Rabbi Morton H. Pomerantz
Friday, Nov. 12, 2004

Although some voices of sanity, such as Rabbi Lapin, who heads Toward Tradition, cautioned that it was dangerous to find anti-Semitism in the film, secular Jewish expert after secular Jewish expert warned of dire consequences.

Story Continues Below

The film, according to these experts, was certain to inflame anti-Jewish feelings and gross Jew-hatred. The film was simply a step backward in relations between Christians and Jews.

Noteworthy by their absence are the mobs of angry Christians attacking Jewish people on the streets and burning down their houses. Indeed, it is difficult to find any deterioration whatsoever in relations between Christians and Jews attributable in any way to Gibson's film.

Christians saw in the movie what Gibson said he would offer to them — a graphic, dramatic presentation of the Passion of the Christ and the Resurrection, the central Christian account of redemption and salvation. Christians saw in this film nothing else.

What secularists saw in this movie was something far more dangerous than anti-Semitism. They saw Christian belief placed on the screen to motivate believers in their Christian faith.

To the secularist, anti-Semitism is not the enemy; Christianity is the enemy. What motivated the hysterical charges against the movie, which obviously did not carry a message of hate, was the fear, not that anti-Semitism would arise, but that Christianity would be promoted.

It is time that we face the fact that many an argument about separation of church and state has nothing to do with the Constitution of the United States and everything to do with hatred of religion. The enemy is Judeo-Christianity and it is not merely Christians, but Jews as well, who should be warned and appalled by the attacks on belief.

Our country was founded by believers. They expressed their belief in their Declaration of Independence and in the customs they adopted. George Washington had present at his Inaugural not only Protestant clergymen, but a Catholic priest and a rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue as well.

When he took the oath of office, President Washington added the words "so help me God." Every subsequent president has added those words on taking the oath of office. It is that fundamental belief which supports all the institutions and values of our nation, which is under attack by the secularists.

It is outrageous that we need Frosty the Snowman to validate the placing of Christmas symbols in the public squares and buildings of our nation.

It is enough that 87 percent of our citizens call themselves believing Christians that the signs and symbols of their religious beliefs be displayed with respect in places of honor.

Other religious groups should feel equally free to have their own independent religious displays on public grounds if they feel so inclined. No one is compelled to observe any religious practice with which he disagrees or in which he disbelieves.

No one contemplates or desires that anyone be dragged against his will to any church or synagogue with a pistol at his head. What is outrageous here is that people with clear religious convictions are being told to shut their mouths and keep their opinions to themselves.

That view is the most antithetical opinion to a society of people who believe and wish ultimately to express in public their belief.

A disturbing argument is that the phrase "under God" in our Pledge of Allegiance to the flag should be allowed because it is essentially a formula and tradition without explicit meaning.

Going back to our origins and to a civil war in the midst of which president Lincoln proclaimed a day of thanksgiving to God, it should be clear to an unbiased observer that the phrase "under God" should be a part of our pledge of allegiance because it means precisely what it says.

We are not about to banish the disbeliever, but by overwhelming numbers we mean to express our personal and collective belief in God in heaven and our responsibility as individuals and as a nation to do his will.

We justify our national existence on the grounds that our Creator made us - each and every one - free. We have no other excuse for existence as a nation, except perhaps force of habit.

The next time an expression of belief in Christianity - or, for that matter, Judaism - is subject to a withering attack because of hatred of religion, let us rally to the side of the believers.

Let us make it clear that we ask God's blessing upon our country, that we are a people that pray to our Redeemer and our Creator and that those who disbelieve either adjust to the fact that they are a slim minority or find some other country in which to live.

The hysteria that greeted Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" is a disturbing sign of the lengths to which the secularists will go.

It is long past the time for us to say that as a people we are basically believers and we respect one another's beliefs.

Editor's note: