Religion 101

This Sunday (May 19) is the Christian holiday known as Pentecost, widely regarded by many believers as marking the actual birth or nativity of the church.

Pentecost commemorates the descent of, and the manifestation among Christ’s apostles, of the Holy Spirit (one of the three divine Persons of the holy Trinity, which along with the Father and the Son together comprise the triune God of Christianity).

The term pentecost is Greek for “fiftieth,” and signifies the fact that this particular holy day falls upon the fiftieth day following Easter Sunday, the holiday celebrating Christ’s resurrection (with Easter itself counting as “day one” of the fifty-day countdown). Like Easter, Pentecost is also always on a Sunday.

According to the New Testament book known as Acts of the Apostles, it was while celebrating the Jewish holiday of Shavuot that a number of Christ’s disciples suddenly and vividly experienced the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

One outward manifestation of this “baptism of the Holy Spirit” (as it came to be known) was the phenomenon of glossolalia, or “speaking in tongues.” According to Acts, this particular “gift of the Spirit” resulted in the disciples spontaneously and miraculously preaching the gospel in a variety of diverse foreign languages.

Today, this phenomenon or practice of glossolalia remains linked with the modern Pentecostal movement, current since the early 20th century within contemporary evangelical Christianity.

Different Christian denominations place varying degrees of emphasis upon observing Pentecost. For some, it is celebrated as a major feast day; for others, it receives less attention than other major Christian holidays (and some seem to virtually ignore it).

At sunset yesterday (Tuesday, May 14), Jews worldwide began the Jewish holiday festival of Shavuot (pronounced “shav-oo-OT”), otherwise known as the Feast of Weeks.

Shavout is traditionally both an agricultural harvest festival (originally dating back to when the first fruits of the harvest season were brought to the Temple in Jerusalem as sacrificial offerings before the God of Israel), as well as a later commemoration of the giving of the Torah (Teaching, Instruction, Law) from God to Moses and to Israel as a whole at Mount Sinai, following the exodus of the ancient Israelites from slavery in Egypt.

The Hebrew term shavuot literally means “weeks,” and refers to the fact that the Shavuot festival occurs seven weeks after Passover. The Jewish holiday of Pesach (or Passover) celebrates the exodus, while Shavuot celebrates the subsequent receipt of the Torah.

Why does Shavuot, like all Jewish holidays, begin and end at sunset? Judaism traditionally reckons a “day” as technically beginning not at 12:00 midnight, nor at dawn, but instead at sunset. Shavuot therefore began at sunset yesterday (May 14). It is traditionally observed by Jews in Israel, and by Reform Jews everywhere, for one day (concluding at sunset today, May 15), but by other Jews outside of Israel for two days (concluding therefore at sunset tomorrow, May 16).

Shavuot always begins on the 6th day of the Hebrew month of Sivan. However, that fixed starting date of 6 Sivan on the Jewish religious calendar does not always coincide with May 14 on the secular Western (or “Gregorian”) calendar.

The traditional Jewish calendar is a lunar calendar, which means that it counts and calculates its lunar months somewhat differently from how the widely-used Gregorian calendar (which is a solar calendar) reckons its own months. This means that there is a certain amount of built-in “drift,” from year to year, between the two calendars.

Last year, for instance, Shavuot (always 6 Sivan on the Hebrew calendar) began at sunset on May 26, 2012. Next year, by contrast, Shavuot will begin at sunset on June 3, 2014.

Some Jewish holidays are regarded as “working” holidays (work being permitted upon them), whereas other Jewish holidays are considered to be “non-working” holidays (during which work should be avoided; in a few cases, work may be permitted but only with certain restrictions).

For instance, the Jewish holiday of Chanukah (or Hanukkah), familiar to many non-Jews because of its proximity to the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season, is a working holiday. Chanukah runs for eight days, during which time work is permitted, except on the weekly Shabbat (Sabbath) which falls within that eight-day period.

Shavuot, by contrast, is a non-working holiday, meaning that no work (that is, no “work” as defined by the Torah) is permitted during its duration.

In addition to avoiding work and partaking in festive holiday meals and synagogue prayer services, traditional Shavuot observance typically also involves reading special liturgical poetry, eating special dairy foods, overnight Torah study, and a reading of the Book of Ruth.

So, to all of my Jewish friends and readers around the globe, may I today wish you a Chag Sameach (Hebrew for “Happy Holiday”)!

There seems to be a rather widespread misunderstanding regarding the actual underlying motivations of people who object to schools leading prayers and courts posting copies of the Ten Commandments, or who protest against “under God” being in the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust” being on our money, and so forth.

Lots of people seem to harbor the impression that such complainers are just bad sports who need to stop whining and get over it. They complain, in turn, that this country has gotten entirely too “P.C.” (“politically correct”), and that society has gone too far in worrying about not “offending” people — as if the primary objection to posting the Ten Commandments in schoolhouses and courthouses, teacher-led or administration-approved school prayer, and the like came down to just a matter of such things being potentially “offensive” to some thin-skinned types.

But to those who are doing the complaining and objecting to and protesting against such controversial matters, it has nothing to with potential for causing “offense,” and everything to do with not breaking the law or violating the U.S. Constitution.

Case in point: in the news just last week, an Arkansas school district recently cancelled its elementary schools’ sixth-grade graduation ceremonies in the wake of a controversy over prayers, which were to have been included in the official ceremonies.

An anonymous complaint from a parent objecting to the planned presence of prayer at the public school event resulted ultimately in the school board deciding to simply cancel the entire ceremony.

This story has been featured on a number of news websites, religion blogs, and elsewhere online, and reading some of the reader responses posted in the “Comments” sections which often follow such reporting is instructive.

Many irate readers reacted with anger and resentment at the very idea that one parent’s complaint could derail the will of the majority. Presumably most parents wanted the school-led prayer to be included at the elementary schools’ graduation ceremonies; why, many asked with considerable indignation, should one person’s protest outweigh or outvote the clear will of most of the townsfolk to go ahead with such prayers?

Since when, they wondered aloud, does a minority get to dictate its will to the majority? This is America, after all, and isn’t America supposed to be a democracy, where we get to vote on things, and the majority opinion — the “will of the people” — wins?

Not only that, many commentators went on, but what’s wrong with a little prayer at a public event, anyway? No one’s forcing you to pray; if you don’t like it, just stay home, or just don’t pray (or leave the country, some harshly suggested).

Many pointed out that, after all, this is a Christian-majority country (and presumably this was a Christian-majority Arkansas town), so why not have Christian prayers at the school graduation ceremony, if that’s what the majority wants? And isn’t this whole thing just an example of “political correctness” gone overboard? Isn’t it high time we stopped fretting over whether something as innocuous as a prayer might “offend” somebody?

Well, the problem, of course, is not that prayers at a school graduation might simply “offend” someone, or that banning such prayers is merely a preposterous manifestation of out-of-control “political correctness.” Rather, the problem is one of legality and constitutionality.

It is simply unconstitutional, and hence illegal, for a public school to conduct prayers.

Why? Because public schools, being taxpayer-funded and government-operated, are an arm of the state. And the U.S. Constitution effectively guarantees “separation of church and state,” as a number of U.S. Supreme Court cases have repeatedly reinforced. A public school, being part of the state, simply cannot engage in conducting religious rituals, services, or functions (including prayers).

The graduation ceremonies in question are school-sponsored events, and as such for them to incorporate prayer would amount to state support, state sponsoring, or state endorsement of religion — a clear violation of constitutional principles.

The state (including its schools) is to remain officially neutral in matters of religion, neither privileging nor repressing religion.

It simply cannot, therefore, lead prayers. Not even if a majority of the parents whose children attend those schools want it to.

So, once again — and contrary to popular belief in some quarters — this is not a question of “political correctness,” or of bending over backward lest someone be “offended” by the presence of a prayer. It’s simply a matter of the U.S. Constitution, and of the constitutional principle of “separation of church and state.”