[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 120 (Sunday, August 21, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 21, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                        A TIMELY CALL FOR FAITH

                                 ______


                            HON. DICK SWETT

                            of new hampshire

                    in the house of representatives

                        Sunday, August 21, 1994

  Mr. SWETT. Mr. Speaker, the divided, adversarial debate on crime and 
health care legislation on the Hill has had a negative impact on more 
than just the American public. Members of Congress who are more 
interested in solving problems than partisan politics are experiencing 
the very same frustration. So, yesterday morning at dawn I just had to 
take a run down to the Lincoln Memorial to read the inspiring 
inscriptions within.
  How trivial the differences of today all become when compared to the 
epic issues of the Civil War. The puffed up pride of legislators seems 
almost comedic when compared to the humble, efficient eloquence of 
President Lincoln. Two qualities are missing in today's tirades for or 
against crime and health care bills which are very evident in the words 
of President Lincoln. Humility and subordination to the Divinity. Just 
as our leader who saved the Union could humbly confess his inability to 
solve all the problems and called upon God for guidance, we too, could 
gain a great deal by employing his example. I left the memorial that 
early morning refreshed and rejuvenated.
  On July 6, 1994, an op-ed piece appeared in the Washington Post by 
William Raspberry entitled ``Havel's Message of a `Forgotten 
Awareness''' which describes Havel's Fourth of July speech in 
Philadelphia. The article clearly evokes the spirit of Lincoln as it 
speaks of a gnawing emptiness that has expanded across the land. I was 
so impressed by this article that I felt compelled to have it entered 
into the Congressional Record for all to read and profit by. I hope 
this article has the same effect on those who read it as my visit to 
the Lincoln Memorial had on me.

               [From the Washington, Post, July 6, 1994]

                Havel's Message of a Forgotten Awareness

                         (By William Raspberry)

       American intellectuals of the left seem (once again) to be 
     dealing themselves out of the political and cultural action. 
     I first noticed this when they abandoned patriotism (Remember 
     when a flag in the lapel was taken as a sign that the wearer 
     was an ignorant vahoo?) Then they--a lot of them, anyway--
     abandoned traditional morality, leaving it to those thought 
     to be too weak-willed to make their own decisions. Now 
     they're abandoning religion to the tender mercies of the 
     religious right.
       No matter that intellectualizing has not produced solutions 
     to the problems that have so many of us in fear for our 
     lives; no matter that more and more people find their lives 
     emptier and emptier; no matter that the dreaded Christian 
     right is making political inroads precisely because it has 
     learned to speak to that emptiness. Intellectuals still find 
     it hard to respect religion--or to respect anyone who does.
       That's one reason Vaclav Havel's Fourth of July speech in 
     Philadelphia strikes me as particularly timely and important.
       Havel, president of the Czech Republic, human rights 
     champion and certified intellectual, told his audience that 
     despite the prosperity and physical comfort modern 
     civilization has produced, ``the world of our experiences 
     seems chaotic, disconnected, confusing * * *. We do not know 
     exactly what to do with ourselves.'' Experts and 
     intellectuals are more capable than over of explaining the 
     objective world, he said, ``yet we understand our own lives 
     less and less.''
       What is missing? Just this, says Havel: ``The awareness of 
     our being anchored in the earth and the universe, the 
     awareness that we are not here alone nor for ourselves alone, 
     but that we are an integral part of higher, mysterious 
     entities against whom it is not advisable to blaspheme. This 
     forgotten awareness is encoded in all religions. All cultures 
     anticipate it in various forms. It is one of the things that 
     form the basis of man's understanding of himself, of his 
     place in the world and, ultimately, of the world as such.''
       The Havel formulation recalls something Robert N. Bellah 
     wrote more than a quarter of a century ago in an essay he 
     called ``Civil Religion in America.''
       The burden of that piece, which proceeded from an analysis 
     of President Kennedy's 1961 inaugural address, was that there 
     is a ``civil religion'' quite apart from the denominational 
     specifies of individual churches. Thus Kennedy could call 
     upon his fellow Americans to acknowledge that ``God's work 
     must truly be our own'' while avoiding, as inappropriate 
     to the occasion, any specific reference to Christianity or 
     Roman Catholicism.
       Bellah's civil religion, which sounds a lot like Havel's 
     ``forgotten awareness,'' is as old as the republic and 
     comprises ``a collection of beliefs, symbols and rituals with 
     respect to sacred things'' that overarches specific 
     doctrines. As he put it: ``This religion--there seems no 
     other word for it--while not antithetical to and indeed 
     sharing much in common with Christianity, was neither 
     sectarian nor in any specific sense Christian.''
       What Bellah described was not simply ``religion in 
     general'' or religion purged of its doctrinal specifics in 
     order to avoid hurting anyone's feelings. He was talking 
     about the religion that is so clearly there in the 
     formulations of the Founders. The separation clause of the 
     First Amendment seems designed to prevent the establishment 
     of a particular brand of religion, not, as present-day 
     jurisprudence has it, to purge our civic and political life 
     of religion altogether.
       The failure to make the distinction is costing us dearly. 
     On the domestic side, we cannot lift people to a higher 
     vision of themselves, cannot fix their dependency or reduce 
     their violence because we cannot officially acknowledge, or 
     permit the government to fund, the spiritual regeneration 
     that may be the only true solution.
       Havel, in Philadelphia to receive the Liberty Medal, spoke 
     to the international side. ``Politicians at international 
     forums may reiterate a thousand times that the basis of the 
     new world order must be universal respect for human rights,'' 
     he said. ``But it will mean nothing as long as this 
     imperative does not derive from the respect of the miracle of 
     being, the miracle of the universe, the miracle of nature, 
     the miracle of our own existence.
       ``Only someone who submits to the authority of the 
     universal order * * * can genuinely value himself and his 
     neighbors, and thus honor their rights as well.''
       The Founders saw these truths as self-evident. Today's 
     intellectuals are more likely to see them as matters of 
     superstition.
       Pity.

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