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AU Supports "Government Aid" For the Desecration of Christ
By Roger A. Moran

   To clearly understand Americans United for Separation of Church and
State's hostility toward Christ and the organization's real agenda --
the suppression and isolation of Biblical Christianity -- one needs only
to look briefly at two speakers at the most recent conference of
Americans United (AU). AU's position of "strict separationist" in regard
to church/state matters forbids government support, involvement or
funding of anything "religious" -- directly or indirectly. Thus,
according to AU, government acknowledgment of Jesus Christ is absolutely
unconstitutional.

   This attitude was clearly exemplified as Bunnie Riedel (AU's Director
of Chapters and Faith Groups) described the kind of government
acknowledgment of Christ that must not be tolerated. Speaking to the
Chapter Leadership Training Seminar, the former Executive Director of
the Southern California Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights
described the event that led her to accept her current position with AU.
Ms. Riedel stated:

   "The reason why...I finally said, OK, I'll take this job (at
   AU)...I'd been struggling and I said -- God, I'm gonna need a sign
   on this one. I mean like a chariot of fire or a burning bush...and
   that was on Friday. On Monday morning, I got to my daughter's
   school, because it was the Christmas program, and every song was
   Jesus Jesus Jesus, Savior Savior Savior, Jesus Savior Jesus
   Savior. For myself, this is a personal statement, I do not
   appreciate the public school system teaching my children my faith.
   It's my faith, we will teach it at my church...I was so
   furious...I'm sure smoke was coming out of my nostrils...and all
   of a sudden I noticed -- ah -- I got a burning bush."

   Thus, Ms. Riedel accepted her position with AU to organize AU
chapters and "faith groups" in opposition to the sort of "government
support of religion" she had just encountered -- the singing of
Christmas songs at a Christmas program.

The National Endowment for the Arts Acknowledging Christ

   There is however, a form of government acknowledgement of Christ that
AU supports. Describing this form of "acknowledgment" at AU's National
Conference was Robert Peck, Legislative Counsel for the ACLU and a
member of AU's governing board.

   Speaking to the Madison-Jefferson Law and Theology Student Seminar,
Mr. Peck explained why religious conservatives should not be upset over
the government support and funding of religious expression through the
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

   The ACLU attorney referred to two pieces of "art," one dealing with
Christ immersed in a container of urine, the other depicting Christ
"injecting drugs into His veins." But strangely absent from the
speaker's comments was any mention of the possibility that the funding
of such "religious expression" might violate the ACLU's sacred principle
of separation of church and state. Mr. Peck stated:

   "The last two days I've actually been at another conference where
   I delivered a paper and chaired a discussion on religion and the
   arts. It was very interesting because what you had were people
   from the artistic community and people from the religious
   community gathered together sharing views. Inevitably, the
   discussion came down to certain kinds of artistic works and what
   they said about religion. For example, obviously, Andres Serrano's
   "piss christ" came into the discussion. One person immediately
   stood up and he found this blasphemous and that it was an insult
   to his Lord's passion. _Another person, who happened to be a
   minister from a Baptist church in New York, said actually he had
   looked upon the thing and he had seen nothing ever so beautiful as
   Christ in this amber glow. The fact was that he knew Serrano and
   he knew that the message he was trying to send was a deeply
   spiritual one -- that had to do with the fact that Christ is a
   part of all of us including our bodily fluids_...  So, it was
   clearly in the eyes of the beholder." (emphasis ours)

   AU has consistently applied their "wall of separation" between church
and state to any religious expression where Christ is acknowledged and
exalted. But at the same time, AU has consistently failed to apply their
"wall of separation" to government support, endorsement and funding of
anti-Christian "religious expression" where Christ is desecrated with
taxpayer money. (Further affirming this fact, in 1990 AU gave their
highest award, the Madison-Jefferson Award, to Congressman Pat Williams
in part for his congressional leadership in the re-funding of the NEA
and his firm stand against "censorship" of the NEA.)


  Resuming his discussion of the NEA, Mr. Peck continued:

  "Another person who was from a group regarded as a part of the
  Religious Right mentioned how it's very difficult to judge these
  things. For example, he said we had gotten something over our fax
  from the Rev. Donald Wildmon. It showed Christ injecting drugs into
  His veins. We were immediately, oh, horrified by this and thought
  that this was disgusting and horrible... And then I decided I would
  call an art friend of mine and say are you familiar with the work
  and could you explain it to me... Well, it turned out it was part
  of a collage...and indeed it was a part of a message that Christ
  was in all of them, even the person who is a drug addict. And as a
  result, he went back to the group that [had] gathered -- and [was]
  horrified by this drawing -- and they all thought this was
  beautiful then. A matter of perspective."

   Indeed, it is a matter of perspective. That Ms. Riedel was offended
to the point of smoking nostrils over the activities and content of the
public school's program -- singing Christmas songs at a Christmas
program -- was viewed as wonderful and normal at the AU conference. But
Christian parents who are concerned about the undermining of their
Christian faith through the teaching of radical sex education programs,
the teaching of evolution, moral relativism and some of the clearly
offensive required reading materials in the public schools, are
portrayed as radical Religious Right activists, "censors," and tyrants
over the human mind, bent on destroying public education.

   When we are told that a government funded piece of "art" depicting
Jesus in a container of urine is an effort to send a "deeply spiritual
message" and that "Christ injecting drugs into His veins" is somehow
"beautiful," yet Christmas songs with references to Jesus should make us
so furious that our nostrils begin to smoke, it's not difficult to
understand what Americans United for Separation of Church and State is
all about.

From: St. Louis MetroVoice, May 1995, Vol. 5, No. 5.