WASHINGTON (ABP) — A diverse group of leaders who often find themselves on opposite sides of the contentious battles at the intersection of church and state joined forces Jan. 12 to unveil an unprecedented consensus statement aimed at advancing public understanding of — and preventing needless controversy over — the legal issues around religious expression in the public square.
“In a free society, there will always be conflicts of principle and of interest,” said E.J. Dionne, a Washington Post columnist and Brookings Institution fellow who moderated a panel discussion featuring some of the document’s drafters. “But there are useful conflicts and useless conflicts…. Today’s document sets its face against useless arguments.”
Led by Wake Forest University Divinity School’s Center for Religion and Public Affairs, the document does not advocate a particular direction for future legislation and case law in regard to religious expression. Instead, it outlines what experts in church-state relations agree that the law currently says in an effort to stave off needlessly divisive debates and lawsuits.
The project evolved from a 2005 meeting in which experts, discussing several earlier joint statements that helped advance public understanding of rules governing religion in public schools, suggested a similar consensus document on what the law says about religious expression in the wider public square. Areas addressed include religion and politics; religious gatherings on government property; holiday or seasonal religious displays on government and private property; government-paid chaplains; and religion in the workplace.
“While this diverse group often disagrees about how the law should address legal issues, the drafters agree in many cases on what he law is today,” said Melissa Rogers, director of the Wake Forest center and a former general counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.
Fellow document drafter Colby May, senior counsel for the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, agreed. “What really brought us together is our shared conviction that religious liberty and the freedom of conscience are in fact fundamental — they are inalienable rights for all people,” he said.
The statement’s signers represent a wide swath of American religious life. Baptists supporting the project include Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission as well as Brent Walker and Holly Hollman of the Baptist Joint Committee — two organizations that often find themselves on opposing sides of church-state debates.
Groups represented by other drafters include the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Jewish Committee, the Islamic Networks Group, the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists and the Sikh Council on Religion and Education.
The statement can be read at http://divinity.wfu.edu/divinitylawstatement.pdf.