worth ited women from possessing more than noting that men have unjustly accused one-half ounce of gold or wearing a dress of women of originating such anatomical different colors.9 Later they went even deceptions. further. In 187 B.C. laws controlled the

Sumptuary laws were common also in the great cities of Switzerland during the number of guests who could be entertained Middle Ages. Invariably they attempted to at one time, and in 161 s.c. it became illegal regulate profanity; in 1520 three men were to serve fowl when entertaining, except one modesty." Another regulation outlawed executed under ordinances enacted during hen, unfattened.'° Apparently these statutes new dances and prohibited the dancers from the Protestant Reformation." were not attempts merely to make good embracing each other. The fifteenth-cen- Equally prevalent were Sunday laws. soldiers or to save food. tury law read: One provided that on Sundays "no one may Throughout Europe, during the Middle "Since it has definitely come to the walk up and down on St. Peter's Platz, go Ages and later, taste statutes were very knowledge of the honourable council that into secret places to play cards, or commit common and extremely extensive in what many unwonted shameful immodest and other wanton acts." The city fathers were they covered. Nuremberg legally regulated novel dances are daily encouraged and sensitive to strong enough pressures, how- extravagance of dress, particularly of "chil- practiced, which is not only a sin and ever, and made exceptions for practice by dren during Holy Week," and prohibited without doubt displeasing to Almighty God, rifle shooters and users of the crossbow. The "peaks on the shoes." " A statute limited but also may produce much dishonourable council specified that the rifle shooters the number of guests at weddings to a lightmindedrtess and scandall besides, practice without noise and confusion and maximum of six men and six women; if among men and women, the same to not admit to their quarters persons who thirteen or more were present, each was prevent, our lords of the council earnestly came just for eating and drinking." liable to a fine of ten pounds haler, as was and strictly command, that henceforth no Many regulations of dress are found the hose' Perhaps the city fathers wanted player or minstrel shall pipe, play or cause throughout Europe during this period. only to stop week-long celebrations, which any but the customary dances which have Zurich once decreed that women of a certain meant the loss of productive capacity of all come down from old; also no one whoever it class might have silk borders on their participants, but surely a time limitation be, woman or man, shall dance the same, bodices, but no hooks or buckles. The would have served this purpose better. The and in dancing shall not take by the neck or penalty for breach of this ordinance was giving of wedding gifts was severely embrace one another." 's confiscation or sale "for the benefit of the limited, furthermore. To help in the One Nuremberg regulation, of all things, husband's business necessities." The fact enforcement of such provisions, the person dealt with men's clothes! The gradual that the limitation on belts did not apply to

10 September/October, 1981 members of "aristocratic gilds" or to "public prostitutes" demonstrates the incongruities of taste.' In France, Philip IV regulated both the table and the dress of his people, and The Compelling Power Charles V forbade long-pointed shoes.' Some chiropodists say that such a ban today of Love By F. would lessen the discomfort and improve the disposition of people, but the suffrage guaranteed by the Nineteenth Amendment here is a compelling power in the gospel of the Lord surely precludes such interference! Jesus Christ, but it is a power with love as the im- Historical studies of the medieval period in Europe clearly show that these "sump- pelling motive, rather than force or fear. God has tuary laws were not the expression of made man a free moral agent. He has bestowed upon him sectaries or radicals or of men in an eddy, the right of choice. Man may freely of his own accord but of representative public minds. 21 Although examples given may seem humor- choose the path of life or the path of death. God will not ous, they were chosen to emphasize how force his will or compel him to a course of action contrary obviously inappropriate was the subject to his desires. To do this would be to make of man a mere matter for legal regulation. And such regulation is not representative of only the machine, and of God an arbitrary dictator. Dark or Middle Ages. As late as 1959 the But while God does not force the will, He uses every Germans completed a revision of some means that love suggests to persuade the will. The language 15,000 laws dating back to 1795, of which only 400 survived the revision.'" These old of the gospel is not of command or demand. The apostle laws included fines for smoking, two years' Paul voices its spirit when he says: "Now then we are am- imprisonment for encouraging fellow citi- bassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: zens to leave the country, and one, which put a reverse twist on the old sumptuary we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." laws, required the well-to-do, on pain of The apostle in his own experience had felt but one criminal punishment, to use wool and linen power moving him in Christian service. He says: "For the in burying the dead. Of the 400 retained in love of Christ constraineth us." That love had been re- the modern enactments, most regulate matters of property, roads, and water rights. vealed to the apostle when he himself was upon a mission These early attempts of society to regu- of persecution. The glory of God shone around him, and late, usually by means of criminal statutes, he heard a voice from heaven saying unto him, "Saul, Saul, what could be termed taste in moral and religious beliefs give the necessary histori- why persecutes! thou me?" To his inquiry, "Who art thou, cal perspective to evaluate the place of taste Lord?" the answer was returned: "I am Jesus whom thou legislation in modern society. 111 persecutes!: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." What a response to the efforts of the apostle! How References much of love and pathos and appeal was in the question Baldwin, Sumptuary Legislation and Personal Regulation in England. 24 (1926). which Heaven propounded to this persecuting zealot! It 2 Ibid., 30-32. did not answer like with like. Heaven's love broke the 3 Ibid., 57. 4 Ibid., 249, 264. apostle's heart, and trembling and astonished, he inquired, 8 Ibid., 268, 269. "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" 6 Ibid., 273.

7 Ibid., 272, 273. This same revelation of divine love is the one power 'Encyclopaedia Britannica. vol. 21, p. 558 (1961). which will break the hearts of men today. This is the power 9 Ibid. I° Ibid. which should clothe the professed church of Christ; then Greenfield, Sumptuary Law in Nurnberg, 30 will she have no need of rack, or fagot, or inquisition; but (1918).

12 Ibid., 34. clothed in the panoply of Heaven, she will go forth con- 13 Ibid., 41. quering and to conquer, a terror to unrighteousness, a 14 Ibid., 63. strength and refuge for the sin-sick and sorrowing. 15 Ibid., 93, 94. 16 Ibid., 114, 115. 17 Vincent, Costume and Conduct, 12 (1935). This article first appeared in LIBERTY in 1910. F. M. Wilcox was an 18 Ibid., 17. editor of the Review & Herald, general paper for the Seventh-day Ad- 19 Ibid., 44, 45.

20 Encyclopaedia Britannica, loc. cit. ventist Church.

21 Greenfield, op. cit., 31.

22 The New York Times, June 19, 1960 p 20 col 1 Sunday Laws? Bah! Humbug! By Daniel J. Drazen

Dickens' scalding argu- ments against the Sun- day Observance Bill of his time still ring true today.

Charles Dickens' celebrated holi- III day ghost story, A Christmas Carol, seven years had elapsed between the time of Jacob Marley's death and Marley's visit to his surviving partner, the "squeez- ing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner"' Ebenezer Scrooge. Yet a full seven years before Dickens loosed this story upon the world, he had taken up the pen to combat a more menacing spirit abroad in the land: the specter of religious legislation. That year, 1836, was not the first that the so-called Sunday Observance Bill was introduced into the British House of Com- mons by Sir Andrew Agnew. Attempts were made between 1832 and 1837, always in the name of the church. But 1836 was the year Dickens, writing under the name "Timothy Sparks," blasted the bill in his essay "Sunday Under Three Heads."' The "three heads" refer to the observ- ance of Sunday as it was, as it would be if the bill were to become law, and as it should be. Dickens saw the day as one of "rest and cheerfulness," a necessary break in the machine-dominated rhythm of life in nine- teenth-century London. He did not believe that the day was the sole property of religion or religionists. In this scalding essay, Dickens favored no religious practice. His ample talents of description tellingly picture "a fashionable church, where the services commence at a late hour, for the accommodations of such

1_2 ILLUSTRATION BY RENEE GETTIER STREET September/October, 1981 members of the congregation—and they are The Jews recognized that situations would the British Museum, whereas it would not a few—as may happen to have lingered arise where exceptions would be made, as in require three times as many constables to at the opera far into the morning of the the care of livestock. enforce the provisions of the Sunday bill in Sabbath; an excellent contrivance for pois- As for the Sunday Observance Bill, the London districts where those institutions ing the difference between God and mam- Dickens saw clearly that "the rich man shall were located. mon." be at liberty to make use of all the splendid Dickens envisioned "a large field, or Inside, the opulent adornment of church luxuries he has collected around him . . . open piece of ground," set aside on the and church members is described, as is the because habit and custom have rendered outskirts of London for public use, either for preacher—"a young man of noble family them 'necessary' to his easy existence." active sport or passive relaxation. Museums and elegant demeanour, notorious at Cam- Thus the bill levied fines of up to thirty would be open to the public, which, along bridge for his knowledge of horseflesh and pounds on those who hired out coaches, with the fields, would furnish an alternative dancers, and celebrated at Eton for his horses, and carriages on Sunday in the name to the smoke-filled pubs. hopeless stupidity." of restricting travel, but said nothing against Rather than lessening "religious feel- The lower "dissenting" churches (those those who operated carriages of their own, ing," Dickens believed this course would outside the Church of England) come off no or employed servants to do so. While hired yield spiritual benefits: "The youth would better. All is "sour solemnity," "intolerant liverymen could not work under the bill, it lose that dread of religion, which the sour zeal and ignorant enthusiasm." Neither the contained an exemption of menial servants austerity of its professors too often incul- polite pieties of the establishment service from its jurisdiction. No Sabbath rest for the cates in youthful bosoms: and the old would nor the dissenting prayers offered to God servants of the rich. find less difficulty in persuading them to with a "disgusting and impious familiarity Other exemptions in the bill show a clear respect its observance." not to be described" emerge from this essay pattern of economic discrimination. In Church attendance, he argued, would not unharmed. addition to menials, exemptions were be helped by the bill, "as you cannot make It is after his description of services that granted to milkmen (who could work only people religious by act of Parliament, or Dickens warms to his true subject: ordinary until 9:00 A.M.), eating houses (open only force them to church by constables; they people. A family bringing a hot meal home for two hours on Sunday), and doctors and display their feeling by staying away." from the bakery, two young lovers on a clergymen (exempt from the restrictions on "I should like to see the time arrive," he stroll—these are treated with Dickens' hiring carriages). To those who could afford said, "when a man's attendance to his characteristic insight and skill. And there is it, there would be little disruption of the religious duties might be left to that that touchstone of Dickens' writing: the Sunday routine. Not everyone, after all, religious feeling which most men possess in poor, in both their squalor and their simple could afford milk deliveries or eating out. a greater or lesser degree, but which was existence. Poorer families who budgeted food for a never forced into the breast of any man by But for all the failings of Sunday observ- special meal on Sunday would be sorely menace or restraint." ance, Dickens did not hesitate to maintain hurt by one of the bill's provisions. "On It may be argued that Dickens' picture of that enforced Sunday observance would Sundays and on Christmas Day, when Sunday observance free from law is too transform "the day intended for rest and bakers were legally forbidden to bake, the idyllic, too optimistic, too ignorant of the cheerfulness into one of universal gloom, poor took their dinners to the bakeshops to twists and turns of human nature. What bigotry, and persecution." cook so that they could have at least one hot should not be argued, however, is the true Sunday observance mandated by law meal a week." 3 The Sunday Observance ring of Dickens' arguments against the would be a day of penalties exacted, a day Bill would have closed the bakeries, hardly Sunday Observance Bill, which failed to get for "constables . . . invested with arbitrary, a humanitarian act. through Parliament. vexatious, and the most extensive powers," Dickens also found intolerable the dis- Other laws did get through, however, who themselves might be penalized for crimination inherent in other restrictions: bearing their brand of discrimination and dereliction of duty, a day when the worker "Public discussions, public debates, public misguided zeal—or, even worse, bigotry who has toiled for one master six days must lectures and speeches, are cautiously and persecution. toil for another master. guarded against; for it is by their means that As Tiny Tim might well have said, from The monstrosity of the Sunday Observ- the people become enlightened enough to any such misguided legislation "God save ance Bill, as Dickens read it, had nothing deride the last efforts of bigotry and us, every one!" ❑ to do with doctrinal questions, which superstition. There is a stringent provision stimulate discussion primarily among theo- for punishing a poor man who spends an logians. Rather, this "specimen of legisla- hour in a news-room, but there is nothing to References tive folly," this "bill of blunders," was prevent the rich one from lounging away the Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol (New York: attacked for favoring the affluent and day in the zoological gardens." The idle Scholastic Book Service, 1962), p. 2. penalizing the poor. rich could afford to be idle; thoe who 2 Charles Dickens, "Sunday Under Three Heads," The Sunday Observance Bill was one of worked and still desired to learn could not The Works of Charles Dickens: Reprinted Pieces (New York: Hearst's International Library, n.d.), pp. 301- those pieces of legislation that, according to do so on Sunday. 337. Subsequent Dickens quotes in the article are from the Irish member of Parliament, Daniel Dickens alluded to a controversy over this source.

O'Connell, had so many loopholes that he whether to open the British Museum on 3 Michael Patrick Hearn, The Annotated Christmas could have driven a coach drawn by six Sundays. He favored opening those places Carol (New York: Avon, 1976), p. 116, n. 25. horses through it. The biggest loophole was "from which knowledge is to be derived built upon the word necessitr. and information gained" on Sunday after- According to the bill, "nothing in this act noons, arguing that "not fifty people" Daniel Drazen is a search analyst for a contained, shall extend to works of piety, would need to be employed on Sundays to Chicago-based computer research firm. He charity, or necessity. Exemption of "acts keep open the National Gallery and the has a B.A. in theology and an M.A. in of necessity" upon a holy day was not new. Gallery of Practical Sciences in addition to library science.

13 LIBERTY

The complexity of today's censorship more legal hassles than has visual material. Morality and issue stems partially from the marvels of Major court decisions have established modern technology. Photography, film precedents to guide harassed publishers, the Media: making, recordings, television, videotapes, editors, bookshop owners, and police and mass-market publications of books are forces, but no clear-cut solution, satisfac- Questions all twentieth-century inventions. The tory to everyone, has yet emerged. potential for good—or evil—has been given The major legal decisions of the past half With No Easy a boost by the technological and commer- century have tended to extend First Amend- cial achievements of modern civilization. ment protections to all kinds of reading Answers Movies, for example, have always been material if such material has at least a subject to censorship, much of it self- "redeeming social value." Literature said By Albert J. Menendez imposed. The Haup Committee and the to arouse only "prurient" interests was not Catholic Legion of Decency kept the accorded the same degree of protection. The movies Rinso-white until the 1960s. Then activist Warren Court of the 1960s seemed the demands of artistic freedom, plus the to be moving in the direction of requiring A look at several sides of cynical commercial exploitation of sex, led uniform national standards, applicable to to an almost total abandonment of taboos. Manhattan, "the Babylon on the Hudson," the ongoing battle over Any subject could now be explored. and Manhattan, Kansas, alike. censorship in America. Nudity, profanity, violence, and gratuitous But some modifications occurred under sex became the norm, rather than the the Burger Court of the 1970s. The Court he very word censorship conjures up exception, in film making. Some people, now seemed to be saying that prevailing all sorts of unpleasant images: grim, primarily the opinion-makers, applauded "community" standards could be applied sour-faced prudes who picket newsstands the openness. Defenders of conservative to each censorship issue. What's acceptable and theaters; the Watch and Ward Society moral values were alarmed, then appalled, in sophisticated San Francisco does not and its "banned in Boston" triumphs; the by the trend. have to be accepted by the folks in Folkston, Society for the Suppression of Vice; and the The motion-picture industry itself began Georgia. This doctrine causes obvious public burning of books in Nazi Germany. a form of self-policing a decade ago by problems to film producers and distributors, Still, everyone realizes that selectivity of instituting a rating system (the familiar G, publishing houses, book distributors, and reading and viewing matter is necessary for PG, R, and X) to let parents and viewers all people involved in the communication of orderly intellectual growth. The tough know what to expect. But the system has ideas. Will there now have to be a different question, one supposes, is Who should never been satisfactory. No one has defined version of Time magazine for different make these vital decisions? The individual? just what makes an "R" picture different sections of the country, since nudity and The state? The church? The community? from a "PG" one. The values prevalent in profanity are no longer strangers to this The police? Even when this basic decision is Tinseltown are not those of Middle venerable newsmagazine? In the event of a decided by any given community or society, America (though recent surveys reveal that clash between cultures, who wins? Will the Cicero's gnawing question remains: Who there is strikingly little difference any- more conservative communities deny free- shall censor the censors? more). dom of expression to more liberal ones, The battle over censorship, with its Just two examples from my own mem- because producers of culture are afraid to attendant cries of "Ban the Filth" or "Save ory: One suspense drama back around 1971 alienate potential customers? These ques- Intellectual Freedom," is a perennial, like was rated "PG." But, lo, there was enough tions remain unanswered. capital punishment or conscientious objec- sadistic violence to induce half the audience Then we have an increasingly bitter tion, at best settled in each generation by a to flee before the film was over. Then there conflict being fought in the public school kind of truce. In its social or sexual mores, was the scene in which a stark-naked lady arena, traditionally considered the exclu- the United States has fluctuated from offered herself to a rather bemused James sive domain of parents, not federal courts. Dionysian licentiousness to Apollonian Franciscus. PG? (That's "parental guid- The intensity of feelings engendered by the restraint. There can be little doubt that we ance suggested," remember—and the cultural clash of the past decade are now mired in a prolonged period of Atlanta theater was filled with teen-agers has provoked questions of such First decadence, from which no relief appears and parents.) A comedy called If It's Amendment import that the courts imminent. The sexual revolution has Tuesday This Must Be Belgium was rated are being called in to resolve affected manners and morals in ways that "G," but the plot clearly involved a British them. even the gay nineties or roaring twenties tour guide who specialized in bedding down could never have imagined. What is com- with American female tourists (who thought monly accepted in today's literature, stage, it was quite a treat compared to Minneapo- cinema, and television is at such variance lis). Numerous subteens were in the audi- with commonly accepted standards of ence for this "general audience" flick. And morality and civility that even longtime these are only two mild examples. defenders of absolute freedom of expression Defenders of the movies claim that they are reevaluating their positions. "Have we are giving their audiences what they want to gone too far?" they ask. Can any kind of see. Since most U.S. moviegoers are under civilization survive such an "anything age 30, there may be some sober truth in that goes" approach to morality and ethics? statement. Some surveys show that less than Would such great defenders of freedom of half of adult Americans of middle years or thought as Milton and Jefferson extend their older attend movies anymore. Maybe this is toleration to hard-core pornography theaters their way of answering, of voting No. two blocks from the White House? Printed matter has probably resulted in

14

September/October. 1981

and spiritual heritage to their children came to see "their" public schools as antithetical to their most cherished values. In the Island Trees School District on •• • New York's Long Island, angry parents and sympathetic school board members ordered ** • the removal of eleven books from all school libraries in the district. Among the banned • books were two Pulitzer Prize-winning novels, Bernard Malamud's The Fixer and • • • Oliver La Farge's Laughing Boy. Parents and students who objected to the banning • filed suit in federal court in March, 1976. The New York Civil Liberties Union supported them, charging that First Amend- • ment rights were being infringed. The • • : 17;• • / school board said it had the right to remove •.° •:I.. "anti-American, anti-Christian, • :: • anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy" books 4: I from school library shelves. Other books banned included Soul on Ice, The Naked $144/ Ape, Down These Mean Streets, and Slaughterhouse Five—all best sellers at one time and widely praised by critics. In what many observers regarded as a surprise decision, the United States District Court ruled in favor of the school board on August 2, 1979. Many students of the censorship scene feel this decision may be symptomatic of a new conservative mood in • • •••••••" • " the courts of the land. Judge George C. Pratt • „ • ruled that the board's action did "not . • constitute a sharp and direct infringement of •.; • any First Amendment right." Such action, • •: he said, "fell within the broad range of discretion to educational officials who are • • elected by the community." Though Judge Pratt admitted that he thought the school board's decision . • "reflected a misguided educational philoso- • • • ; • . phy," he suggested that the voters should • • . . 11.• • I: change the school board if they were unhappy with its policies. This decision represents a reversal of the judicial activism philosophy that has dominated the legal world in the past two decades. Richard D. Emery, staff counsel to the New York Civil Liberties Union, called the ruling "a body blow to the First Amend- ment." Mr. Emery said the case "brings more clearly to focus a new issue, that is, Several years ago Kanawha Can books be banned for political, reli- County, West Virginia, was racked by gious, and cultural reasons?" an explosive controversy over school- Opponents of censorship are worried by books alleged to be obscene, blas- this decision, coming as it did after a recent • • phemous, anti-American, disrespectful ruling by the United States Court of Appeals of parental authority, and hostile to for the Second Circuit in a case involving a Biblical values. Fundamentalist churches school district in Queens County, New and people from the poorer socioeconomic York. The court ruled that "there is no such strata spearheaded the fight that ultimately resulted in violence and school boycotts. The community was divided. The school Albert Menendez is a free-lance writer in board was divided. Church groups were White Plains, New York. He has written for divided. Parents were divided. Families LIBERTY on several freedom-of-religion • who tried to transmit a conservative cultural issues in American history. •: • •

ILLUSTRATIONS BY JEFFREY DEVER 15 11.0.11.0.. ..6104,4 •4 a. .O • • • .• • • • 0 * • . • • • •..•• • ..1e LIPi11:: • ••*:•:•:• •• •• • 4 11•$11.. • • • • thing as tenure for a library book" and 10 • V • • • upheld book banning. A defender of the two • . ,.. ..,::iii . & I::: court rulings, Attorney George V. Lipp, Jr., ..::}. .:....:7; I.::: • responded that schools boards "have a duty • • • • • • . • • . • .•:. to reflect community values." lb • • . • :A, Olit.p •• . . a•:• 4 11 .4 111 In Warsaw, Indiana, in 1977 and 1978, a ... . 5114%.15...• . s ... , , • : essepe ...... ,. A : A 4 • . • • group of angry parents, calling themselves •••• • • . s• :1141.: )1% II • • el People Who Care, objected strenuously to 011••••••• -• •• •• e• ‘.% %%%•41 i • • • the course material and reading lists at %%04 114*..*•%%•••• •:::::::: Warsaw High School. Anger was directed ••::•••••::•••••••%•• •Nollia•alusis.iglestOls,e60910%%%%%%••... ••••• ••7 .::::f :::::::::•• *GIs.** at such courses as Black Literature, Gothic * et P• • • • 0 ;.: . lr. 6.0. ••• • •••••••:• • ••• & • • 0, 6 . I • • il Literature, Science Fiction, and Forklore it 0,:,•:::::•:0:0:0::::••°:•: • and Legends. They demanded the banning , %:41:6.%%%.• • . a • aO a 0.• •••:•••••:• • of such books as Go Ask Alice, The Stepford : • 1. I. S . •• I . • a . • • Wives, and Growing Up Female in • • • . •• • , ...I.* • • ' • .• • .. •6 I ::::::.:: • • ela • America, books that have sold millions of • •• ...... • '• "SI. : :• :.•• .0 • • • • .. ad:See • • • copies, been made into movies, and been ‘• • • • •• • ••:$04%.;• • .;;:i:•• •• 61:: used in thousands of schools throughout the • - • ..,.•%", • country. The parents won a "total victory." % lib • . • " . .6 . • ••••:::::::.::••\.° 40. a Attorney Stephen Arons summarized his •;•:•:•% :111:0:0.0:0:0 4 •. 0. investigation: "Warsaw suffered a massive '....0%:•:•••••••• a . . seizure of anti-intellectualism that nearly •• •• ••• • •••4 • 111 : exhausted the good will and common sense • • • • ::i•iii•::::::i:i• f ..11 % of its residents and left the town shaking. By • • • 1 • the time the crisis had passed, five books • • • :::::: 6 • . 11.11. :i::::.. had been banned, three teachers had been • • • • • • • fired, the student newspaper had been .a'.9 . •• .• :: • • 11. 1:1:: ::: eliminated, nine literature courses had been I 6 • cut from the curriculum, and local senior • .:.:,•:. citizens had offered their 'vote of thanks' to • 6 . a .. the censors with a parking-lot bonfire fed by gasoline and high school texts." •• II.% Though admitting that these actions were •• taken by "well-meaning people," Arons a • • •-•• decried "school board shouting matches, circuslike hearings, and old-fashioned • .. intimidation" and concluded that these excesses "created a climate of fear that has chilled the exercise of freedoms of speech, press, and inquiry and effectively sus- pended the First Amendment in Warsaw." On the other Education Analysts of Longview, Texas, hand, TV is so pervasive has become a major clearinghouse for those an influence on opinion and, who favor tighter censorship of school possibly, on behavior that it hits textbooks. Its evaluators reflect a strong people directly in their homes. More anti-Communist, pro-free market economy, than 98 percent of U.S. residents and a fundamentalistic religious bias. own at least one television, and the • • Opponents of censorship include the average person watches it four or five hours National Council of Teachers of English a day. Surveys show that more people • and the American Library Association's receive their daily news information and e Office of Intellectual Freedom, whose their political knowledge from TV than director, Judith Krug, called recent ban- from newspapers, radio, magazines, or any nings the "most massive, vicious, and other source. .11.11"1111. sophisticated censorship" since the early For more than a decade concerned groups 1950s. have sought to stem the tide toward But perhaps the most complex area where gratuitous violence and snickering adoles- conflicting opinions are conjoined is that of cent sexuality on the airwaves. Responsible network television. At first blush, television studies by such groups as Action for would seem to be the most tame of the Children's Television and the National potential trouble areas. Hard-core pornog- Council of the Parents and Teachers Associ- raphy and nudity are banned, as are most of ation have criticized the stream of mayhem the more profane and vulgar expressions. and murder depicted on U.S. TV. Then, too, people have the option of turning One watchdog group, the Washington, off the set. It is not quite the same as going D.C.-based National Coalition on Televi- out to see a movie or purchasing a book. sion Violence (NCTV), has formed to

16

SeptemberlOctober, 198 I IFmonitor TV violence and educate the public The researchers also found that from the NFD insiders to assess the number of scenes concerning the results. time a child is age 5 until he is 15, he will or references that fall under the general According to NCTV's report based on the have seen 13,000 violent deaths on the TV heading "sex and profanity." In three-month monitoring period ending in screen. November, 1978, NFD encouraged a January, 1981, CBS is the most violent But it is permissiveness regarding sex and "Boycott ABC" month, because the top- network during prime time, with ABC family values, along with profanity and ranked network was found to be the worst holding that dubious distinction on Saturday blasphemy, that has sparked the most violator of "Judeo-Christian" moral stand- mornings. Together, the networks sched- protest. Even a casual acquaintance with ards. Wildmon claimed that ABC lost uled 15 prime-time shows averaging 14.6 TV in the past few years would suggest that 521,500 households, or about seven tenths violent incidents per hour and 12 Saturday- marital fidelity and happiness are passé. of a percentage point of its audience— morning programs with an average of 37.4 There has been a sustained assault on hardly a dent in ABC's strong showing. violent acts per hour. (For purposes of the marriage, coupled with an obsession with ABC executives flatly deny that NFD's survey, "violent action" was defined as use adultery, fornication, rape, and homosexu- action had anything to do with the slight of guns, personal physical violence, or ality. Even in situation comedies, the decrease. episodes involving murder, suicide, or happily married character is almost nonex- Wildmon says that "all three networks kidnapping.) Saturday-morning TV was istent. Nearly all are divorced, widowed, or are rotten. They don't give a flip about found to be about five times more violent leading promiscuous life styles. On one decency and morality." He also believes than prime time, overall, and getting worse. episode of Kojak a while back, it was that the writers, producers, and program- Thundarr the Barbarian (ABC) rated 78 casually noted that the hero was sleeping mers are hostile to Christian moral values violent acts every hour. During prime time, with several women. These role models and that they "intentionally push their Enos (CBS) and Sheriff Lobo (NBC) shared have a subtle but definite effect on young antifamily values on the American public. top "honors" with 21.6 violent incidents viewers, whose values are not yet firmly trying to make the public accept their per hour each. NCTV has also ranked established. hedonism as the norm or standard." advertisers according to the amount of Examples of this sensualist or libertine The major project of fall, 1979, was a violent programming sponsored, an induce- bias in American TV can be cited ad "Boycott CBS" month (November, when ment for community protest. In this nauseam. (See such well-documented stud- the national ratings are taken). October 29 report, Mennen was the most violent ies as Rated X: The Moral Case Against TV, was designated "Phone CBS Day" to prime-time sponsor, and McDonalds by Mary Lewis Coakley [Westport, Conn.: protest what many regarded as a new low in sponsored the most violence on Arlington House, 1978], and Telegarbage, U.S. television programming: the schedul- Saturday-morning TV. by Gregg Lewis [Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas ing of Pete Hamill's novel Flesh and Blood, Nelson, 1977].) Criticism cuts across reli- wherein a mother has sexual relations with gious and ideological lines. The United her son. Not only is this incest the Church of Christ denounced network televi- "shocker" scene, but the first seduction sion for "distorting the values" held by the occurs on Sunday. Mother and son call each ky, solid exci majority of Americans and exalting greed other "Mary and Joseph."• Wildmon says over, your secre and materialism at the expense of humane this is "utter blasphemy and perversion. ' ' concerns. CBS did air Flesh and Blood as planned. e you Jolt after jolt The selectivity of those who determine but, according to Wildmon, it was "their what we shall watch is also suspect. When largest mistake ever," costing $5 million in was the last time you saw a classic novel by revenues when advertisers withdrew as a Dickens, Thackeray, Tolstoy, or Scott result of NFD's successful protest against depicted on network TV? But trashy, the show. 4G "THIS WEE' sleazy, ephemeral "best sellers" of recent When I spoke to the so-called "censors" years appear with regularity. Why 79 Park at NBC and CBS, they sneered at the imimomm Avenue and not A Tale of Two Cities? Why boycotts, denied that the ratings of contro- Harold Robbins and not Herman Melville? versial programs had been lowered as a Why, indeed? result of viewer disgust, and claimed that And what, then, can be done by those network TV fare was being "misinter- who believe that their cherished values are preted." They also suggested that people under attack? are merely being given what they want to One answer is given by Donald E. see, within the bounds of the TV code of Wildmon, a United Methodist minister ethics. from Mississippi, who channeled his dis- Is there an easy answer to regulating gust into a fast-growing national organiza- morality in the media? I doubt it. But I do tion called National Federation for Decency believe that television writers, producers, (NFD). NFD was chartered as a corporation and sponsors have an obligation to be in Tupelo, Mississippi (Elvis Presley's sensitive to the deeply held spiritual values hometown), in July, 1977. It claims 60,000 of the "moral majority" of Americans. members who contribute $10 a year. Volun- By the same token, our essential free- teers from different geographic locations, doms are too precious to be tampered with. representing different age groups, religions, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said it best et cetera, monitor prime-time network in a 1938 address: "If the fires of freedom television programs, generally during the and civil liberties burn low in other lands. fall season of September to December. they must be made brighter in our The 500 or so volunteers are trained by own."

17 LIBERTY

p he memorable papal visit was unoffi- cial and akin to that of any celebrity, God's Hand in religious or otherwise. There were brief . From an interview with Gary M. Ross public greetings and a private conversation with President and Mrs. Carter. But the President did not meet the Pope at the airport and during the visit accorded him is or none of the honors of a head of state—such H as salutes and color guard. It was just the visit of a well-known individual who happened also to be the Pope. A highlight of life in the White House Dr. Robert Maddox, was Easter, 1980, when my wife and I conducted the President's sunrise service at a Baptist clergyman, reflects on events Camp David. To be out in the beauty of nature, in very simple surroundings but also during his assignment as Special Assistant to in the presence of the President and Mrs. Carter, and to be in harmony with each other President Carter for Religious Affairs. regarding matters of the spirit—all this is deeply embedded in my memory. And on this occasion, and later during a visit in the private quarters- of the White House when we discussed the defeat of 1980 in the light of God's hand in history, I knew that I was, if not the President's confidant, a colleague and pastor.

God's Will in History Shortly after the election, my wife and I had dinner with the President and Mrs. Carter. While we waited for the butlers to finish setting the table, Mrs. Carter asked, "Is this [the defeat] the will of God? Did God will for Jimmy to be defeated?" "That is a tough question," I responded. "Let me put it this way. I believe God conserves His will out of such human events. The Lord has His hand on you and the President. The defeat in no way means He has abandoned you. The real question is, What will you and President Carter do with the defeat? What will you do with your lives now?" Nodding in agreement, the President spoke up. "I do not see my election in 1976 or my defeat in 1980 in the narrow focus of God's will for this specific event. I believe He has a purpose for individual lives as well as for the sweep of human events. He works out those purposes in ways far beyond our understanding. I was His in 1976. I am His in 1980. Now, let's go eat supper." And we did.

On Politics and Religion The model and standard nowadays seems to be the Moral Majority. But that group, and others like them, are going to run afoul of the federal election guidelines and the Internal Revenue Service if they persist in partisan politics. Another caution would be that many evangelicals, even the well- known TV preachers, have parted company Dr. Robert Maddox, left, on the steps of a campus building at Pitt Community with the Moral Majority over its duplicity College, in Greenville, North Carolina, where he is administrative assistant. He is and fiscal irresponsibility. Nevertheless, the talking to security director Earl Keel. pulpit needn't ignore society. It can become

18 PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN L GRIFFIN September/October, 1981 a proper political instrument that does not fundamental problems of loneliness, igno- public schools were not available to your divide the witness of the church or compro- rance, poverty, and disregard for human life child, so that private schools had to do the mise the country's pluralism through that create this terrible situation. We must job of the public school. But this isn't the enforced morality. The church can be a work with young people, reemphasize the case when right down the street from you is place of intense discussion of the issues at a importance of the home, and provide a public school. time other than the worship hour. For responsible sex education. instance, the Southern Baptist Life Com- What concerns me even more than the On Carter's Religious Experience mission and the Inter-Baptist Joint Com- problems of school prayers and abortion, et Concisely and constantly, Carter empha- mission on Public Affairs are important cetera, is the willingness of many in this sized his commitment to the separation of trumpets calling us to responsible political Congress to use tactics that threaten our church and state. He was not indifferent to activity. judiciary. That is, it is now popular to the partnership and interactions that are The human-rights crusade that reached a suggest that the way to nullify "permis- possible; yet there was, in his view, a wall, a height in the early part of Carter's adminis- sive" or "liberal" Supreme Court deci- healthy demarcation, that should be main- tration surely represented a nexus between sions is to deny its jurisdiction when people tained and respected. He was cautious about politics and religion. Of course, an impor- seek to enforce those decisions. This lays having a clergyman such as myself in the tant fountainhead was the strong friendship down a frightening principle, and I am White House. Particularly because of his between the President and Andrew Young. unalterably opposed to it. The Congress own high profile as a religious man, he But I don't think you can separate Carter's almost adopted such an outlook in last didn't want to appear to be garnering special views on human rights from his under- year's so-called Helms Amendment, and favors with religious groups. In retrospect standing of man before God. The Presi- now the atmosphere is more conducive to we know that he hereby hurt himself dent's religious faith encouraged, if not the same thing. If this drive to outflank the politically. Without meaning to, he over- created, the human rights policy. Today it's Supreme Court were to succeed, there is no looked many of those conservative evangel- to our peril that we forget human rights and reason to believe that it would stop with the icals who had come over to his side in 1976, cozy up to left- or right-wing tyrannical particular social issue in question. Tam- the upshot being that we lost them four years regimes. pering with the established system, espe- later. And how do we account for the upsurge cially the separation of powers at the federal Behind such sensitivities lay the "born of religious interest in politics and vice level, could rekindle talk of a constitutional again" experience. In Carter's sense of that versa? Jimmy Carter's own clear statement convention and through it the drastic revi- term, it meant that he enjoyed a daily and of faith helped to trigger it, though the sion of our Constitution. Then our most very personal experience with Jesus Christ. advent of huge television ministries played fundamental liberties could be threatened. This "walk" with the Lord was existential, a role, too. Also, there were the real feelings real, and episodic. of national anxiety that the latter could On Escalating Tuition Costs Carter's religious nature came across evoke. And we shouldn't overlook the shift The idea of tuition tax credits has been vividly when he visited my own church in in the whole Western world toward the right around for a long while. President Carter Calhoun, Georgia. He entered the Sunday or conservative end of the political spec- opposed it and was immediately accused of school with Bible in hand and with complete trum, traceable in part to the struggle over surrendering to the National Education knowledge of the lesson. When the person economics that we're all engaged in now. Association. True, it was a proposition teaching the lesson came up short on between the federal government and the material, he turned and said in his anxiety, On Contemporary Social Issues individual, and yet schools stood to benefit "Jimmy, do you have anything you would In the sixties the Supreme Court, reading so materially (in our judgment) as to be like to say?" The President stood up and the First Amendment very closely and in "established" in the First Amendment finished the lesson! During the worship good faith, denied states the right to sense of the term. Today, despite the budget service, at which I gave the sermon, the mandate recitations of prayer in public cutting, President Reagan reiterates his President sat contemplatively, prayerfully, schools. It emphatically did not interdict support of the tax credits and may well get intently. He did exactly what any Baptist voluntary moments of silence for those who them, but it will take a real battle in the would have done. wished time to pray. Perhaps the Congress, Congress. I don't oppose them because they speaking through a resolution, ought to will endanger public education—those sec- On the Seventh-day Adventist Church reinstate this latter opinion. The interde- ular schools are the "big boys" and ought to I really learned of the church through a nominational prayer of the to-whom-it- be able to take care of themselves. My Seventh-day Adventist minister in Georgia may-concern type might be examined also, concern over tuition tax credits comes as we were doing a series for our young though I personally think the Bible is very because of the cost to the budget, the people on the different religious faiths. The hard on empty forms of religion. problem of the establishment clause, and two of us became good friends and even It is quite true that President Carter the increased danger that government will exchanged pulpits. A highlight of my life vehemently objected to abortion and yet become even more entangled in religion. was New Year's Eve joint communion also opposed a constitutional amendment What an irony that the people who want service that the Baptist, Methodist, and overturning the Supreme Court's approval the tax credits are the same ones who don't Adventist congregations shared. The ordi- of abortion. That simply didn't seem the want government to fool with them! I know nance of humility or foot-washing that way to get at the problem of abortion, any the argument about being disadvantaged by preceded the elements was an important more than prohibition was a way to deal having to pay twice for a child's educa- first for me. I saw men in confession and with alcohol. Passing a law doesn't auto- tion—once in property taxes and again in praise, exclaiming about our oneness in matically make a deeply entrenched prob- tuition payments—and also the argument Christ—and this is something I will never lem go away: The so-called "human life" about the inculcation of civic values, the forget. ❑ amendment risks making a mockery of the societal contribution, that goes on in our Constitution. What we must do instead is to private schools. The implication here is that encourage families, churches, and social there should be some relief. My position is Gary M. Ross is an associate editor of groups in the community to address the that compensation would be justified only if LIBERTY.

19 LIBERTY Ifs Your Religious Freedom

LIBERTY reviews the importance of a the indirect burden on his religious beliefs was justified by the state interest in preserving the integrity of the unemployment insurance recent Supreme Court decision fund and encouraging employees to stay on their jobs. It concluded that to give him benefits and to deny them to those who quit for other he recent but little-reported Supreme Court decision in Thomas personal but nonreligious reasons would violate the establishment Tv. Review Board of the Indiana Employment Security Division clause of the First Amendment. affects your constitutional right to free exercise of religion. LIBERTY Thomas then asked the Supreme Court of the United States to asked its legal adviser, Robert W. Nixon, to explain the Court's review the decision. April 6 decision. Liberty: What did the Supreme Court decide? Liberty: What was the Thomas case all about? Nixon: In short the Court held that denying Thomas unemploy- Nixon: The constitutional question before the Supreme Court ment benefits violated his First Amendment right to free exercise of was whether a state could deny unemployment compensation religion and that giving him benefits would not violate the benefits to a worker who quit his job when his employer assigned establishment clause. him work conflicting with his religious beliefs. By so doing, did the Chief Justice Burger, who wrote for the 8-to- l majority, rejected state violate the worker's First Amendment right to free exercise of the Indiana Supreme Court's characterization of Thomas' beliefs as religion?' That was the question raised in the Thomas case. personal-philosophical. The Chief Justice noted that the Indiana court "seems to have placed considerable reliance on the fact that Liberty: What religious belief was involved? Thomas was struggling' with his beliefs and that he was not able to Nixon: Eddie C. Thomas is a Jehovah's Witness who believes the `articulate' his belief precisely."' Bible teaches he should not participate in warfare or the production It is true that Thomas was struggling with his religious of weapons.' He was hired to work in a foundry that made sheet steel convictions. And some people may not find it logical that Thomas for a variety of purposes. He indicated on his application that his could work on rolled steel that might eventually be used for military hobbies were Bible study and Bible reading. purposes but that he could not work directly on the fabrication of About a year later the company closed the foundry and armaments. Others might downgrade his beliefs because his transferred Thomas to another department, where he was assigned coreligionist felt he could work on military projects. to making turrets for military tanks. Thomas' religious beliefs But I think the Supreme Court majority took the right approach to prevented him from doing that. deciding such a delicate question. So he checked the company bulletin for other job opportunities It first noted that "only beliefs rooted in religion are protected by within the company, only to find that all the remaining departments the free exercise clause." 4 were involved in producing armaments. He also checked with Then it said that the "determination of what is a 'religious' belief another Jehovah's Witness working in the plant. His friend saw no or practice is more often than not a difficult and delicate task." It scriptural problem in working at the factory. Thomas, however, pointed out that "the resolution of that question is not to turn upon a disagreed with his friend's interpretation of Scripture. judicial perception of the particular belief or practice in question; Then Thomas asked the company to lay him off, apparently religious beliefs need not be acceptable, logical, consistent, or hoping the foundry would eventually reopen. The company, comprehensible to others in order to merit First Amendment however, refused his request. So he quit. protection. " When he applied for unemployment compensation benefits under Too many of us—lawyers and judges included—have a tendency Indiana law, the hearing examiner found he had quit his job because to be skeptical of the religious beliefs of others. We don't think their of religious beliefs but that the termination was not based upon beliefs are logical, though ours certainly are. Their beliefs aren't "good cause" connected with his work as required by state law. So consistent, but ours certainly are. he was denied benefits. Baltimore wit H. L. Mencken once observed, "It is now quite The Indiana Court of Appeals then reversed, holding that the state lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to law as applied to Thomas improperly burdened his First Amend- mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics and ment right to free exercise of religion and that he would receive benefits. Robert W. Nixon, an associate in the Office of General Counsel of Liberty: What happened then? the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, is a student of Nixon: The Supreme Court of Indiana denied him benefits. It said the religion clauses of the First Amendment. He is also a member of Thomas quit for personal-philosophical reasons, not religious ones, the Religious Liberty Committee of the National Council of and therefore did not qualify for benefits. It added that if his reason Churches and a member of the National Advisory Council of for quitting was religious, that still was not "good cause." It said Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

20 September/October, 1981 chemistry." 6 To Mencken the Roman Catholic position on birth tions are "more often than not a difficult and delicate task. I control apparently seemed neither logical nor comprehensible. Had People with religious beliefs that appear strange to their neighbors Mencken been a judge, his perception of the Catholic position on would be best advised to secure legal counsel sympathetic to their birth control might have influenced him to rule adversely in a religious beliefs. And members and leaders of the "accepted" controversy involving that teaching. churches should rally to the aid of "less accepted" religionists In Thomas the Supreme Court also held that "the guarantee of when sincerely held religious beliefs are brought before courts and free exercise is not limited to beliefs . . . shared by all . . . members legislatures. of a religious sect. Particularly in this sensitive area, it is not within Ultimately the decision will depend on whether a judge or a jury the judicial function and judicial competence to inquire whether the is convinced that the belief is sincerely held and religious. petitioner or his fellow worker more correctly perceived the Liberty: To get back to Thomas, commands of their common faith. Courts are not arbiters of how did the Supreme Court view the free exercise clause? scriptural interpretation."' That's simply a well-put recognition by the Court that so long as Nixon: The Court pointed out that for more than thirty years it has churches are composed of mere mortals, there will be inconsisten- "held that a person may not be compelled to choose between the cies among members. For example, many Roman Catholics exercise of a First Amendment right and participation in an practice church-condemned methods of birth control. Does that otherwise available public program." mean that Catholics who adhere to their church's teaching shouldn't The Chief Justice wrote: "When the state conditions receipt of an be taken seriously, shouldn't have their beliefs respected? important benefit upon conduct proscribed by a religious belief, Further, there are inconsistencies in the way denominations thereby putting substantial pressure on an adherent to modify his indoctrinate members. Some churches simply tell their adherents behavior and to violate his beliefs, a burden upon religion exists. what to believe. Others have beliefs that members are expected to While the compulsion may be indirect, the infringement upon free grow into as they mature in faith. exercise is nonetheless substantial." 12 Some people don't think it is logical or comprehensible that one Liberty: Will everyone losing his or her job for religious reasons Seventh-day Adventist is a vegetarian while another dashes off to now get unemployment compensation? relieve a Big Mac attack, or that one Adventist believes his church's teaching that he should neither join nor financially support a labor Nixon: The Court hasn't solved all the problems in this area yet. organization while his coreligionist is a shop steward for the union. In 1963 in its Sherbert" decision the Court said that a Seventh-day Overall the Court presented a simple test for courts to use when Adventist who declined to accept a new job conflicting with her considering religion versus conscience: Is it an honest religious religious beliefs could not be denied unemployment compensation. conviction? Here in Thomas we find the religious dissenter receiving unemployment compensation when the employer changed the Liberty: Do you think all claims of religion versus conscience working conditions. will get Supreme Court protection? In fact, the Court characterized both decisions as cases in which Nixon: No. I don't think tax protesters who wave their mail-order the terminations "flowed from the fact that the employment, once theological degrees and bishops' credentials will have a warm acceptable, became religiously objectionable because of changed reception at the Supreme Court. Remember that the Court will be conditions." 14 looking for "honest convictions." Perhaps a paraphrase would be But just what does "changed conditions" mean? In both Sherbert that the Court will be looking for sincerely held religious beliefs. and Thomas the employers changed work schedules or job And in Thomas the Court noted that we "can, of course, imagine assignments. But what if the employees had changed their religious an assorted claim so bizarre, so nonreligious in motivation, as not to beliefs and thus created a conflict where none existed before? be entitled to protection under the free exercise clause."' Would the result have been the same? We will have to wait to see whether the Court limits "changed conditions" to circumstances Liberty: What's the most bizarre religious claim you've heard where the employer changes the conditions, or whether it says the recently? free exercise clause protects employees when they change and their Nixon: In one case a man sued the director of the Equal new religious beliefs cause conflicts with their employment. Employment Opportunity Commission after it dismissed his Title Also, what about a job applicant who takes a new job knowing it VII religious discrimination complaint. He claimed it was his will conflict with his religious convictions? That would be a personal religious creed that eating Kozy Kitten People/Cat Food complex problem because various federal, state, and city laws contributed substantially to his overall work performance. The require various kinds of accommodations for religious beliefs and federal district court characterized his belief as a "mere personal practices. preference . . . beyond the parameters of the concept of religion." 9 Liberty: In another case federal prisoners formed what they called the Does the government have to accommodate all religious beliefs? Church of the New Song. One of the founders acquired a Doctor of Divinity certificate by mail. For a religious feast the prisoners Nixon: No. The free exercise test is that government may restrict requested the prison authorities to supply them steak and wine. A free exercise of religion for some compelling state interest. And the federal district court, however, held the "church" to be "a state can restrict free exercise then only if it uses the least restrictive masquerade designed to obtain First Amendment protection for acts alternative. '5 which otherwise would be unlawful and/or reasonably disallowed" Liberty: What's a compelling public or state interest? by prison authorities. Concluded the court, "Thus . . . the unmistakable stench of the skunk is found emanating from that Nixon: In general the Court says that "only those interests of the which the petitioner has declared a rose." I° highest order . . . can overbalance legitimate claims to the free exercise of religion." 16 Liberty: And what if the pet-food eaters or the prisoners had been In Thomas the Court said "the burden placed on free exercise" sincere in their religious beliefs? was not justified by Indiana's interest in avoiding (1) widespread Nixon: Sincerity will have to be determined by the courts on a unemployment, (2) burdens on the unemployment fund, or (3) case-by-case basis. The Supreme Court noted that such determina- detailed probing by employers into the religious beliefs of job

21 LIBERTY applicants and employees. The Court said there was no evidence Justice Brennan—the senior liberal—supported free exercise of that a large number of workers in Indiana held jobs conflicting with religion in all three cases. He wrote for the majority in Sherbert, their religious beliefs. It also said there was no evidence of detailed concurred in Yoder, and was part of the eight-judge majority in inquiries into religious beliefs in states that give unemployment Thomas. Another perfect score. compensation to people with conflicts such as Thomas had." Justice Stewart—would you classify him a centrist?—also gets 100 percent. He voted with the majority in Sherbert Liberty: Doesn't giving unemployment compensation to and Thomas and concurred in Thomas to some degree establish his religion? Yoder. Justice White—another centrist—gets good scores two of the Nixon: The Court rejected that argument. It admitted that "in a three times. He concurred in Yoder, and joined the majority in sense" there is a benefit to Thomas. But the Court said the benefit Thomas, but dissented in Sherbert. Maybe another free exercise "manifests no more than the tension between the two religion decision or two will confirm his support of religious liberty. clauses"—the free exercise clause and the establishment clause. Justice Marshall—a liberal—has a perfect score, joining with the The Court said it had resolved that question in Sherbert." majority in Yoder and Thomas. Justice Blackmun—a conserva- Liberty: Does the Thomas decision add to First Amendment tive—has the same record. Justice Powell, a conservative, and theory? Justice Stevens, a centrist, participated only in the Thomas decision, but both joined with the majority supporting free exercise Nixon: It reaffirms the Court's earlier free exercise concepts as of religion. enunciated in Sherbert and Yoder."' It reaffirms the concept that That, of course, leaves only the most conservative of the Justices, accommodations of religion may be made without violating the Justice Rehnquist, who dissented in Thomas. Of course he favors establishment clause. freedom of religion—as well as the flag, motherhood, and apple Liberty: But didn't the lone dissenter, Justice Rehnquist, say the pie—but apparently for theoretical reasons would cut back on decision "adds mud to the already muddied waters of First religious freedom. Amendment jurisprudence" ?20 Overall, then, there seems to be a solid, overwhelming majority on the Court that today supports a fairly expansive interpretation of Nixon: Yes. But, paradoxically, his dissent itself helps clarify free exercise of religion. the Court's vision of First Amendment law. He points out several Liberty: What do you predict will be the next big free exercise things the majority did not say. case to come before the Supreme Court? For instance, Justice Rehnquist said he would prefer the free exercise test used by the Court in its Braunfeld decision." In that Nixon: I wish I knew! I would not be surprised if it concerns the case the Court held that indirect burdens on the free exercise of constitutionality of religious accommodations under Title VII of the religion did not violate the First Amendment if they did not prohibit Civil Rights Act of 1964. That law requires employers and labor a religious practice but merely made its practice more expensive. organizations to make reasonable accommodations for the religious Justice Rehnquist's discussion of the Braunfeld free exercise test beliefs and practices of employees, unless to do so would be an is important because a question has existed whether the Court's undue hardship. Sherbert free exercise test had overruled the Braunfeld test. It may The Court avoided that question in Trans World Airlines v. be significant that the majority in Thomas does not even refer to Hardison in 1977.23 But other cases are working their way toward Braunfeld. Perhaps by implication—or inference—the Braunfeld the Court. Recently the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit test is dead. held that such accommodations do not violate the establishment The result, of course, would be greater protection for religious clause." dissenters. There's good reason to believe the Supreme Court will affirm Justice Rehnquist also had concerns about the majority's such decisions and again support your constitutional right to free treatment of the establishment clause: "It is unclear from the exercise of religion. ❑ Court's opinion whether it has temporarily retreated from its expansive view of the establishment clause, or wholly abandoned it. References

I would welcome the latter." 22 In his opinion the Thomas decision 1 49 U.S.L.W. 4342 (1980). violated the Court's test used in establishment clause cases, most 2 The facts are condensed from the Court's decision, ibid. at 4342-43. involving government financial aid to parochial schools. 3 /bid. at 4343. The answer to Justice Rehnquist's concern is that the Court 4 /bid. apparently will continue to use two tests—one for cases it 5 /bid. characterizes as free exercise cases, and one for what it considers 6 Qpoted in Peter's Quotations 448 (1977). establishment cases. The characterization of a particular problem 7 Thomas, supra, at 4343-44. thus will be extremely important in cases where tension exists 8 /bid. at 4343. 9Brown v. Pena, 441 F. Supp. 1382, 1385 (S.D. Fla. 1977). between the two clauses. I° Theriauh v. Silber, 391 F. Supp. 578, 581, 582 (W.D. Tex. 1975). 11 Liberty: What's the status of our First Amendment right to free Thomas, supra, at 4343. exercise of religion after Thomas? 12 /bid. at 4344. 13 Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963). Nixon: As far as the Supreme Court is concerned, our right to 14 Thomas, supra. freely exercise our religious beliefs and practices probably never 15 Ibid. has been better protected. 1b/bid., quoting Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 215 (1972). Consider three key cases: Sherbert, Yoder, and Thomas. Not all 17 /bid. the Justices have been on the Supreme Court since Sherbert was I8 /bid. at 4345. 19 Yoder, supra, at n. 16. decided in 1963. But here's how they've voted in the cases in which 20 Thomas, supra. they have participated. 21 Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599 (1961). The Chief Justice—a conservative—supported free exercise of 22 Thomas, supra. at 4346. religion and wrote decisions for the majority in Thomas and Yoder. 73 433 U.S. 63 (1977). Give him a perfect score. 24 Nottelson v. Smith Steel Workers, 25 F.E.P. Cases 281 (7th Cir. 1981).

22 September/October, 1981 HOLY CITY Chnst of the gWichitas

Does a religious monument on federal property violate separation of church and state?

theists may not believe in the Holy life Range of Southwestern Oklahoma. The granted to the Association allows. The City, but the American Civil Liberties 151-acre formation has been used each permit, which expires in 1982, effectively A Union (ACLU) does. And they're Easter morning for the past 55 years to keeps other religious and nonreligious determined it s not going to be the exclu- depict the life of Christ. groups from equal use of the land. sive property of any one religious group. To position such religious artifacts on Reaction to the ACLU suit has, as one The ACLU's interest in Holy City (Okla- federal property, the professor felt, was a might expect, been vehement and not homa, that is) followed a visit to the site by a violation of church and state. The ACLU entirely credible. Inside a small chapel on professor from Akron, Ohio. He was agreed, and filed suit against the United the Holy City site is a petition addressed to driving through the Oklahoma Game Pre- States Interior Department and Secretary the federal government and signed by serve last spring when he saw the 23-foot James G. Watts, both to stop all religious visitors from all over the United States. It marble statue of the Christ of the Wichitas. activity on public land and to bar the Eastern The monument, he noted, did not stand on Sunrise Service Association from having church property but near a natural amphi- exclusive use of the land for a long period of Maxine Bamburg is a housewife and a theater within the Wichita Mountain Wild- time, such as the twenty-year permit free-lance author in Tuttle, Oklahoma.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JULIE MCBRIDE 23

LIBERTY HOL Y

Previous page: Noah's ark, with a view of the storm-ridden city in the back- ground. Inset: Mailbox that stands at the entrance to the Holy City. This page: Pilate's court. Left inset: A sign on Herod's court, which would have to come down if the ACLU wins its lawsuit. Right inset: Atop Pilate's court. Lower left: Stable and manger used in the birth of Christ scene. Middle: One of the many crosses dotting the Holy City. Lower right: A tablet that greets visitors at the entrance of the city.

contends that a ruling in favor of ACLU would be a violation of the First Amend- ment and could affect: • Cross, Star of David, and Crescent use in national cemeteries. • Scriptural texts in or on public build- ings. • Chaplain corps in the armed services. • "In God We Trust" on coinage. • "One Nation Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. • Indian religious symbols, such as the thunderbird. The Oklahoma Congressional Delegation has introduced bills into the United States House and Senate that would convey ninety acres and the buildings on them to the Wichita Mountain Easter Sunrise Service Association. If the Association should discontinue its programs, the land would revert to government ownership. * * * Twenty-five years ago I attended the sunrise services for the first time. Through- out the damp and chilly night, I squirmed from one uncomfortable position to another on the rocky hillside. Where I sat, the Indian chief Geronimo had stood his ground against federal troops; later, frontier-day outlaws had disappeared into the wilds. As I became enthralled by the beauty of each scene from Jesus' life, I forgot both the history of the spot and the hard, rocky ground. As the first streaks of dawn touched the eastern sky, the stone was rolled from the tomb and strains of "Nearer My God to Thee" echoed through the mountains. I seemed to be alone on the hillside with God. At that moment, for me, as for countless others through the years, the site became truly a holy city. ❑

24 September/October, 1981 C I T Y

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FOR AlroRnanon IIMIRE AC CHE OFFICE

25 LIBERTY

dramatic personality change" as contrasted state in church affairs. with "gradual change such as that which Last year a U.S. District Court agreed might result from maturation or educa- with the Unification Church's position, International tion." A second provision would require a striking down the provisions of the law that person seeking custody to show that the applied to churches, while leaving the law personality change is the result of a "per- in effect for nonreligious charities. In son's having undergone an indoctrinational January, 1981, the Eighth Circuit Court of thought reform program practiced by a Appeals ruled that any exemption from the Censorship Powers Proposed group." It would also have to be shown that accounting requirements must cover all for Cable TV Operators the "group has either misrepresented its religious groups, not just "well-estab- ALBANY, New York—Should cable true identity or misrepresented the nature of lished" religions. television operators be able to ban sexually the activities that one will participate in or "The statutory discrimination between explicit and violent programs from their be subjected to." such organizations smacks of 'religious channels? The bill has been criticized as a threat to gerrymandering,' an apparently intentional A proposed law would give cable opera- religious freedom by the New York Civil favoritism for the religious organizations tors greater control over what may be Liberties Union and several religious obtaining some but less than half their funds broadcast on their public access channels, groups, including the American Jewish from the public," the appeals court wrote. which, by law, must be available to anyone Committee and the New York Conference The state contended that the disputed within their franchise who requests air time. of the Seventh-day Adventists. provision was part of a comprehensive Many channels, particularly those in New scheme designed to prevent "fraudulent York City, have been used by private Nude Dancing Protected and deceptive practices" in charitable solic- individuals to present sexually explicit by the First Amendment itations. shows. WASHINGTON—Nude dancing is a Roloff Wins Licensing Under present law, cable companies may form of expression protected by the First not "prohibit or limit" any programs Amendment, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Exemption in Texas submitted to their leased, public access, or in a 7 to 2 decision. CORPUS CHRISTI—A judge has ruled educational channels. The proposed law The case Schad v. Borough of Mount that the Reverend Lester Roloff's homes for would give them the right to "prohibit or Ephraim reversed the convictions of two wayward children were part of his church limit presentation of patently offensive former owners of an adult bookstore in and thus exempt from state licensing violence, obscenity, indecency, or profan- Mount Ephraim, New Jersey, who were requirements. ity." fined $300 each for a coin-operated peep- The decision by Judge Charles Matthews hole that, for 25 cents, allowed customers to ends the fiery fundamentalist minister's Lawmakers Having Trouble view a live nude dancer. eight-year run of courtroom appearances to Drafting Anti-Cult Bills Lower courts had upheld a borough oppose state attempts to shut down his zoning ordinance that listed all permitted three homes unless they conformed to ALBANY, New York—Three years activities in the town and expressly license rules. after the Jonestown massacre shocked the excluded anything not mentioned. The Roloff's victory is something of a mile- public into awareness of the potential Camden County Court had ruled that since stone for fundamentalists across the country danger of cults, legislators have had singu- "live entertainment" of any kind was not who have fought to exempt their schools lar lack of success in writing any kind of mentioned in the zoning law, it was, from government regulation on grounds that "anticult" laws that pass constitutional therefore, illegal. That ruling was upheld by the state has no jurisdiction over church muster. the appellate division of the New Jersey activity. Even attempts to define what a "cult" is Superior Court. have run into all kinds of legal snags. A new But the majority ruling of the U.S. Book-banning Bid in Carolina tack lawmakers are taking is to skirt the Supreme Court, written by Justice Byron R. Has Little Effect, Say Officials definition of cults and focus on the type of White, said that entertainment falls within behavioral changes that would be consid- First Amendment protection, and that CHARLOTTE, North Carolina—School ered dangerous enough to warrant the court "nudity alone does not place otherwise officials say efforts by conservatives to ban giving relatives custody of persons involved protected material outside the mantle of the some books from North Carolina schools is with cults. First Amendment." having little effect in the state. A proposed bill in New York provides "We've had some people visit our leeway for any relative to make application Court Agrees to Rule on materials center, and we've given them for custody—even a child of a parent who copies of the books in question," said Tom may have gone off to join a cult. The bill is a Church Financial Disclosure Davis, spokesman for the North Carolina revised version of a measure that passed last WASHINGTON—The U.S. Supreme Department of Public Instruction. "And we year but was vetoed by Gov. Hugh Carey. Court has agreed to decide whether a state sent a letter to school superintendents Proposed by Assemblyman Howard Lasher can examine the financial records of a suggesting that they review the guidelines (D.-Brooklyn) and Sen. Joseph Pisani church that receives more than half its for investigating book complaints." Davis (R.-New Rochelle), the 1981 version has income from public solicitations. said the state has not taken any books off the set up a three-part test for judges to use to At issue is a 1978 Minnesota law which recommended list as a result of the pressure. determine whether a person has been held that charities and churches soliciting However, in several cities, books have deceptively recruited into and "brain- funds had to file financial disclosure state- been taken off the library shelves of schools washed" by a cult. ments. Sun Myung Moon's Unification because parents complained that they con- The proposed law would require showing Church challenged the law as unconstitu- tained objectionable language or were anti- that a person "has undergone a sudden and tional on the grounds that it entangled the family or anti-Christian.

26 September/October, 1981

ethnic origin. Can any prayer that leaves letter points to other nuances, e.g., Jesus out of the picture be acceptable to the "Does God hear every prayer of a Jew?" Father? Ultimately, however, his concerns Letters GERHOLD L. LEMKE point far wider. They raise the issue of Confessional Lutheran Pastor what is sometimes called saving knowl- Sturgis, South Dakota edge as they touch on the masses of non-Christians in the world. What that is The Author Replies is another—and big!—topic, and from Voice of Dissent To try to play God is a tricky business. Lemke's letter I suspect that we do not In answer to William G. Johnsson's Only God knows if He hears the prayer of see eye to eye. While we both uphold the article ("Does God Hear the Prayer of a a Jew—or for that matter, of Bill Johns- primacy of Jesus Christ as the Saviour of Jew?" March-April, 1981), I must say that son or Gerhold Lemke. So the best we the world, I would point to Christ as He a story half told is no story at all. mortals can do is to search God's revela- who lightens all (John 1:9). I would leave Instead of telling us about the oneness of tion in the Scriptures to test Bailey more to God as the One who alone can God, Johnsson should have followed up on Smith's proposition. Obviously, Lemke judge the heart. Only God can tell the full his quotation of Isaiah 45:20; 46:5-7, by and I differ in the answer we find there. story.—William G. Johnsson. discussing our triune God's reaction to the First, however, let me mention impor- prayers of unbelievers who insist on praying tant ideas that we hold in common. In my Augustine's City of God to many gods. If Christ is our only Mediator article I stated the conviction that "Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5), can the Father accept the is the God-man, the Saviour of man- I must take exception to a statement prayers of those who willfully reject His kind." Taking up points suggested by appearing in J. W. Jepson's "God and Son's mediation? Johnsson might have Lemke, I would elaborate on this state- Country" (May-June, 1981): "Rome discussed John 14:6. ment by agreeing with him that Christ is wielded power in the name of Christianity. Instead of telling us about the "oneness the only Mediator and the narrow way, When it fell, Augustine mourned over it as of humanity" with a quotation from Acts the good news of whose salvation is to be the 'city of God.' " This is a serious 17:26, 28, Johnsson should have noted proclaimed to all (I spent 15 years as a misreading of history. Jesus' words in Matthew 7:13, 14. He missionary in India!). Augustine of Hippo, unlike other Church should have told us whether or not God I also share Lemke's concern to set up Fathers such as Jerome, did not lament over hears the prayers of any who reject His some sort of limits to God's hearing of the sack of Rome in 410 by Alaric and his invitation to salvation (1 Tim. 2:4) by prayers. Although he found my bounda- Visigoth warriors. On the contrary, Augus- choosing the "broad way, that leadeth to ries—''sincere prayer," further tine asserted that Rome was but a point on destruction." explained as "those who seek Him with the historical timeline. In fact, the "City of Johnsson came close to the truth with his all their heart"—apparently too wide for God" enabled Augustine to propound a mention of the fact that God "heard the his liking, at least we can agree that there Christian philosophy of history that stressed prayer of the humble tax collector over the are limits. The parable of the Pharisee Providence and was lineal, not cyclical like proud Pharisee." He should have told us and the tax collector sharply exposes classical pagan historiography. This was whether or not God heard the Pharisee's those limits, as Lemke has rightly shown. misinterpreted by the later medieval papacy prayer. If not, then he might have tried to Yet I think that in a crucial aspect he with its absolute identification of the visi- convince us that the Christless faith of those distorts the meaning of the parable. ble, institutional church with the civitas dei; who practice Judaism today differs in some Lemke moves from the Pharisee of the nevertheless, all Christians owe a tremen- way from the wrong faith of those who parable to "the Christless faith of those dous intellectual debt to Augustine. He did opposed the apostle Paul, as in Acts 14:19; who practice Judaism today." not equate the city of God with any earthly 25:1-3. Apparently he expects us to equate the institution. If God "hears every sincere prayer," can latter with those mentioned earlier, HARRY ROSENBERG Johnsson prove that the proud Pharisee's "who willfully reject His Son's media- Professor of History prayer wasn't sincere? One might also draw tion" and "who reject His invitation to Colorado State University some conclusions from Matthew 23:13ff. salvation." At the end of his article, Johnsson leaves But the parable cannot be made to the reader with the impression that anyone address the need for specifically Chris- A Presbyterian Point of View who agrees with Bailey Smith's original tian faith. It cannot open up the issue of I would like to respond to the entire statement concerning the prayers of Jews is God's response "to the prayers voiced by contents of the January-February, 1981, either uninformed, unwise, or religiously non-Christians of whatever ethnic ori- issue from the viewpoint of a Reformed bigoted. Why can't there be another possi- gin." The parable is about humility, as Presbyterian. I was born into the Scottish bility: that he is concerned about identifying its punchline shows: "For every one who Convenanter emigrant sect, which became anyone, Jew or Gentile, who needs to hear exalts himself will be humbled, but he in 1798 the Reformed Presbytery of the saving gospel? Paul's motive in Ro- who humbles himself will be exalted" America. My education shaped me into a mans, chapters 9 to 11—love for lost (Luke 18:14, R.S.V.). So the Pharisee's loyal defender of the Christian State ideal- souls—should be our own. Romans 9:8 prayer failed; as verse 11 says, he prayed ism, which represents the kind of Christian shouldn't be overlooked. "with himself"—not to God! zeal LIBERTY opposes. Finally, in the article's accompanying Smith's remark, "God does not hear This tradition so gripped my faith that as a box "Shalom," it would have been better to the prayer of a Jew," can be understood young man I once called on the Governor of note that Bailey Smith also said on one in several ways. I addressed what is Kansas to present our ideal. He apparently occasion that the real issue is whether or not surely the most volatile interpretation of feared me as a crackpot and sent me to the God responds favorably to the prayers it, viz., "God does not hear the prayer of office of the Chief Justice of the Kansas voiced by any non-Christian of whatever a Jew because he is a Jew." Lemke's Supreme Court. I had a spirited discussion

27 LIBERTY

with the Chief Justice, who lost his cool and that were posted had not or would not be Computers Don't Argue—Indeed! harangued me as though I were a criminal removed. The contrary is true. We have "Computers Don't Argue" (January- before the jury. Later I was chosen by the now secured compliance with the decision February, 1981) should be hand-delivered denomination to head the Christian Amend- to every corporate executivized, computer- ment Movement, and I worked as a ized, dehumanized company in the country. registered lobbyist in Washington, D.C. The article graphically prophesied what I am disturbed by this issue's progressive must surely be my fate in dealing with a impact by sensational articles to make the publishing company. A case in point. My reader hate all Christian efforts, no matter father and I live on the same road and share how mild and nonviolent, to Christianize the same name, except that he's Jr. and I'm the political life of this nation. The unquali- rel.) --114141141441mi the third. I've gone to the trouble of fied association of the Ku Klux Klan securing house numbers for us, though we terrorists with the NRA (National Reform live on a rural route, and I gave my place an Association), Christian Voice, Moral unusual name, always included with my Majority, and Washington for Jesus in one address, in order to differentiate our identi- judgmental bag strikes me as a bit unfair, if ties. To no avail. not malicious. My father has a lifetime subscription to Toward the end of the issue's progressive the Reader's Digest. Last year Dad pur- hatchet job on Christian patriotism comes chased gift subscriptions for his four chil- Pettibone's exposé of the NRA. As a dren, and that's when the computer's lifelong student of this history, I find mind—or whatever a computer thinks nothing new in his material except his with—snapped, suffered severe data shock, theory that the modern Fundamentalist or simply died and was replaced with a political crusade is a reincarnation of the old younger model that had total disregard for NRA. I find them quite different. Indeed, the past 41 years of loving care and service most moderns are utterly ignorant of that to my family. nineteenth-century political activism. As a way of thanking my father for the Would it be rather that Christian con- of the United States Supreme Court in al gift subscriptions, the computer erased his sciences under similar national apostasy and but a few Kentucky counties. Recently the name from its memory bank and inscribed immorality take identical steps to preach superintendent of Jefferson County (Louis- mine in its place. Monthly publications and God's Word to a sinful nation? ville) Schools, the largest school district in other advertised material suddenly stopped Pettibone makes fun of the NRA use of the state, ordered the removal of the arriving at his home—and guess who's "separation of church and state" in con- placards from every classroom. getting them now. I've been inundated. nection with their ambition to amend the Despite the zeal of the advocates for a And, of course, along with each new, U.S. Constitution to confess Christianity! state-sponsored religion in Kentucky, the exciting, and unasked for delivery is a cold, Actually, we are not as stupid as he school boards are now realizing that they numerically scrawled, computerized "love imagines. Separation of church organiza- have a duty to teach our children a respect letter" that asks, "Your remittance, tions from government was prior to, and for the law. I have no doubt that religion will please." fundamental cause of, the First Amend- survive that decision. As I pen this letter, the web is yet to be ment, not a sudden rejection of the whole WILLIAM CAMERON STONE, ESQ. untangled. Personal letters and phone calls Christian faith. The nonestablishment of Louisville, Kentucky to the vice-president have failed to pierce religion meant an ecclesiastical organized the galvanized mind of the computer. religion, and the Constitution was framed Trivial Ten George Orwell, how could you publish with the ideal of letting the separate states 1984? Just look what you've done! Madison settle the established-church problem I am here "smack dab" in the middle of Avenue thought it was a computer manual. instead of the Federal Government. the "Bible Belt." DuPuy's "The Trivial George, are you there? G-E-O-R-G-E! Our Scottish Covenanter ancestors bled Ten" is probably the most sensible article I WILLIAM L. FULTON III and died in Scotland from 1680 to 1688 have seen regarding this current problem. I Sjaelland Haus because they refused to yield to the king on am sick and tired of some religious nut Owensboro, Kentucky their principle "Jesus Christ alone is king trying to force any book, including the and head of the kirk." Do you think we are Bible, down my child's throat. I think it is unfaithful now to that idea? my duty and responsibility as a parent to Misunderstanding the Mormons S. E. BOYLE teach my child right and wrong, together Bill Hall ("Yesterday's Minorities: How Winter Park, Florida with other basic religious principles, until Quickly We Forget," March-April, 1981) he or she arrives at an age to make his own shows a complete misunderstanding of the decision. I resent such a function being basic tenets of the Mormon Church. If he Trivial Ten Taken Down assumed by the schools—with my tax had looked at three teachings, he may have As attorney for the successful litigants in money, against my will. I do not send my reached a different conclusion. Stone v. Graham, I was especially child to the classroom to pray, read the 1. The Constitution of the United States interested in Robert K. DuPuy's fine article Bible, or otherwise engage in religious was formed by inspired men. As long as we "The Trivial Ten" (May-June, 1981). activities. The home and the church are the live righteously we have little to fear. I was concerned, however, that the reader proper places for such. 2. No one shall force his views on might have been left with the impression JOHN W. MURPHY, JR., ESQ. another. Let each believe what he may. This that the copies of the Ten Commandments Liberty, Kentucky is called man's Free Agency.

28 September/October, 1981

3. "We believe in being subject to then so are morals and standards, and all indoctrination, they have proved every bit kings, presidents, rulers, magistrates, in that is left is decay and anarchy. Let's not as efficacious. obeying, honoring, and sustaining the push the virtues of religion too far into the If a parody, the letter is poignant, if law." background where they become invisible intended seriously, it stands as indictment Elder Tom Perry surely understands and and ineffective. of the self-deluding danger to religious practices these principles. I would also GENE B. WELLING, D.D.S. freedom that occurs when we forget that affirm we should not permit minority Eureka, California every religion is a minority, every faith a religions, races, or peoples to dictate what "cult" by someone's standards. we should believe. This country was All must be safe to practice the freedom founded upon Christian principles, and the Doyle's Cults of faith—or none are. courts have not changed this fact. The letter from Arthur Doyle (March- J. F. M. SAMORE, ESQ. HENRY F. SHARP April, 1981) listing thirteen "important Sioux City, Iowa Temple, Pennsylvania characteristics" of "destructive cults" was both amusing and intriguing. I was both amused and aghast at Arthur No authority from the Mormon Church Quite obviously, every "characteristic" Doyle's letter. As I read his thirteen would want to deprive minorities of their listed applies equally to historical practices characteristics of "destructive cults," it legal rights, nor would they want to join the of virtually every mainstream Christian seemed immediately clear to me that most state with religion. When, however, reli- church. Oh, the techniques may be slightly of these characteristics clearly described gion is completely divorced from the state, more subtle, but through effective cultural such familiar institutions as the military, my three years in law school, and even such established religions as the Catholic One Nation Under God Church. The mythology of the "destructive cults" is one of the most serious threats to religious liberties in America today. Every religious organization must be judged on its own behavior and merit. If religious people violate laws and exploit others, then let the legal penalties be imposed. But let us not create a new minority en masse of the "destructive cults." DAVID C. HAGAR, ESQ. Director of Legal Affairs Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity

Speaking Out on Political Issues I want to express my gratitude for the creative discussion of such a misrepresented topic ("From the Moral Minority: A Post- Election Reflection," March-April, 1981). 0 It is regretful that such sound advice could 0 only be recognized in a post-election situation. From my vantage point, I have noticed an Sleepy-eyed students open another day with the Pledge of Allegiance. Most unfortunate decline in voter participation schools include the patriotic ritual each morning. among the Adventist ranks, especially youth. Too few have recognized the words The otherwise excellent short article on That Was One Nation, Under God, Indivisi- of the apostle Paul: "For there is no power the back cover of LIBERTY'S January-Febru- ble" is thought-provoking in many areas, but of God: the powers that be are ordained ary issue contains one defect in the title: the interesting question to me is why of God" (Rom. 13:1). With such an "One Nation, Under God." The official Prochnow correctly quotes the Pledge of understanding should we as individuals not version of the Pledge does not contain a Allegiance in the title and incorrectly quotes strive to promote the welfare of others? comma after the word nation. This is not as it in his last sentence. If, in the short space I am pleased by Mr. Shield's stance that trivial a matter as it may seem. The four of six paragraphs, Prochnow forgets to to speak "out on political issues is certainly words together express one thought. They place "under God" in the Pledge of a more mature religious posture than turning should be printed without a comma and Allegiance, perhaps he is correct that future one's back on historical reality." It is spoken without a pause. tourists will have no knowledge of what indeed a privilege to participate in a W. CLARK HANNA, ESQ. was, at one time, "one nation, under God, democracy! Philadelphia, Pennsylvania indivisible with liberty and justice for all." Whether we consider ourselves a "moral ROY BENTON ALLEN, JR., ESQ. majority" or a "moral minority," it While Prochnow's article "The Glory Tifton, Georgia becomes imperative to exercise our moral responsibilities to a dying world through the

29 LIBERTY

legislative process. It is necessary that we That Texas Wedding Smith was writing from the perspective of a jilted lover. His apparent defection to express our love not only to God but toward "If any man can show just cause why another denomination seemed to be reflec- His institutions as well. these two should not be united, let him tive of the attitude of the one of whom he speak now, or forever hold his peace." ROBERT A. JACKSON wrote to give credence to his article. What a President, Young Republicans "The Great Texas Wedding" (January- pity that we can't see the mote floating in February, 1981) was seemingly a fine piece Pacific Union College our eye when it is so apparent in another's. of writing until I realized that Gene Kile- Angwin, California Let me suggest that Mr. Smith go into the Word of God and reflect on the beauty of the greatest wedding of all—between Christ and His church. The bride is not finished being prepared. It is not our responsibility to fashion her. That is the task of the Holy Spirit. Several million Southern Baptists are a part of the bride. They are not all Judas-spir- ited people. Most are God-fearing, con- cerned-about-America folk. As for Kristofferson's weak justification for living a life that allows him to suggest that the hippie role would be one assumed by Jesus—forget it. Our, Lord would dress like any modern-day carpenter. The impor- tant truth is that we would still nail Him to a tree. It is for that reason alone we need to say to the world that there is hope, but not in the New Right or the Old Left or the Humdrum-in-Between. Our hope is in Him . . . "the same yesterday, and to day and for ever." LYNN E. LAMB Pastor First Baptist Southern Church La Junta, California Moving?

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'"Cratisiardastsv....ww ' meal* r..a5 City State Zip WONA) LET* GET ON WITH 'THE CRUCIFIXION-PS To subscribe to LIBERTY check rate below and fill in your name and address above. Is This the Moral Majority? relatives back into the closet. Payment must accompany order. E I year $4.25 These are the ten commandments of the 6. Thou shall have abortions for the Moral Majority circulating in our area: rich only. Mail to: 1. Thou shall give more money to TV 7. Thou shall forbid public spending LIBERTY subscriptions, 6856 Eastern preachers and less to thy local church. for birth control for the poor. Ave., NW. Washington, D.C. 20012. 8. Thou shall build more hydrogen 2. Thou shall have a handgun in every ATTACH LABEL HERE for address hand. bombs for Christ. change or inquiry. If moving, list new ad- 3. Thou shall get back the Panama 9. Thou shall support the death penalty. dress above. Note: your subscription ex- Canal. 10. Thou shall cut thy local church and piration date (issue, year) is given at upper 4. Thou shall have a Christian prayer in send more money to the TV preachers. right of label. Example: 0382L1 would end every schoolroom. MILDRED HURLBURT with third (May-June) issue of 1982. 5. Thou shall put thine homosexual Constantia, New York

30 September/October, 1981

most dangerous religion in the world." between "religious" and "secular." Many humanists also are quick to claim Some secular humanists treat their beliefs their philosophy encompasses religious like religion. Weddings and funerals can be Perspective values. "I believe secular humanists must performed by "humanist counselors." And challenge this image of `unspiritualness' secular humanists claim devotion to their and also challenge the supernaturalists' near philosophy exceeding that of conventional monopoly on the words spiritual and theists. wrote Rodney B. Farmer in The Religion and Secular Humanism: religious," On the other hand, fundamentalist groups Humanist. Some humanists profess adher- are obviously getting more involved in Who Gets the Schoolroom? ence to "theistic" humanism, which insists secular activities, campaigning on a variety A reader told us recently, "I would like to on human values, but "all within the of nonreligious issues, from nuclear power see LIBERTY more carefully edited to framework of a supernaturalistic philoso- to the Panama Canal. remove the meaningless phrase 'religion of phy." And each accuses the other of putting secular humanism.' If humanism is a Humanist Maslow once wrote that spirit- religion into the schools. Humanists call the religion, it is not secular; if secular, it is not ual values "are not the exclusive possession Creation hypothesis religious "rubbish." a religion." of organized churches," and thus "teaching And fundamentalists denounce evolution as Is the question merely one of semantics? values in the schools need not breach the "another religion—dogmatically taught." Are religion and humanism mutu- wall of separation between church and So whose religion is to be kept out of the ally exclusive? Or is humanism a religion state." public schools? after all? Is it to be chased out of public What about the separation of religion and The answer seems simple. Everyone's. classrooms along with Christianity? state? "We believe that public schools are In reality, that's virtually impossible. According to outspoken critic Phyllis required to be religiously neutral," says Teachers can hardly help bringing the bias Schafly, humanism is a secular religion. Edd Doerr, member of the American of their philosophical convictions into the Fundamentalists consider humanism "an Humanist Association, who works for classrooms. So what's a parent to do? atheistic religion that dominates the public Americans United for Separation of Church Rather than trying to convince the school schools, many churches, and much of and State. board of his beliefs, he would do better to American culture." Tim LaHaye, evangeli- The difficulty comes, it seems, in the stay home and convince his children.— cal author and pastor, calls humanism "the increasing blurring of the demarcation D. G. N.

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The Clown Roland R. Hegstad 2 Roland R. Hegstad—Editor

The Selling of Alberto Betty Gibson 5 B. B. Beach, Gordon Engen, John N. Morgan, Gary M. Ross—Associate "Give Me the Liberty to Know . ." Judith T and William J. Parr 8 Editors Debra Gainer Nelson—Editorial Every Man to His Own Taste Samuel D. Estep 9 Associate The Compelling Power of Love F M. Wilcox 11 Harry Knox and Associates— Layout and Design Sunday Laws? Bah! Humbug! Daniel J. Drazen 12 Lowell L. Bock, Theodore Carcich, Alf Morality and the Media: Questions With Lohne, Neal C. Wilson—Consulting No Easy Answers Albert J. Menendez 14 Editors Robert Smith—Circulation God's Hand in History Gary M. Ross 18 Robert W. Nixon—Legal Advisor It's Your Religious Freedom 20 Edmund M. Peterson—Marketing Christ of the Wichitas Maxine Bamburg 23

DEPARTMENTS International 26 Letters 27 Perspective 31

LIBERTY is a publication of the Religious Liberty Association of America and the Seventh-day Adventist Church. published and copyrighted O 1981 The Review and Herald Publishing Association. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part by permission only. The Religious Liberty Association of America was organized in 1889 by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Dedicated to the preservation of religious freedom, the association advocates no political or economic theories. President. Neal C. Wilson; general director, B. B. Beach; associate directors. Gordon Engen, Roland R. Hegstad, John N. Mor- gan, Gary M. Ross. LIBERTY correspondence only: Please send to LIBERTY, 6840 Eastern Avenue NW.. Washington, D.C. 20012. Address corrections only: Please send to LIBERTY. 6856 Eastern Avenue NW., Washington. D.C. 20012.

31 DEHUMANIZATION td he trouble with this wide-open pornography T . . . is not that it corrupts but that it desensitizes; not that it unleashes the passions but that it cripples the emotions; not that it encourages a mature attitude but that it is a reversion to infantile obsessions; not that it removes the blinders but that it distorts the view. Prowess is proclaimed but love is denied. What we have is not liberation but dehumanization."

Norman Cousins, The Saturday Review, September 20, 1975.