Keep your prayers to yourself?

...But the fact that he appeals directly to the league---tbe private "government" in this case---to take the matter in hand cannot help but make his argument end up seeming very different from what it first appears...

...The notion that it might be the responsibility of the one giving offense to take the feelings of religious people into account is scarcely given consideration...

...At a time when the breakdown of even the most elementary moral standards in our everyday dealings with one another is so evident, it takes a particularly doctrinaire mind to see in public expressions of piety only a threat to the sensibilities of those who do not share the faith being expressed...

...The only conversions he [or she] cares about are extra points...

...And try as we might, we have a hard time doing anything else because we know, intuitively (for reasons that go far deeper than just our "backgrounds"), that it would be a mistake to do otherwise...

...Prayer in a public school (especially on the part of a teacher or some other authority figure) raises one kind of issue and the display of a creche or a Menorah in a public square a somewhat different one...

...This is what I believe needs to be done in considering the sort of issue that is posed by people who think as Reilly does...

...The praying was "deafening" this past season, he writes...

...Especially is this so, too, when someone like Reilly appeals for aprohibition of the practice that gives offense...

...The grounds for doing so, however, are very shaky, and they become progressively more so the more aggressively the case is pressed...

...Especially when such acts are accompanied by behavior, on and off the field, that reflects a conscientious effort to live out the faith being expressed...

...So inappropriate, in fact, that Reilly wants the NFL to "curtail" it, and if they won't, he advises the networks to delete it from their coverage...

...he substance of the discussion I have in mind would turn on much more than just examining what may give offense...

...No entanglement of "church" and "state" is involved...

...No tax dollars are involved--not in the usual sense at least...

...There is no mistaking, moreover, the extent to which this way of thinking is fast becoming, among those who hold it, more than just an opinion, or one more point of view...

...In the eyes of those who think along these lines, the willingness to avoid giving any cause for offense to people holding other beliefs is, for all intents and purposes, what toleration in the realm of religion is all about...

...Unless, moreover, people were willing to forego altogether making--and enforcing---prescriptive judgments about how others behaved, it would have to be acknowledged that an active concern for the quality of our common life would be something to which all citizens were entitled...

...And if so, to what extent...

...In a season marked by many ostentatious on-field displays of piety by National Football League players and coaches, the 1991 Super Bowl became an occasion for yet another round of orchestrated public religiosity...

...The firm insistence that anything else would be "wrong" is the product of a mentality that is prepared to make it a litmus test of democratic good faith...

...That doesn't settle anything...

...For that clearly is what the argument implies...

...It would be one thing if we were still living at a time when the Enlightenment belief that emancipating people from the shackles of "superstition" would make them unambiguously better was still just an idea, yet to be tested by experience...

...Sports lllustratedmay require him to be present, but that too is a matter of personal choice...

...And such cases need to be treated accordingly...

...But we do not live in such a time...

...Imposing one's beliefs on a captive audience" is so wrong--even "irreligious," by Reilly's understanding of the matter--that it deserves to be banned...

...In the process, it brought to the Surface the predictable reaction to public displays of piety that, sooner or later, somebody like Reilly always raises...

...For it amounts to a denial of the very thing that toleration is supposed to provide---the freedom for people to express themselves as they choose...

...Why not treat such athletes as examples of the role models that we keep saying our young people need...

...It would have to be acknowledged that the definition of what is important is itself something on which people are almost certainly going to hold diverse views...

...For the complex interconnectedness of modern life is such that the strategy of avoidance has to be considered, if it is taken at all seriously, as a recipe for social isolation...

...There is, after all, something very narcissistic about presuming to dictate standards of behavior in public events on the basis of nothing more than one's own feelings...

...He is moved to write because of the way in which he--and other kindred spirits--react to being exposed to public expressions of piety by people performing in an event which I R. BRUCE DOUGLASS, associate professor in the department of government at Georgetown University, is most recently the co-editor of Liberalism and the Good (Routledge, 1990...

...Just yesterday, it seems, the issue was whether it was justified for tax dollars to be used to underwrite in any direct way the exercise of religion...

...Sure, athletes are entitled to freedom of religion like anybody else," he goes on, "but let them exercise it on their own time...

...Presumably, in public life just as in private, there are occasions when the fault lies every bit as much (if not more) with the one taking offense as it does with the offending party...

...Sometimes deeply so...

...Reilly, however, chooses to see what is at stake as a matter of coercion...

...Why not take them as evidence of a refreshing alternative to the obsessive self-absorption and greed that characterize so much of what goes on in professional sports in this country, and invite others to follow suit...

...It would be just as wrong "for Jewish players to conduct services at the far hash mark or for Muslim players to place prayer rugs under a goalpost and face Mecca...

...Furthermore, it makes sense to have an open mind about this at a time when we are so manifestly uncertain--with good reason-about the moral (not to speak of spiritual) quality of the life that we share...

...It is not just, therefore, a mark of bad faith that we are having such a hard time being consistent in what we say and do about toleration...

...Or it shouldn't, at least...

...The thing that also needs to be taken into account is what other effects the act in question might produce...

...It would be one thing if he appealed to the players to refrain voluntarily from the acts that get under his skin...

...Especially not to go out of our way to do so...

...But what is involved is "public space," in the looser, but by no means inconsequential, sense of the common culture...

...Those who are asked to be broad-minded about offenses to things that matter to them are being asked to act as though it didn't matter what others thought and did and what influences people are exposed to...

...But are they justified in doing so...

...However, more is at stake in what takes place on (and around) the playing fields than the fate of the games themselves...

...Reilly's sentiment is hardly unique...

...Just who is it, one has to wonder, that is being intolerant to whom...

...We tell ourselves, for example, that we' re limiting speech f o r the sake o f toleration...

...Almost regardless of the severity of the offense that is inflicted, the onus is put on them to adapt and adjust...

...What's the difference...

...Why not see in prayers on the fifty-yard-line evidence of an antidote to the social irresponsibility that professional athletes all too often display...

...In fact, they are usually on the other side in their concern, arguing that freedom of expression is what is at stake and nothing is more important than its protection...

...He makes it clear that the prohibition should apply across the board, to any and all believers...

...And the players who partook in the "elaborately orchestrated fifty-yard-line religious sales pitches" seemed to be oblivious to the fact that "a stadium full of people and a national television audience" were subjected to it "whether they liked it or not...

...But now the terms of the challenge have been expanded to encompass virtually the whole of our common life as a people...

...And if allowance were made, in turn, for shaping the contours of the common life to accommodate some of them, it would have to be made for others as well...

...So the question that always needs to be asked, whenever offense is in fact taken, is whether the offense is justified...

...But the fact that we can do no such thing--and arguably would be well advised to assume just the opposite--means that we are hardy in a position to dispense with resources that might be of help to us...

...The inconsistency with which this advice is applied is, however, only the beginning of what is problematic about it...

...For all that is "progressive" and "advanced" about the very secular way in which we now live, it can hardly be said that we are in a position to assert dogmatically that we no longer have any need for the civilizing effects that religious influences often provide...

...Though I am sometimes accused of not knowing the difference, I am generally able to keep the fate of the teams I follow in perspective, and look elsewhere for reflection on the things that truly matter in life...

...These days, respect for the sensibilities of others is bound to be a significant factor in any fair-minded consideration of what it is that we want the life that we share in common to be...

...For what is harmful to one may well be beneficial to another, and the only way to make sense fairly of what is at stake for all who are affected is to take into account the larger picture...

...Promotional" prayer, he says, is "wholly inappropriate to a sporting event...

...Anything less is a betrayal of our commitment to being a pluralistic society where diversity can flourish...

...So rather than directly face up to consequences that don't square with our intuitions about how it is that life ought to be lived, we engage in artful dodges of one sort or another...

...That Reilly's proposition has to do with something as fundamental as the right to make a public profession of religious conviction makes it all the more problematic...

...For sometimes the inability of people to practice what they preach is instructive, and it turns out to be a virtue instead of a vice...

...and the will to suppress the source of the experience is, no less surely, what intolerance is all about...

...They are counseled to he "broad-minded," meaning that they should respect the right of others to treat differently the symbols, beliefs, and practices that are sacred to them...

...he fact that sentiments of this sort can be articulated so matter-of-factly reveals how rapidly the terms of debate on this matter have changed...

...Especially is this true in the context of professional sports...

...Arguments that carry force in the one simply do not carry over, at least not directly, into the other...

...I was vividly reminded of this reading a column by Rick Reilly that appeared in Sports Illustrated (February 4, 1991...

...For as Reilly, above all, can appreciate, it's not that easy to absent oneself from offending influences in the wider society...

...But of course what matters in this regard is in the eye of the beholder...

...I say "predictable" because at this particular moment in our history we are caught up in a far-reaching process of rethinking the pluralistic character of our society, and prayers (or anything that passes for them) in public go to the heart of what that rethinking is all about...

...In cases of this sort, when a sacred symbol is desecrated, especially in a form construed as art, those whose sensibilities are offended are told, in effect, to swallow any injury they may feel...

...It's all right for athletes to engage in "fleeting, more or less reflexive displays of faith" (like crossing themselves, as Catholics have been doing for years), but nothing that might 14 June 1991:395 have the appearance of trying to induce conversion...

...The question is whether they are justified in reacting as they do, with such intensity, and more broadly, to carefully consider the ramifications of the policy they are proposing for the general public...

...Toleration thus becomes the highest good--the end above all others that is to be served in public life...

...These days it is more than all right to be concerned, for example, about the quality of our speech with respect to race and gender, but not with respect to religion...

...Up to a point, moreover, the sentiment on which this line of reasoning is based is one that is very widely shared in our society, even among believers...

...398: Commonweal...

...The abuse inflicted by racist and sexist currents in our speech (and other aspects of our behavior) is perceived to be of such overriding importance that they have to be expunged, even by enforced prohibitions, as some universities are now attempting...

...he has voluntarily chosen to attend...

...It would be one thing if we could take for granted a way of life whose capacity to bring out the best in us in this regard was assured...

...The other thing that can scarcely help but be noticed, moreover, is just how inconsistent our practice tends to be on this matter...

...It also means abandoning the character of the common life to whim and chance...

...One person's conception of the trivial is another's most pressing concern...

...The obvious question is why one should have to put up with such an imposition or to go along in the abdication of responsibility for the current state of the culture it entails...

...Few people, however, are really prepared to operate this way...

...Indeed, the gag rule proposed by Reilly could well he construed as the inverse of toleration...

...Surely there is more at stake, and surely there is more that deserves to be taken into account...

...For it is not enough just to know that they are offended by being exposed to the sight of prayer in public places...

...Would all of the relevant interests in fact be well served by the sort of policy Reilly has in mind...

...In a society that was truly devoted to respecting diversity, this would be taken into account...

...Though there is an element of that, the deeper reason is that our own good judgment gets in the way of being evenhanded...

...Toleration, however, is one thing, and submitting to what amounts to a gag rule is something else again...

...The problem, however, is that this is done so selectively...

...Although there is a natural tendency in popular discussion to treat all public manifestations of piety identically, they are not in fact all the same...

...This is a deep and complex issue, and getting more so all the time...

...But, of course, all of us (or almost all, at least) have things that we very much want to be viewed as off limits, and others that we want to be treated with special respect...

...Reilly, sitting in the press box, finds offensive the spectacle of people praying in public and he wants to be spared the ordeal...

...Expressions of personal religious conviction by public figures in a public setting are something else again, especially when they are not acting as "officials...

...Anything shared in common by the citizenry--whether it be football or the airwaves or a public building--is fair game for insisting on the silencing of religious expression of the kind that Reilly has in mind...

...For regardless of the value that we attach to toleration, there are other things that we value, too, and when the two are in conflict, we have the good sense to make the necessary adjustments...

...In this ecumenical age, there is a convergenee between the ethics of belief and the ethics of democratic practice...

...If anything that people choose to say or do is legitimate, nothing, by the same logic, is protected...

...For there is a world of difference, in practice as well as in principle, between public life in the formal juridical sense and the informal one that voluntary activities represent...

...Whether one is writing for a newspaper or teaching school or playing linebacker for the Giants, the expectation is that one will deliberately refrain from giving direct expression to one's most fundamental beliefs in so far as they are at all identifiably "religious...

...They can tune out or, better yet, go away...

...There is a lesson in this, moreover, and it has to do with a lot more than just the difficulty of being consistent...

...Indeed, all too often, the very same people who are on the cutting edge of toleration with respect to beliefs and practices in which they have little invested (proponents of artistic freedom, for example) will turn around and just as resolutely insist on the enforcement of standards in the things that matter to them (the language that people use to refer to women, blacks, and gays, for example...

...But submitting to such ordeals, and one can think of worse ones, surely has something to do, one would think, with what toleration is all about...

...There will always be someone, after all, who is prepared to take offense at even the worthiest of the things people do, and if we allow ourselves to get into the habit of thinking that the range of the permissible is defmed by the absence of the capacity to offend, we are almost certain to end up being diminished by it...

...I can demand (quite literally) that fairness and good taste be observed in certain cases, but just as certainly I am expected to refrain from making such demands in other cases...

...Or, if that standard seems a little severe, let them at least keep it innocuous...

...The readiness to remove any religious expression from public life, even against people's will (as ReiUy's argument reveals), is not uncommon, and it reflects the confidence that goes with its being taken for granted as an ethic...

...Regardless of what it is that they hold dear, they are expected to subordinate it to toleration...

...I know that there are people who are prepared to say this is the case...

...For the same people who are so concerned about the offense that is given by public expressions of piety generally couldn't care less about the sensibilities that are injured when piety itself is abused...

...Once upon a time people who thought as Reilly does were content to confine their arguments to cases of coercion in the strict, juridical sense...

...But there is no good reason, at the same time, why it should be allowed to dominate, so that other, (at least) equally important considerations end up being sacrificed...

...The issue obviously takes different forms in different settings...

...There is no mistaking the extent to which this is the sentiment that inspires much of the continuing campaign to secularize our public life...

...For, it means, almost inevitably, putting up with all sorts of behavior that is, from one point of view or another, offensive...

...and in this case, there is no reason to think that they are out of step with their members...

...Because sports figure so prominently in our way of life, they can scarcely help but become an arena in which larger issues end up being addressed...

...Columnist Reilly focuses almost entirely on this latter sort of display...

...They are convinced, apparently beyond the shadow of a doubt, that we as a people would be better off if our way of life were thoroughly secularized...

...Why not consider the matter, above all, with something more in mind than just the effect on one's own feelings...

...As far as Reilly is concerned, the average fan doesn't come to the stadium to be subjected to such religious indoctrination...

...On religious, almost as much as on political grounds, the presumption is against anything that smacks of intolerance, and even the much-ridiculed fundamentalists are increasingly inclined to go along...

...In one part of our public life after another, we hear believers being told to keep their religious convictions to themselves...

...And even a hint of an objection from those who feel themselves offended, ends in their being told that if they don't like what is being said or 396: Commonweal done, they don't have to listen or participate...

...Especially at this late date in the unfolding of the modem project, it is hardly to be taken for granted that they are...

...So we end up, typically, telling others to tolerate offenses to the things that matter to them while simultaneously insisting on dictating the limits of the permissible in the things that matter to us...

...In the main, the churches are squarely on record against the injustice of subjecting people to religious indocUrination against their will...

...It amounts, I think it has to be said, to little more than an assumption (made by some) that race and gender are a matter of greater urgency in our public life than religion...

...Indeed, it would be something that as a matter of good citizenship, they would be encouraged to have, and to act upon...

...Not by a long shot...

...Figuring out how to respond to the "If you ask me, there's such a thing as too much harp~" 14 June 1991:397 resulting claims on the conscience of the wider community would be understood, in turn, as what public life was all about...

...In everything from race to religion, we would seek to find ways of conducting ourselves that reflected genuine respect for the diversity of the goods we seek...

...Not unless one is willing to become a hermit...

...Take for example, the case of Andrew Serrano, the artist whose display of a crucifix in a beaker of urine caused such controversy a year ago...

...We want to live in a society that cherishes certain values and treats people in certain ways...

...I f the ideals by which we profess to live are themselves flawed, common sense gets in the way of living up to them...

...So instead of being encouraged to be indifferent to what others do and say, as though it didn't matter (which we know to be a lie), people would be encouraged to face up honestly to the differences they have and attempt to work through them to forge a mutually acceptable set of standards for their dealings with one another...

...Or, more precisely to the point, they are asked to place a higher value on the good of toleration than on the value that they attach to other goods...

...And we act on them---even to the point of seeking to regulate others' behavior...

...We don't put our critical faculties on hold, but instead make judgments about how people ought to live--judgments that carry unmistakable prescriptive force...

...Indeed, if it is given any thought at all, it is quickly dismissed as "repressive...

...And would our way of life really be a better one if it were purged of religious influences in the manner he envisions...