Religious liberty and freedom itself rise and fall together, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham emphasized in his lecture on Sept. 26 at Gammage Auditorium at Arizona State University. The author of American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers and the Making of a Nation sought a middle ground in the current polemics and polarization of American religion.Religious liberty and freedom itself rise and fall together, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham emphasized in his lecture on Sept. 26 at Gammage Auditorium at Arizona State University. The author of American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers and the Making of a Nation sought a middle ground in the current polemics and polarization of American religion.In his talk, the 2006 free public lecture in the Jonathan and Maxine Marshall Distinguished Lecture Series, Meacham said too much is made of tolerance, but not enough on allowing respectable public debate on religious ideas, a discipline that serves to strengthen religious liberty. His examination of American history has turned up clear patterns of religion co-existing with the political realm through mutual understanding. Meacham told how President John Tyler (1841-1845) penned a proclamation, after the death of President William Henry Harrison, who scarcely was in office a month. He called America a Christian people and asked them to pray for Harrison. It prompted a private letter of objection from a Jew from Virginia, Jacob Ezekiel, saying the president should not be so limiting. Tyler realized his mistake and changed his thinking. It was to his everlasting credit that he admitted he was wrong, Meacham said. People understand that at the heart of the American religious tradition there has been a history of fair play and a simple feeling that when in doubt, do the right thing — be fair and treat one another as you would wish to be treated, Meacham explained. Despite fierce differences through the decades, I think history bears out that when we are driven by motives that are partly religious and partly political and partly altruistic, we get the right result.The magazine editor said it is futile to separate religion and politics because both are people-centered. He suggested applying a Madisonian test and determining the forces at work. Is there a religious argument for something? Is there a partisan argument for something? Is there more of a historical or ideological argument something.He said those on both the American religious right and left grouse that events, public policy and culture are unfolding to their detriment — that a Trojan horse has entered the public square full the forces that will forever doom them. Whether the right thinks the Bible and prayer have been taken out of schools or the left is certain the Supreme Court has become a pawn for religious conservatives, there is a healthy stand off and a genius in the American system to prevent aberrations. We are called by our American traditions, and I think by our religious and moral ones, he said, to listen to one another and respond to Rodney Kings cry, Cant we all just get along? Meacham said, There is much to be said for a democratic covenant in which leaders are honest with us, transparent about their motives and why they are proposing what they are proposing. That covenant works when the public demands accountability.In a way, religion becomes one thread in the tapestry, not the whole tapestry, he said in the lecture underwritten by the Marshalls, former owners of the Scottsdale Progress, a forerunner of the Scottsdale Tribune.

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