1993 Freethinker of the Year

Introduction of Allen Berger by Prof. Michael Hakeem.

I am very delighted that I've been assigned the task of introducing Prof. Allen Berger. He requires no introduction for those people attending the 1992 convention, at which he gave a spirited and entertaining talk, "From the Motel Room to the Classroom: Nobody Escapes the Gideons." He comes this time to be crowned a Freethinker of the Year by the Foundation.

I regard Allen Berger as I do all litigants in state/church separation cases--as a hero. I am sure his modesty would lead him to disavow this designation. But all freethinkers should know what a courageous action it is to oppose the distribution of the "holy" bible where it entangles the government. Allen Berger flung down the gauntlet and filed suit against a flagrant abuse of state/church separation.

Of course, I think all freethinkers are heroes. I sometimes wonder when I think about the foul abuse many freethinkers report for professing disbelief, if freethinkers are not braver or as brave when facing Christians, as the Christians were when facing the alleged lions! (Alleged, because some scholars, unlike Cecil B. DeMille, raise questions about that story.)

Prof. Berger is carrying the same banner that we all carry, really. He just carries it a little higher, and he's a step or two ahead of us. In elevating Berger to the rank of Freethinker of the Year, I feel that he becomes a flashing symbol that radiates back to shine on all of us. Particularly to newcomers to these festivities, who may not know the Berger story, and to refresh the memories of others, let me tell you what it is all about in capsule form.

A former student of his, a teacher, in a school district different from the ones his children belong to, in casual conversation told him that representatives of the Gideons "did their thing" in her classroom, and that she felt uneasy about it. She asked the principal about it, and he said, it's all right, they have the school's permission. Berger himself was flabbergasted. At a party attended by the assistant superintendent of the school district where his wife is a teacher, and his children go to school, Berger told the official about the incident, and asked: "We don't do that in Rensselaer, do we?" The official replied, "We've been doing that in Rensselaer for 40 to 50 years!"

It happened that the Gideons were going to descend on the fifth-grade classroom at Rensselaer the following week. Berger decided to act, and into action he went. He complained to the school board. It decided to continue its cooperation with the Gideons on advice of the legal arm of Pat Robertson's empire. He elicited and received the support of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union. The United States District Court ruled in favor of the school board. Berger and the Civil Liberties Union appealed to the Appeals Court, which overturned the lower court, ruling in favor of Berger. The Appeals Court refused to rehear the case en banc. The school board appealed. The United States Supreme Court refused to rehear the case. Case closed.

Allen Berger is a cultural anthropologist. His bachelor's degree is from the University of Chicago and he earned a Master's and Doctor's degree from Columbia University. He teaches the subject at St. Joseph's College in Rensselaer, Indiana. He serves as assistant vice-president of academic affairs. For the past two years, he has been executive director of the Indiana Consortium for International Programs. For the past four years he has been on the board of directors of Planned Parenthood of Northwest and Northeast Indiana. Prof. Berger describes himself as "an unbelieving Jew teaching in a Catholic college." He wrote recently that, "I am happy to report that academic freedom is in a healthy state, at least in a Catholic college, and I have had more than a little success in convincing colleagues that as educators in a democratic society, our role is [now listen to this] to incite doubt and stimulate imagination. My lawsuit," he does acknowledge, "was supported by some colleagues and severely questioned by others." Supported or questioned, Prof. Berger is a missionary for freethinking in what, at best, most of us would agree is very difficult territory. So he is clearly deserving of special recognition.

The plaque reads:

Gideon Groupies And Bible Belt Believers: Why They Just Don't Get It

By Allen Berger

Thank you very much, Prof. Hakeem, for your generous introduction, and thank you to all of you for honoring me with this award and inviting me back. My wife and I had a wonderful time at your convention last year in San Antonio. Becky sends her regrets; she was unable to be here this year. But I can't tell you how many times she has told the story about the "moment of bedlam" at the Nonprayer Breakfast, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

Despite what Prof. Hakeem has said, I don't think I've done anything particularly heroic. In fact, thousands of Americans have taken courtroom stands on principle and conscience. I was honored last year to meet three of them: Daniel, Vivian and Deborah Weisman, and I'm especially honored to be receiving the same award that you bestowed upon them, and that you've also bestowed upon Roger Cleveland this year.

In addition to bringing you greetings from Becky, I bring you greetings from a colleague of mine who came to San Antonio with me last year. Charlie and I are the only unbelievers at this small Catholic college where we teach. Back when 7-Up used to advertise itself as the "UnCola," we formed an organization called UNGOD: Unholy Nihilists for Godlessness Over Deism. We invited the Gaylors last year to merge with us, and to buy us out. Our organization, I guess, did not look particularly attractive to them, given that it only had two members, and I'm sad to report it hasn't grown. But we're currently thinking of forming a new organization, and I think you'll appreciate the name, so much in fact, that you may want to effect a merger with us. The name of our new organization is GIDEANS International. It stands for God Is Definitely Erroneous And Not Safe. Since most school board members can't spell, we figured we'd call them up and ask if we can distribute our literature in their schools!

Now, of course, in the 7th Circuit appellate circuit, in Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin, that's illegal as a result of our lawsuit, which was decided in May, 1993, when the Supreme Court denied a petition for cert. from the school corporation, and then finally in September of this year, we were back in federal district court and settled for legal fees for $100,000. There were about 800 citizens in Rensselaer who had signed a petition to carry the case all the way to the Supreme Court, and it was carried there in part because of that public pressure. One of the things we've discovered in the last few months is that it's a lot easier for bible belt believers to sign a petition, than it is for them to sign a check! The school board's legal fees were $100,000. They have raised public contributions of $3,000.

I must confess my own ambivalence of the Supreme Court's denial of cert. It was a wonderful relief to have the case over. This has begun as a local dispute, not as a public crusade. On the other hand, it would have been nice to have established a clear precedent that would have applied nationwide. Given the Supreme Court's unwillingness to hear the case--and I think they were so unwilling to hear it because it was so clear, there was no new law--there are undoubtedly school corporations in many parts of the United States which will say that precedent doesn't apply to our district, it applies only to the 7th Circuit.

The issue will undoubtedly come up again and again, and I was interested to see today on the Foundation table an article about this same issue in fact coming up again in Texas where the Foundation and some of its members there have filed a complaint about distribution of Gideon bibles in the schools in Lufkin.

Vigilance is required by organizations such as yours, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and also by the many religious organizations, such as the National Council of Churches--I'm happy to report which recognized that its own freedom of religion depends upon a rigorous preservation of that other prong of the first Amendment, the Establishment Clause. Unfortunately, our lawsuit can be read narrowly or it can be read broadly. The language is very broad in the decision, but the facts in the case are very narrow. In Lufkin, Texas, they distribute Gideon bibles in the cafeteria. In Rensselaer, Indiana, they distributed them in the classrooms. I imagine in Lufkin, Texas, there are school board officials and principals saying, well, the facts are all different, therefore it's okay. We don't let the Gideons in the classrooms; we only let them in the cafeteria.

It will take vigilance but more than the vigilance of organizations such as your own and the ACLU, and even the National Council of Churches. Lawsuits need plaintiffs, people who have standing to bring those lawsuits. It's not enough for organizations to care. It takes someone willing to stick his or her neck out. As I said earlier, I don't regard myself as a hero. I think I'm just a citizen. My own understanding of citizenship has been inspired by two quotations which I first found in a book by Peter Irons called The Courage of Their Convictions. It's a book about the stories of a number of ordinary Americans who pursued their convictions in lawsuits which eventually reached the Supreme Court of the United States. One of these quotations is quite profane, the other, I think, is quite profound. When writing of Olaf, the Conscientious Objector, e. e. cummings declared: "There is some shit I will not eat." As a college teacher, I often challenge my own students: just what is the shit you won't eat? The second quote comes from Horace Mann, speaking to the graduates of Antioch College in 1859. Horace Mann gave them this admonition: "Be ashamed to die until you've won some victory for humanity." Few of us, of course, are granted the opportunity to win great victories. My own will not be particularly great. It will be but a footnote in the law books. But I don't think that matters. Perhaps it would be sacra-irreligious in this group, but permit me to quote the Talmud, actually a rough paraphrase. I'm told that in the Talmud we're informed that God tells us we cannot change the world in a single generation. However, he also tells us we're obligated to try.

Another reason it doesn't matter if our victories are only modest is because the struggle itself is so much fun. In fact if I've drawn one conclusion from my three and a half year struggle, it is that the struggle for civil liberties is genuinely fun. In my own case, what I've enjoyed most is blowing peoples' minds! The Gideon groupies, the Shi'ite Baptists--as Molly Ivins calls them--and the general bible belt believers just can't figure me out. After all, I teach and am the assistant vice president for academic affairs at a Catholic college. In our small town of Rensselaer, Indiana, where no one's anonymous, everyone knows that I'm married to an elder and a choir member of a local Presbyterian church. So they've got a real problem. They'd like to dismiss me as Satan's messenger, but that conclusion just doesn't seem to fit the facts. On the other hand, these Shi'ite Baptists, bible belt believers and Gideon groupies are not particularly concerned with facts. We know that best of all, of course, from their rigid adherence to creationism. In creationism, you start with an axiom, not a theory. You start with a "Truth," not a hypothesis. Then you struggle as hard as you can to fit the evidence to your Truth. If the evidence doesn't fit, there are three things you can do: throw it out, misrepresent it, or fabricate additional evidence.

There's a lot of fabrication that went on in our own lawsuit. Recently I had the pleasure of meeting a gentleman by the name of Jim Heffernan, who works with Jay Sekolow with the American Center for Law and Justice, the ACLJ, carefully named, of course, an arm of Pat Robertson's empire. The ACLJ had argued the other side of our case in federal appellate court in Chicago and I met Jim Heffernan at an American Civil Liberties Union meeting a couple of weeks ago, where he was courageous enough to come to discuss the ACLJ's position on state/church separation. Mr. Heffernan took a very principled stand in which he said that the ACLJ was all about was protecting religious speech, and protecting freedom of religion. I told him I wanted to protect those things as well. I thought that prong of the first Amendment was important, just as the Establishment Clause prong was important. Then I asked him how I thought he was doing that in the context of our lawsuit. He stammered a bit. I said let me acquaint you with some of the facts. I said, you argued this case on free speech grounds, suggesting there was an open forum in the Rensselaer schools, and therefore if there was an open forum the Gideons could not be kept out of the schools when other groups were allowed in. But it ought to have been clear to him (some of these statements were in the depositions of his own witnesses) that no such open forum existed. The school superintendent, for example, when asked if she would allow all religious groups to distribute their literature in the schools, said, "Heavens no! Certainly not the satanists, or other religions like that!" I don't know what she means by "other religions like that." Maybe she means the Hare Krishnas. Maybe she means the Moonies. Maybe she means Jehovah's Witnesses. Maybe she means atheists. I don't know what she means, but it's pretty clear when there are some groups that are permitted and others that are not permitted that that's no open forum. So I asked Mr. Heffernan how in the world could you take this case and argue it on those grounds, given that fact situation? He said: we got involved in the case kind of late.

The fabrication of evidence occurs because organizations like the ACLJ misrepresent to the public what they stand for. While Mr. Heffernan says the ACLJ is all about protecting the freedom of religion in this country, really what the ACLJ is all about is advancing Christianity. Anything that advances Christianity is deemed constitutional.

I had a similar experience over fabrication of facts, misrepresentation of evidence, recently when I appeared on a television show in Chicago, Illinois, with a colleague of mine from my own college, a very narrow-minded accountant who had organized local prayer vigils against my lawsuit. This accountant has known me for 14 years. He knows I work at a Catholic college. I'm not Catholic but I fit in pretty well there. He knows my wife, who's active in the local church community. He had the audacity on public television in Chicago to accuse me of mounting an anti-Christian crusade. For him, of course, there was no difference between being nonreligious, and being antireligious. There was no difference between being nonChristian and antiChristian. So I decided the best way to respond to him was by his own book, the bible. Funny thing is, I've never read the New Testament, and actually only read the Old Testament under duress in Hebrew School a very long time ago. However, my dear wife had armed me with a quote from the book of Matthew, and I was prepared, because I knew the subject of school prayer would come up in our discussions. Perhaps some of you have heard the quote. If not, I hope you will memorize it and someday use it. It's appropriate whenever a Shi'ite Baptist tells you there's nothing wrong with prayer in public school classrooms or graduations, or at civic ceremonies in general.

The quotation comes from Matthew Chapter 6, part of the Sermon on the Mount, and appears right before the Lord's Prayer. In this passage, Jesus is quoted as instructing a believer:

"When thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues, and in the corner of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily, I say unto you, They have their reward.

"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy father which is in secret, and thy father which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly."

Jesus instructs the believers to pray in private, in fact, in a closet.

The wonderful commentator who was hosting the TV show we were both on at that point asked my accountant colleague, well, does it say anywhere in the bible that you should pray in public?

My colleague's wife, upon seeing that I could out-quote her husband from scripture, became apoplectic. She was sitting in the audience, exploded, and shouted out, which could later be heard on the tape, that I was an evil man! You know, I really don't get it. When I first filed my lawsuit the letters to the editor in the local newspaper were full of suggestions that maybe I could find something better to do with my time . . . like read the bible. I guess sometimes you just can't win!

But of course, you can win. That's what the courts are for. And it's heartening that we can win with these courts that have been so severely stacked by the Reagan and Bush administrations. It's damn fun to get the last laugh! Thanks very much.