Title: Stephen Carter Speaks to ELCA Lutherans ELCA NEWS SERVICE November 26, 1997 STEPHEN CARTER: SHOW THE WORLD HOW WE ARE DIFFERENT 97-35-104-RF "God doesn't want us to live our faith just for ourselves. God wants us to share with the world how different we are because of our Christian faith," constitutional scholar and best-selling author Dr. Stephen L. Carter told leaders gathered for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's "Making Christ Known" conference in Pittsburgh Nov. 21-23. "If we don't show the world how we are different because Christ is in our lives, we participate in the forces that have trivialized religion in America," Carter said. The award-winning author of best-sellers including "The Culture of Disbelief" and "Integrity" said that court rulings, educational methods, media biases and the expectations of public figures have combined to marginalize serious faith commitments. "The idea that you "put on" a religion has a remarkable and depressing currency in American life, even among people of faith themselves," Carter said. "To be a Christian, at minimum, means that God has changed our lives," he said. "We are different people than before we were Christians. When we go into the voting booth, we think (about issues) in different ways." "Christians," Carter said, "have spent too much time trying to convince the world 'We're just like you.' But if Christ is in you you're different -- at work, in how you raise your family, in public life." In rulings about religious expression in government workplaces, for example, the courts have made it clear that "if the government makes it too hard to practice your religion, that's just too bad. There are a lot of religions out there, you can pick another one" Carter said. The separation of church and state developed in the Constitution "exists to protect the church from the state," not the state from the church, he said. Religious commitment serves a democratic society because it is the only successful way of developing and transmitting the "shared moral convictions" that undergird public life and because it creates "a space of dissent" in which believers are able to question the society's common assumptions. The misperception of the Constitution's "wall of separation" is dangerous because it "denies the importance of filling that place in the soul that yearns for more," Carter said. "We are not just material creatures, we are spiritual creatures." If society allows only material ways of satisfying that yearning, "you create a gaping hole that people will fill any way that they can," whether with money, addictions or sexual gratification. "Religious liberty cannot possibly mean that," he said, but that is how society interprets the First Amendment. Carter said that while he does not read the Constitution to prohibit government from helping to fund religious education, he questioned whether Christian parents should accept such assistance if it is offered. "Everyone today wants to feed at the public trough," he said. "But the worst business to get into as a person of faith is trying to be like everyone else." He observed that the African American community are among the strongest supporters of vouchers and school prayer. "The black community fears that its children are being harmed by being pushed into bad schools with a deeply secular culture," he said. Carter said that he personally opposes school prayer because it interferes with a family's ability to determine the spiritual environment for its children. In an interview after his presentation, Carter said that evangelism should be grounded in the church's differences from society. "A lot of people say the church has to change its message," he said. But religion's strength lies in the "ability to stand fast in your beliefs while the world is changing. People need to find ways to project their faith into their lives in ways that make the connection between the loving God and the hole that is yearning to be filled." And to do that, he suggested that Christians need to look inside before condemning the world. "Churches are very good at articulating the evil out there," he said. "They are not as good at talking about how we as Christians live our lives." As an example he cited the public reaction to the recent birth of septuplets in Iowa. "We should be grateful for seven new souls in the world, reared by obviously religious parents," who have received an outpouring of help from corporations offering diapers, food, and furnishings, he said. "But there are thousands of children born every day who are also souls loved by God. Where are their gifts?" Corporations and the media often succumb to the celebrity inherent in such rare events while ignoring more everyday problems, he said. "When churches go down that road, they begin to lose their souls." For information contact: Ann Hafften, Director (773) 380-2958 or [log in to unmask] http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html