thursday, march 20, 1980
daily ncbraskan
page 5
0te?s fi His edlita
Continued from Page 4
In his letter to the editor of March 12th,
Mr. Donald Swanson made certain state
ments with regard to the Student Court's
decision in the "Josh Case' which need
elaboration and clarification.
Mr. Swanson is certainly correct in one
respect: total separation between church
and state is impossible, however desirable
such a fact would be to many of us. This is
clearly recognized in the Constitution itself
in the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
In addition, many Federal Court decisions
attest to the fact as well.
The Constitution is very clear in the
question of taxing the citizens of this
country to support any religious group for
the direct purpose of that group's evangel'
izing mission. It seems to me that this
problem -and only this problem -was the
one addressed in the Student Court's deci
sion. To use a university building to pro
vide Josh McDowell with a forum for his
own brand of preaching and the use of the
campus mails to spread the word of his
coming was a clear violation of the consti
tutional rights of all students of this univer
sity and the citizens of this state.
I would like to address Mr. Swanson 's
more polemical statements, too. To assume
that the "spirit" of the law with regard to
religion and education was intended to
apply only to the education of "immature
and impressionable" children and not to
those of us who are older and should know
better is both a gross non sequitur and a
perversion and distortion of the concepts
"spirit of the law" and "letter of the law."
To assume that only children and not
adults need the protection of the Constitu
tion and the laws is ingenuous, at best. It
is also dangerous as well. ,
'The Student Court's decision does hot
jeopardize the concept of the university as
a 4imarket place of ideas." Rather it en
, forces that important concept. But since
Mr. Swanson likes to blur legal distinctions
it should come as no surprise that he blurs
logical ones as well.
There is a -clear and evident distinction
between studying religions and religious
ideas as objective phenomena and in ex
tending the supporting arm of the state
(the University in this instance) to evangel
ical dogmatizing and preaching. The study
of religion has a long-if not exactly
honorable-tradition in the humanities and
no part of the Student Court's decision is
likely to change that.
We all agree, I believe, that the absence
of religious studies would leave a huge gap
in the liberal arts curriculum at this univer
sity. But NU, or any secular university for
that matter, is not some Ilinky Dinky of
the intellectual world where we wheel our
mental marketbaskets filling them up with
the goodies that only please our senses of
smell, taste and sight, while neglecting the
demands of intellectual nutrition.
In this respect religion and religious
studies requires no special treatment or
handling by scholars and students, for
religion, too, must submit to the methods
of rigorous science and logical inquiry de
rived from the natural and human sciences.
This mind recognizes as valid only one
universal, namely, rational thought itself.
But it is at this point-rational thought
and logic-that Mr. Swanson and the
minions of Josh McDowell find the weak
est link in their rusty chain of arguments
and where they are unwilling and unable
to do battle.
Charles M. Schofield
Graduate-Philosophy and Education
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