Brad Dickerson“With over 40 years of working in politics, and 22 years of actually holding political office, serving as a member of both the Illinois House and Senate, as lieutenant governor of Illinois, as a United States senator and even running in 1987 for the office of president of the United States; 72 year old Democrat Paul Simon stood tall behind every inch of his famous blue bowtie with white polka dots at the Thomas C. Hennings Memorial Lecture Monday afternoon in Graham Chapel.
The audience, though sparse, consisted of an older crowd of viewers, many of whom Simon represented during his terms serving for Illinois and who verbalized their appreciation for his leadership.
Simon prefaced his lecture with a short addendum on the current government’s position on campaign finance reform, and after stating that nothing substantial is going to occur this year in his opinon, went on to address his topic of “Religion and Public Life.”
Throughout the lecture, Simon addressed his feelings on how the government and religious organizations should handle the idea of separation between church and state through breaking down the barriers to other faiths within the individual. He drew generously from his own experiences in over 40 years of American politics.
“Religion can be a powerful force for good, or a powerful force for harm,” Simon opened his talk, expressing the idea that the Holocaust is an idea deeply ingrained in humanity that could not occur in Western Europe today. However, we allowed 800,000 to 1 million people to be slaughtered in Rwanda in 1994 in genocide, while the U.S. government apathetically stood aside and watched.
“Humanity is invisible and we have to stand up,” Simon said.
He cited examples from the past 100 years in politics to illustrate that the public is beginning to tolerate religious diversity in political issues. He used the example of the 1960 election, when the country asked the question as to whether the U.S. will be able to survive as a democracy with a Roman Catholic as president. However, in the 2000 vice-presidential election he said he did not hear a word about the fact that Joseph Lieberman was Jewish.
He also used the example of Utah electing a Mormon to the U.S. senate in 1903, when it took three years for him to be permanently seated. However, he cited how just recently in Afghanistan many Buddhist works of art were destroyed, and a factory in Ireland visited by former President Bill Clinton had separate entrances for Protestants and Catholics.
He stated that the most important problem is intolerance. When people go so far as to say, “These are my beliefs and I’m going to impose my beliefs on you,” then we have a problem.
He also stressed the need to stay away from people believing that they’re right and others are wrong does not necessarily mean that they are good and others are bad.
Another area Simon touched on is the idea of separation between church and state, saying that “Hardly anyone believes in absolute separation of church and state.” From this he led into President George W. Bush’s current faith based community inititatives that he claims dangerously nudge the barrier between the two. “I think that we have to enter this question with extreme caution,” Simon stated, warning that “We don’t want religious organizations running the governement,” and that the reverse is also true.
He used the example that people who belong to a mosque or a church are more successful in their efforts at rehabilitating from a drug addiction. This does not mean that they should run a clinic that would only treat members of its own faith. Rather, the church or mosque should form a separate organization that is not a vehicle for promoting dogma.
Simon also championed the Supreme Court on its necessary ambiguity in its stance on prayer in the classroom, using an example that would illustrate that selectively allowing students to practice prayer can bring differences to the forefront of the problem. “You can’t have a prayer that is forced on people,” is the official declaration of the Court.
Simon concluded his lecture advocating pluralism in American society in order to make it healthier in building a world of tolerance and understanding. He cited the fact that there are currently more Muslims than Presbyterians, and more Buddhists than Episcopalians in America today.
He acknowledged that even though we are moving toward tolerance, “It’s so easy to turn down the wrong path.”
“We all change history positively, or negatively, or through our indifference.”
Simon is also a prolific writer who has written 19 books, and currently is director of the Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale where he teaches political science and journalism, and continues to “find new ways to solve some very old problems,” according to Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton.
Before the lecture Monday afternoon, Wrighton awarded Senior Kate Rowe with the Rabbi Ferdinand M. Isserman Prize, an award given to an individual who has made a significant contribution to leadership and service, especially in ecumenical campus activities. Rowe has led many Catholic Student Center retreats and other initiatives, as well as acting as a Resident Adviser.