This one's for Joy

Whenever I write something about God – whether it’s questioning his or her existence, assailing those who do terrible things to others in his or her name or lamenting the fact that there’s really no such thing as separation of church and state in this country – I always worry that I’ll offend my friend Joy.

Joy and I have been friends for 15 years. We were estranged for a bit – I do the estrangement thing well, unfortunately – and we’ve grown apart in the past few years but we still communicate via the occasional Facebook post and she reads “What’s the Diehl?” sometimes, I think. She’s a good person and her faith is really important to her so whenever I write about religion, she’s always in the back of my mind.

Like now.

I received some snail mail yesterday from the Freedom from Religion Foundation, a pro-separation of church and state organization headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin. I had stumbled upon its website a week ago and requested one of its complimentary information packets. I was particularly interested in how this organization responds to the claim I hear all the time that the United States is a “Christian nation.” The foundation has an answer to that:

• The U.S. Constitution is a secular document. It contains no mention of “God” or “Christianity.” Its only references to religion are exclusionary, such as “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust” and “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

• The presidential oath of office, the only oath detailed in the Constitution, does not contain the phrase, “So help me God” or any requirement to swear on a bible.

• Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, was a Deist opposed to orthodox Christianity and the supernatural.

• The words “under God” did not appear in the Pledge of Allegiance until 1954, when Congress, under McCarthyism, inserted them.

• Congress mandated that “In God We Trust” appear on all currency only in 1955 and adopted it as our national motto in 1956. The original U.S. motto, chosen by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, is “E Pluribus Unum” (meaning “Of Many, One”), which celebrates plurality, not theocracy.

In other words, this is not an exclusively Christian nation.

And in a 2008 poll by the Barna Research Group, only 12 percent of Americans said religion was the most important thing in their life, compared with 45 percent who said family was paramount in their life and 17 percent who said money and their career were paramount.

So more Americans worship money than God. What a surprise. No wonder Wall Street is the center of attention right now.

The last time I referenced the Bearded One Who Floats on Clouds and Awards Grammys – I wrote a post entitled, “You take this one, Big Guy” in which I pointed out that given all the pain and suffering and violence in the world, now would be a good time for some divine intervention if there is such a thing – Joy suggested I survey religious leaders to get their take on the whole “Where is God when bad things happen?” question.

I assumed this had already been done so I googled the series of tubes but was distracted by a survey of Americans’ religious affiliations that popped up. Interestingly, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that most Americans are Evangelical Protestants (26.3 percent) and Catholics (23.9 percent). Just over 16 percent are “unaffiliated,” 1.7 percent are Jews, 0.7 percent are Jehovah’s Witnesses, and only 0.6 percent are Muslims.

Given how Fox “News” bashes Muslims all the time, I sure thought there were more than 0.6 percent of ‘em building mosques at Ground Zero and foisting Sharia Law upon us.

Another friend enhanced my last Facebook exchange with Joy by sharing a powerful anecdote about the time she was driving down the road, feeling sorry for herself and asking where God was, when another car pulled out of a synagogue parking lot – not Meijer’s or Costco but a temple – and slammed into hers, breaking her hand and reminding her, she said, to be grateful for what she had.

I try to be grateful every day. I guess I just don’t send my gratitude to some all-knowing white guy in flowing robes who lets children die and people like Dick Cheney grow old.

I promise I’ll get to that survey, Joy.