Divine Comedy
Amy Rowe Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Jay Wexler, Holy Hullabaloos: A Road Trip to the Battlegrounds of the Church/State Wars (Boston: Beacon Press, 2009). 272pp.
I first met Jay Wexler in 2006 at an international conference on Law and Religion in Transitional Societies held in Oslo, Norway. Though I recognize the value of such conferences in creating a forum for discussion of a sensitive topic, I also must admit that I find them invariably dull. When Wexler took the podium, his tweed suit, bow tie, and tortoise shell glasses were the very image of the stodgy academic. His message, however, was surprisingly accessible. He described two statutes protecting religious freedom in the U.S. and concluded with a simple lesson for other countries in drafting their own religious freedom laws: do like statute A, not like statute B. (I later enjoyed a bus ride with Wexler in which we discussed everything from Dungeons and Dragons to the now-defunct Spy magazine, for which he once wrote an article that included the nutritional importance of riboflavin.)
I should not have been surprised, then, when Wexler's new book, Holy Hullabaloos: A Road Trip to the Battlegrounds of the Church/State Wars, defied my expectations. Despite its dry subject matter, the book is an engaging and frequently funny travelogue across the U.S. to the locations of landmark Supreme Court cases. He visits a Hasidic Jewish community in New York that was allowed to establish itself as an independent school district; a Wisconsin town in which Amish families were exempted from compulsory education laws; a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Texas capitol that prompted a lawsuit by a homeless lawyer; a Creation Museum in Kentucky with animatronic dinosaurs and Bible characters; and many other locations emblematic of key Supreme Court decisions.
Wexler knows his subject matter well: he teaches law and religion at Boston University and was a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. But his mastery of the topic never results in dry, impenetrable text. Instead, he employs a wide range of offbeat tactics to keep his material interesting: quizzes, self-deprecating asides, even imaginary dialogue between Supreme Court justices (in which they eat jerky, wear fedoras, and give one another high-fives). For all his dry wit and wackiness, Wexler manages to convey the great complexity of modern American church-state history, and its resulting imperfections and oddities. Understanding these inconsistencies in American law may prove especially valuable for those who work in the arena of international religious freedom, encouraging humility and self-reflection.
Perhaps the most provocative content for such reflection is the chapter on the Senate prayers conducted by the Senate chaplain. Wexler explains that his initial view of these prayers, which open each session of the Senate, was that they were just another example of harmless "ceremonial deism," like the national motto or national days of prayer. However, after observing the prayers, meeting the Senate chaplain, and learning more about his role, Wexler comes to believe that they are "far more dangerous to our constitutional system of church/state separation than I had ever thought." His argument is mostly convincing: because there is only one chaplain, representing only one faith perspective (Protestant Christianity), who wields a significant influence over senators who consult him about issues both personal and political, the chaplaincy thus threatens to infuse public policy with religious dogma.
Unfortunately, Wexler's argument in this section is at times clouded by hypothetical scenarios in which the chaplain's advice leads to religious conversion and foreign policy based on Christian theology. Since Wexler concedes early in the book that it is perfectly appropriate, and perhaps even beneficial, for "citizens, legislators, or even presidents . . . [to consult] their religious beliefs when making decisions about public policy," his hypotheticals feel somewhat alarmist, and they miss the point. The constitutional threat is not the religious content or consequences of the chaplain's advice, but that the advice is being dispensed by someone endorsed by the federal government. Whatever one concludes about the appropriateness of the Senate chaplaincy, however, the issue clearly demonstrates that even in a religiously free country like America, the separation of church from state is far from absolute. And the forces that prevent complete separation—culture, tradition, and politics—are so powerful that Wexler reluctantly accedes, "Senate prayer, led by a Christian chaplain, is here to stay."
These forces of culture, tradition, and politics also hamper religious freedom progress in other countries around the world. Religious diversity, much less freedom, is a cultural and historical anomaly in many societies. Moreover, the officials charged with drafting or reforming laws on religion face numerous political and practical challenges: uneducated bureaucrats; insufficient communication and transportation channels (by which to disseminate news of policy changes); divided ethnic, geographic, and political loyalties; and others. With these difficulties, is it any wonder that religious freedom reform is slow-going and spasmodic, that new laws are often contradictory and inadequate, when countries begin the long process of making themselves more religiously free? Holy Hullabaloos shows that America's modern history has often been just as fitful, a helpful and humbling reminder to human rights advocates when interacting with other countries in the early stages of institutionalizing religious freedom.
Though Wexler's elucidation of church-state law offers many lessons, his sensitive treatment of religion is the real feat of the book. Wexler's sensitivity is undoubtedly influenced by his master's in religious studies from the University of Chicago Divinity School, as well as his experience as a Jewish student in a Catholic high school. Though he makes no secret of his own atheism (with a "slight Taoist bent"), he writes about religious people, beliefs, and practices with unexpected nuance and understanding. In a book that includes Santeria animal sacrifice and young-Earth creationists, depictions of religion could easily descend into caricature. Instead, they are refreshingly respectful. Such treatment is a welcome divergence from the polarizing discussions of religion and politics in recent years, when public discourse on the subject was more often marked by condescension and belligerence (think James Dobson or Christopher Hitchens). Wexler's treatment of this divisive subject is not only refreshing, but instructive: humor and geniality go a long way in diffusing tempers and inviting frank dialogue.
Even in what is arguably the least generous section of the book—his trip to Kentucky's Creation Museum—Wexler apologizes for his occasional mockery and then concludes:
Call me "overly reasonable" or "too nice a guy" if you want, but I just don't feel that dismissing a massive portion of our national population [those who believe in creationism] as insane or unworthy of our attention is a very healthy way to act in a democracy.
Instead, what I think we should do is treat creationists with some teasing that occasionally creeps over to snarkiness, work as hard as we can to stop creationism from influencing our public policy (sweet lord, I do not want "creation scientists" determining how public money should be spent on medical or scientific research), but ultimately recognize that those who reject evolution are citizens just like us who are entitled to our respect, even if we disagree fundamentally with what they believe. And if there is anything we can do within the realm of public policy that can signal this respect without causing tangible harm, we should to that too, if for no other reason than it might go some way toward promoting civic peace.
Whether or not one agrees with Wexler on the role of creationism in public policy, his conclusion on the issue models a robust religious pluralism, one in which divergent faith perspectives neither ignore their significant differences nor use them as an excuse to deny respectful dialogue.
Just last month, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Salazar v. Buono regarding a cross erected as a national monument on a parcel of land in the Mojave National Preserve. The Court's decision in this case will almost certainly evoke anger, confusion, and passionate debate about the role of religion in society. Amidst the controversy, respectful pluralism of the kind Wexler describes will be more needed than ever. As he puts it in an early chapter: "Regardless of our beliefs . . . we should all seek to inject our voices into the public square, and we shouldn't shy away from making our most fundamental views known to our fellow citizens. If we try, we might be able to create a public square that is truly inclusive." And if more people read Holy Hullabaloos, we might also laugh a bit more in the process.