From the Winston-Salem Journal. I meant to post it to my Religion class, but it is an interesting article and worth posting here as well.
Americans don’t need separation of church and state nearly as much as we need to have separation of church from television, movies and the chronically superficial way that the entertainment media deals with religion.
The supposed warlike mentality of Christians is the message that another media icon, Walter Cronkite, delivers in a mailing in which his opening antiphon is “I understand that freedom of speech is a founding principle of our nation.” Then comes the “however,” as Cronkite writes of his “increasing alarm” at “the intolerant influence of the Religious Right,” saying that it “has gone too far” in trying to influence Congress with “its intolerant political platform.”
Faith, he implies, should avoid advocacy and play “a healing role … in public life.” But Cronkite then urges recipients to join an organization whose aim is the very one he decries in evangelicals, to “influence elections and political candidates.”