More than 600 people attended Monday's day-long church-state symposium at UCF, "Blurring the Line," to hear debates about the mixing of the political and religious realms in America.
The symposium, sponsored by UCF's Lou Frey Institute of Politics and Government, brought together religious leaders, attorneys and other speakers to debate issues such as prayer in schools, faith-based programs, and Ten Commandments cases.
The audience, in the Pegasus Ballroom of the Student Union, included UCF students, hundreds of local middle and high school students, and other community members.
The symposium's keynote speakers, Ralph Reed, formerly the director of the Christian Coalition, and Nadine Strossen, the national president of the ACLU, spoke at 7 p.m. and answered questions by a panel of four student representatives and audience members.
Strossen and Reed agreed on many points. Both stated that the government should not regulate the church, that the Ten Commandments are acceptable displays when grouped with other historical legal documents, and that religious expression in schools is fine, provided it is not forced on students who don't wish to participate.
Both supported government funding of faith-based programs which provide social services, so long as the programs do not require the recipients to hold a particular religious faith.
However, they defined the church-state conundrum differently. Strossen termed it "the relationship between religion and government," while Reed stated that he supports the separation "as a way to protect church from state, not the state from the church."
They also differed on the point of teaching "intelligent design theory" as an alternative to evolution in public schools. "For me it's an academic freedom issue," Reed stated. Strossen replied, "Intelligent Design can be taught, but not in the guise of high school science."
Still, debate remained calm. "If I had to characterize these two people, I would use one word: class," said Lou Frey Jr., former U.S. Representative and founder of the institute, at the close of the Reed-Strossen session.
"I thought it was a very civil debate," Erin Waldron, a UCF political science major, said.
Students also expressed appreciation for the speakers. "It was a great opportunity for students to hear from big-name speakers," UCF student Edgar Robinson said.
"I may not like the ACLU, but I have nothing but respect for Dr. Strossen," UCF student Fidel Palenzuela said.
One session brought together Rabbi Richard S. Chizever, of Temple Israel in Longwood; Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland, a church distributed, in Longwood; and Imam Muhammad Musri, president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida.
Chizever said that prayer in schools "needs to be done in a non-sectarian way," and Hunter countered that Christians will pray "as Christians," to which part of the audience applauded. Imam Musri said that completely banning religion from the public square, as in communism, would fail. "We saw that experience fail," he said.
The three clergymen said that they do not express political views from the pulpit or encourage their congregants to vote one way or another. "Your obligation is to give not only your input but also to become active in community improvement," Hunter said.
The symposium also featured retired Lutheran minister John McCollister, author of God and the Oval Office: The Religious Faith of Our 43 Presidents, Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., and Circuit Judge Clayton Simmons of Florida's 18th Judicial Circuit. "The United States was never formed as a nation for Christians only," McCollister said, but "this does not give the government a license to ignore religion."
The Lou Frey Institute is a nonpartisan organization. According to the institute, the symposium was distributed as a Web cast to 25 other colleges. By early estimates, 5,000 other students will have seen the program.
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