AMERICAN VALUES SOLID

By Uwe Siemon-Netto, UPI Religious Affairs Editor

News Analysis — PARIS, July 30 (UPI)

For all the talk about the Americans' descent into secularism and postmodern confusion, their Judeo-Christian values in key areas seem to be rock-solid, a new survey showed.

Only 18 percent of all adults favor the removal of signs listing the Ten Commandments from public buildings, as recently happened at the Alabama Supreme Court, according to a poll taken by the Barna Research Group in Ventura, CA.

This seems to run counter the "breathtakingly uniform universalist" worldview of leading media personalities, a uniformity recently bemoaned by Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., during a recent Pew Forum event in religion and public life in Washington.

Souder defined this worldview as one considering "all the great religions of the world equally true and good," as opposed to the "particularist" position such as his own, which affirms Christianity as the one true faith. "Universalists often intimidate, mock and condescend to particularists," he went on.

The Ten Commandments are of course part of the Judeo-Christian scriptures. Yet even 32 percent of non-Christians and even 45 percent of atheists and agnostics oppose their removal from public buildings, the Barna Group reported.

The groups most supportive of their removal were Asian immigrants (48 percent), adults under the age of 35 and college graduates (25 percent each), men (23) and Hispanics (21 percent).

Amazingly, the figure for Roman Catholics opposed to the public display of the Commandments is identical to that of the adult population at large — 18 percent — and thus considerably higher than that of Protestants (6 percent) and higher even than that of "notional Christians" (16 percent).

The Rev. Gerald E. Murray, pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Catholic parish in Manhattan and a prominent canon lawyer, finds this result "troubling." He told United Press International, "This shows that a lot of Catholics have bought into the fallacious notion that one must not give offense to anyone."

Other results of the Barna survey seem to confirm this impression, at least in part. On the issue of whether the words "In God We Trust" should be taken off the U.S. currency, 15 percent of Catholics polled said "yes," compared with only 13 percent of the national average, 12 percent of the notional Christians, four percent of the Protestants and a mere 1 percent of evangelicals.

"On balance," commented pollster George Barna, "the research shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans want Christian values and symbols to prevail, although most people stop short of declaring the U.S. to be a Christian society."

Uwe Siemon-Netto, Ph.D., DLitt is UPI Religious Affairs Editor.