PLGRM

Last week, my state decided to approve the first publicly funded religious charter school with a split vote by the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board.

“Oklahomans support religious liberty for all and support an increasingly innovative educational system that expands choice,” [Oklahoma Gov. Kevin] Stitt said in a statement. “Today, with the nation watching, our state showed that we will not stand for religious discrimination.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/05/oklahoma-approves-public-religious-charter-school-00100269

One would think that, as an ordained pastor, I would be in favor of something like this.

I am not.

My primary objections maybe aren’t ones you’ve heard before. It’s not about “religious liberty” (which Gov. Stitt invoked). It’s not that the pilgrims who came to the United States were seeking a place where they could actually be free from the church and the state being intertwined. And it’s not that I have some utopian ideal that the best way for people of different faiths to get along is to make sure our public spaces are free of any kind of intrusion of one faith upon another.

Nope. My objections, you’ll be interested to learn, are all about religious superiority. Specifically, I think my version of religion is better than others.

WHAT?

Let me back up.

As an ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church, I do not believe that my religious faith has a monopoly on the truth about God’s love. My faith says God is bigger and more compassionate than anything you or I can imagine. It is not hard for me to conceive that God’s Spirit moves where it will, and in various times and places it has inspired people to live in such a way that they exhibit the qualities of what Christians call the Fruit of the Spirit.

But religion and faith are two different things.

Logically, if we have to open public funding to religious organizations, we have to open to all religious organizations. That means we will, necessarily, have to fund organizations which I believe are fundamentally detrimental to the world. 

Religion is a loose category and can mean a lot of things. I think a fair way of defining “religion” is:

A system of beliefs, practices, and values relating to the cosmos and supernatural.

I can imagine the existence of religious groups that I find absolutely offensive, but meet the criteria of a religion. (Actually, I don’t have to imagine it. I could name some if pressed.)

Some may say “Well, then, we’ll just draw a line and decide which religions get funding and which don’t.” But who’s going to make that decision? Who becomes the authority to decide what religions are worth our public investment and what religions are not? At that point the adjudication of religious impulses and expressions is lodged with some entity other than members of the various religions themselves.

As an ordained Presbyterian pastor, I cannot – in any way – support that.

First, I cannot in good conscience agree to financially support religious groups I believe are harmful and detrimental to the world. In the church I serve, we say that all people are “Always Already Loved by God.” We believe there are no exceptions to that truth. And, yet, there are Christian churches right now working to deny the dignity and worth of LGBTQ+ people, women, and people of color, and people of other faiths.

My Christian faith will not allow me to support the work of those churches.

Secondly, if we, the American people, have to decide which religions are worthy of receiving public tax payer funds, it makes logical sense that the government be given the responsibility to make those decisions.

Giving the government control over any aspect of religious expression is a fundamental violation of what my denomination teaches and what I have sworn to live by and teach myself.

Here’s an excerpt from a theological statement that helps guide my life and work:

“Fear God. Honor the emperor.” (I Peter 2:17.)

Scripture tells us that, in the as yet unredeemed world in which the Church also exists, the State has by divine appointment the task of providing for justice and peace. [It fulfills this task] by means of the threat and exercise of force, according to the measure of human judgment and human ability. The Church acknowledges the benefit of this divine appointment in gratitude and reverence before him. It calls to mind the Kingdom of God, God’s commandment and righteousness, and thereby the responsibility both of rulers and of the ruled. It trusts and obeys the power of the Word by which God upholds all things.

We reject the false doctrine, as though the State, over and beyond its special commission, should and could become the single and totalitarian order of human life, thus fulfilling the Church’s vocation as well.

We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church, over and beyond its special commission, should and could appropriate the characteristics, the tasks, and the dignity of the State, thus itself becoming an organ of the State.

The Theological Declaration of Barmen

Through this decision by the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, the door has been opened for the government to begin “fulfilling the church’s vocation” and for the Church to become “an organ of the State.”

Again, I think my religion is superior to both the government and exclusionary religious expressions. I cannot and will not support this decision.