In “The Separation of Church and State,” Carter raises an interesting point of view about religion and the government. Mainly he asserts that over time we have forgotten that separation of church and state is supposed to protect religion from the state rather than how we think of it today as protecting the state from religion. Carter says separation of church and state does not ban religiously motivated people from being active in government.
Early in his essay, Carter provides a scenario about a Christian minister who could not receive any government funding for his drug-rehabilitation program. In this program the staff prayed for the dug abusers and taught the abusers to pray as well. This example reminds me of a program to help the homeless in Dayton. My sister volunteered there with my church youth group once or twice. This program is called the “Gospel Mission,” and homeless people can get a hot meal if they go to the church service. There are also basketball courts and other activities the people can enjoy. Now I am not sure if this organization receives government funding or not, but as Carter addressed and as we discusses a little in class, should programs like this receive government funding?
Obviously the church group that runs the program is religiously motivated, and the homeless people must go to the church service if they want a meal there. But where’s the harm in this? I argue that programs such as the Gospel Mission, or the drug-rehabilitation program that Carter talks about, should be able to receive government funding. These types of programs, in my opinion, do no harm. The programs like the Gospel Mission get homeless people off the streets, into a safe warm building, and provide a good meal and relaxing atmosphere. While they have to go to a church service, I see no harm in this either. There are other places that these people could get a meal, and they choose to come to that place anyways. Still, some of the main ideas in the Christian faith encourage people to be kind to others, and to not murder people or steal. Where is the harm in that?
I understand the argument that if the government funds a Christian based program, then aren’t they hindering the success of another religion? But I do not really believe this is a valid argument. As long as the government would provide funding for all programs that help out the general good of its citizens, without discriminating between what religions each program is motivated by, I feel like this is only advancing each religion and the good of the government’s people.
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3 comments:
may be interested -- supreme court dealing with this now
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17383014/
Very quickly I'll play devil's advocate: what if Wiccins wanted to provide those services and in so doing would also "spread the word" about their religion -- would people be ok with that? Would taxpayers want to fun the Wiccans so they could proseletyze to the needy?
How about Mormons? Scientologists?
I see what you are trying to argue, and I agree that, probably, people would not be ok with programs that helped people but were religiously motivated by Wiccans. Yet, in order to stay consistant, I think that programs similar to the Christian Gospel Mission but Wiccan motivated should be able to recieve government funding as well. As long as there is some non-religious benefit to the program and there is another nonreligious option for people from which to recieve help, then this is ok. Now if a Wiccan program was the only option for help, or similarly the Christian program the only option, there would be a problem with that and taxpayers could understandably be upset by this.
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