c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Sidney Schwarz is the founder of the E Pluribus Unum Project and president of the Washington Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values as well as the author of “Finding a Spiritual Home: How a New Generation of Jews Can Transform the American Synagogue” (Jossey-Bass).)

(UNDATED) It seems inevitable that the coming presidential contest will feature more than its share of arm-wrestling over which candidate is the most loyal soldier in God’s army.

In this campaign, we have already seen more public expressions of religiosity by candidates than ever before.

George W. Bush claims to have straightened his life out after finding Jesus and declared an official Texas “Jesus Day.” Al Gore has suggested an unprecedented partnership with some of the faith communities of America in advancing a social welfare agenda. And Joseph Lieberman is a devout Orthodox Jew whose first speech as a candidate mentioned God 13 times.

Many Americans get nervous when public officials begin to invoke religious themes in their platforms, fearful of an unhealthy mix of church and state. The electorate wonders what baggage a given candidate brings to policy debates over evolution, school prayer, abortion or the posting of the Ten Commandments in public buildings.

But the truth is that America is experiencing an unprecedented boom in religion and matters of the spirit. The religious and cultural diversity of America challenges our society to find new ways to accept different expressions of culture, faith and ethnicity without allowing any one to become coercive.

As director of the E Pluribus Unum Project, I have seen how sharing knowledge about religion can lead to acceptance of different views and an understanding of how people from various faiths can work together. For the past three years the EPU Project has brought together 60 Catholic, Protestant and Jewish entering college freshmen to explore their own faiths and those of the others.

Most had never had a detailed, reasoned discussion about religion with someone from a different religion, let alone a chance to observe and participate in their practices. But it became clear that as these students learned more about the justice traditions common to all religions, they became more committed to trying to apply the social teachings of their respective faith traditions to pressing policy issues such as human rights, poverty and the environment.

A recent study of our graduates found that this experience in religious pluralism led participants to take action to advance the common good as volunteers, activists and citizens. They felt a sense of obligation emerging from different religious teachings to act on behalf of the most vulnerable in society, echoing the call of the biblical prophets to protect the orphan, the widow and the stranger.

The very fact that this social ethic cut across religious boundaries lent the call the power of timeless truth.

This experience shows how the social teachings of historic faith communities, so often seen as a divisive force in society, can offer us the greatest hope for a more collaborative and cooperative commitment to the common good.

Religion can be used for good or for ill.

It is misused when people confuse ends and means, place doctrines over people, and accept injustice as divinely ordained and beyond the ability of humanity to affect. Good religion recognizes that there are many equally valid paths to God and it is our common responsibility to help every person since we are all made in the image of God.

Can people celebrate their unique identities without surrendering to the tendency to make exclusivist claims about their own truth? The maturity that eludes so many of us is the ability to realize that what is beautiful and true for one may not be embraced by others. But we can create settings in which people learn to appreciate and value alternate expressions of identity, ideology and faith.

It is only in this way that the growing “pluribus” of American life can support and not undermine the common “unum” of our civic culture.

DEA END SCHWARZ