On September 27, 2000, an event took place at Franklin & Marshall College, site of a former brewery, located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. This event has been remembered as the Alan Keyes / Alan Dershowitz debate entitled:
"Does Organized Religion Hold Answers to the Problems of the 21st Century?"
The college organization that hosted this debate has a long and storied history. In 1835, the school's Debating Society was renamed Diagnothian Literary Society at the suggestion of seminary student Samuel Reed Fisher. In June of that year, Diagnothian was divided into two friendly rivals to encourage debate. Diagnothian retained its original name. The genesis of the name is not all that clear; one explanation is that it derives from a Greek term meaning "thorough knowledge." The new society was named Goethean, in honor of German philosopher and poet Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe.
It is interesting to note Von Goethe was born in 1749 and died at the age of eighty two years old, quite an achievement in those days as the average life span in the 18th century was 35 years and fifty was considered to be a ripe old age. He was rumored to have contracted syphilis as a young man, making his lifespan nothing short of remarkable.
This German poet, novelist, playwright, natural philosopher and courtier is highly regarded in the world of academia and is considered to be one of the most famous figures in western literature. He gained early fame with his novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), but he will be remembered forever by his two part, poetic drama, Faust. He was also interested in alchemy, a science devoted to the turning of lessor metals into silver and gold, an activity that was frowned upon by the Roman Catholic Church and the King of England. Goethe did influence 19th and 20th century abstract painters with his unorthodox theory of the character of light and color. In the spirit of his creativeness, the aforementioned debate society took this humanist writer and philosopher as it's patron saint, so to speak.
The two organizations have sponsored orations and debated politics, philosophy and literature. They merged together in 1955, but became separate entities again in 1989. The Diagnothian Society is the oldest student organization on campus.
The university offers around 84 student organizations with the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship being represented as one of two faith based clubs.There are multiple clubs devoted to science and philosophy and four clubs that focus on various parts of African culture, all military ROTC programs are excluded from being involved with the university and there are multiple organizations that deal with woman's rights, redefining traditional marriage, Amnesty International and gender equality in society.
I point all of this out so that you can understand the ground that Mr. Keyes was trying to plant in. Not exactly a bastion of souls seeking to know the word of God. Instead, I feel safe in assuming that the majority of the audience was young, thought itself to be progressive and liberal, ivy league educated and Mr. Dershowitz must have known that he had the home court advantage.
It is said that one of Theodore Roosevelt's great oratorical talents were displayed in South America, after his presidency. The former president would speak in halls and meeting places filled with folks that resented Mr. Roosevelt's involvement in the building of the Panama Canal. At those gatherings, the people were said to be very hostile toward the former president but after listening to his reasoning, they grudgingly had to agree with the thought process that went into the decisions regarding the obtrusive water way. I feel that Mr. Keyes deserves much credit for willingness engage the "enemy" on their own playing field.
Now, if you think that "enemy" is too harsh of a term, bear with me as I explain. First, the school and those in attendance were hardly open minded in their approach to hearing about God, salvation or religion. Their student society was and is one that revolves around the concept of being contrary to what standard religious society has to say. The school carries the attitude of it's founder, Ben Franklin, in regards to civil liberties without sharing his belief that the Judeo - Christian values found in religion were essential to keeping those liberties. On the surface, judging the school population by the multitude of left leaning organizations that seem worried about self described, "progressive" social issues, hardly fertile ground for discourse of religious or religious and moral topics. The only sense of satisfaction that I know and feel is that, most if not all of those young people that were in attendance are married, have business careers and or have children of their own today. The values that they held on the day of the debate a decade ago are unlikely to be values held by them today. When you have taxes taken from your earnings, view society from the eyes of a parent or watch in dismay as your business, home or job is destroyed by decisions of politicians controlled and manipulated by special interests, you sober you up pretty quick. At that time in one's life, we seek to be closer to God and religion, not run from it.
Alan Dershowitz is a very successful lawyer and it is fair to say that he has a healthy respect for the law. While there are many things that I can disagree with him on, we are in agreement on two important topics. One is Israel, we both believe that Israel for all it's shortcomings as a society, her survival is essential to the world. Secondly, we share a belief that man, as the dominant species, has a responsibility to be kind and thoughtful in our treatment of animals. I should also mention that we share a belief that it is important to not dismantle the constitution just because you don't like what it says. As I said earlier, Dershowitz, who is Jewish by birth and not by faith, has great respect for laws and if I was in trouble, I'd want him on my side in court.
Alan Keyes is a politician and a former ambassador and described by his liberal enemies which by the way, he has many, as a rare African American conservative. His "crimes" against liberalism include:
1. He is a staunch adversary of abortion. Mr. Keyes has participated in very high profile anti abortion rally's. A quote attributed to him regarding morality and government in general and specifically targeted at abortion, is as follows, “How many Americans wake up every day longing to live under party dictators, worshiping at the altar of a propagandized personality cult, in a world where party hacks offer the only hope of relief from bureaucratic tyranny? All in exchange for a surfeit of meaningless sex and the license to kill your unwanted offspring.”
2. He spoke in favor of the Viet Nam war and was very vocal about how the abrupt
abandonment of that war caused millions of Vietnamese to die needlessly. It should also be noted that his father served two tours in this war. When he chastised fellow students at Cornell for taking over the Student Center in a war protest, several of those peaceful students threatened his life because he spoke up and held an opposite view. He left Cornell and finished his degree in Europe and went on to earn his PH.D at Harvard.
3. Mr. Keyes is not an advocate of homosexuality and believes that the act of homosexual sex is a sin. In regards to homosexual marriage, he had this to say: “Homosexuals are essentially incapable of procreation. They cannot mate. They are not made to do so. Therefore the idea of marriage for two such individuals is an absurdity.”
Much like Mr. Dershowitz, I can find a few things that I agree with Mr. Keyes on.
The biggest social sin that I have found to be assigned to Alan Keyes is that his enemies are appalled that he, as a black man, would have a political and socially conservative view at all. It is the basis for racist thought when we assign personal and political thought to people of any race or color. As if a person of Latin descent can't be smart enough to come to their own conclusions about immigration or if you did not vote for our first black president, you are a racist. It is possible for us to think for ourselves, despite being criticized for doing so.
As I stated earlier, Alan Dershowitz admires the law. He considers himself to be a secular Jew but is a fan about rules and regulations that are not related to God. Alan Keyes on the other hand, is a believer in religious law as it relates to religious organizations designed by man. As Christians, we are to believe the bible as the true word of God, as improbable and difficult as it is to read and understand. It becomes a baseline of our belief and when Jesus was here, on this earth, He told us that He came to fulfill the word ( Matthew 5:17-18) not destroy it. By the same token, Jesus didn't assign Peter to be the leader of a church or encourage an English king to establish one in their own image.
For the rest of mankind who share a hatred for organized religion, before you get your hackles up and lay the Holocaust and the Inquisition on the steps of the church, imagine a world without Judeo - Christian values and their associated organizations.
If you do a Google search for Atheistic charities or hospitals, you will run into many chat rooms and boards that are populated with self described atheists who are very creative in their search for any confirmed or suspected atheist who has been involved in any kind of charity. In my search, I came across the name of Robert W. Wilson. Mr. Wilson is profiled in a May 23rd, 2007 Bloomberg article written by Patrick Cole.
Mr. Wilson is a confirmed atheist who donated $22.5 million dollars to fund a scholarship program specifically for inner-city students. The recipient of this kind and generous donation is the Roman Catholic Church. In response to several large donations to the Cardinal's scholarship program, the following quotes are attributed to this generous man:
“Most of what the Catholic schools teach are the three Rs,” said Mr. Wilson, 83, in a phone interview, referring to reading, writing and arithmetic. “And they do it better than the union-controlled inner-city schools.”
"Let's face it, without the Roman Catholic Church, there would be no Western civilization,'' Wilson said. "Shunning religious organizations would be abhorrent. Keep in mind, I'm helping to pay tuition. The money isn't going directly to the schools.''
"It was a chance for a very modest amount of money to get kids out of a lousy school system and into a good school system,'' Wilson said.
An anonymous donor has given an additional $4.5 million to the archdiocese after learning that Wilson's gift would be announced today, church officials said.
You might be wondering how Mr. Wilson formed a relationship with an organization that would be at the top of every atheist's "hit list". The following quote explains how it happened.
Edward Cardinal Egan, the head of the archdiocese, didn't reconsider the donation from Wilson because of his atheism, said spokesman Joseph Zwilling. Egan and Wilson, who was raised an Episcopalian, met for the first time today, he said.
"The Cardinal said that he and Mr. Wilson are both opera lovers, and the two of them will get together to talk about opera and move on to other things", Zwilling said, referring to a future discussion about religion. "The fact is that Mr. Wilson is helping to give these children a chance is a good thing, and a chance to attend Catholic school is a good thing.''
In recent years, the New York archdiocese has faced declining donations, church attendance and parish memberships, forcing the closure of some schools and churches.
In 2006, the archdiocese closed eight metropolitan-area schools, Zwilling said.
About 44,000 of the archdiocese's 107,000 students are enrolled in its inner-city schools in New York, LoFaro said. Of that inner-city student population, more than half live below the federal poverty line, she said.
"This kind of money will keep this kind of education available for kids who can't afford it,'' LoFaro said. "And it also gives the families a choice.'' Applicants don't have to be Roman Catholic to be eligible for the scholarships.
Wilson gave $147.2 million in 2006 to charities, making him the 12th most generous donor in the U.S., according to a survey by the Chronicle of Philanthropy. He has made gifts in the past to the Nature Conservancy and the World Monuments Fund.
Without Jesus, there would be no Catholic Church or any other church based on the belief that He is God and that we, as followers, do His work in our earthly lives. This man, who professes to not believe in the existence of God, helps to support Jesus's ministry. I am positive in my belief, that if there was an atheist idea based organization that was serving the underprivileged, Mr. Wilson and other generous benefactors would be seeking them out.
Mark Twain, himself no real fan of organized religion, once said, "Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable."
If Mr. Keyes were to participate in a similar debate in the future, My advice for him would be to avoid the religious parts and replace it with faithfulness. In a religious world, we take our faithful positions and build structures of support so as to show substance to something that is ethereal and without required structure. We do this because we are afraid, no doubt, that those around us might miss the true ramifications of our faith or the nuances of its fit and form. People are smart enough to get it if we just live it.
