As a Christian American, I agree with you completely, except I think the “slow dismantling of official Christianity” is happening a bit too slowly.  Legally and officially, it should have ended with the American Revolution. I think the current plan to allow anyone who asks for the cross to use it, is the most appropriate policy for a public institution.  
   
  I think it strange for Christians to long for the “good ‘ol days when the Anglican or Protestant Church was the only officially recognized Christian denomination.  Roman Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans, Quakers, and Methodists were considered “fringe groups”, cults, and even heretics. It was progress for the Protestant Church to welcome all Christian denominations into Church sponsored non-denominational Chapels to be used by all who are away from their normal place of worship.  However, William and Mary is no longer a Protestant college. It is now a University, supposedly welcoming to students of all faiths. The chapel should be a “sacred place”, welcoming to all students, and user-friendly for all religions.  If it doesn't want to be open, all Federal and state funding should be withrawn. For me, that is the only, “Christian position” to take.  It is also the law. Not only wouldn’t I pay for an education that only exposed my children to ideas and culture with which they
 are already familiar, but I wouldn't want my tax dollars to pay for such a narrow "educational experience".   

 Langdon Hagen-Long

Kevin Joel Berland <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
  Though perhaps the specific means adopted by the new president of William & Mary could be seen as arbitrary or needlessly stealthy, there is (in my view) much merit in the action itself. Why should it be seen as appropriate to enshrine (I use that word advisedly) one specific religion in a public university in a pluralistic society? Why should "cross free" mode not the default mode? It is clear that many Christians assume their faith is the norm. As a non-Christian myself, I am constantly made aware of this assumption in public places, and I know I'm not alone in this. Of course, from the historical perspective, the Wren Chapel was intended as a Christian place of worship in a Christian (specifically Anglican) institution. The affiliation of the institution has changed; significantly, so has the way the chapel conformed with traditional Anglican requirements. The changes documented in the recent argument were more than decorating fashions--they rendered the !
Wren Chapel an "interdenominational" space equally appropriate for various Christian practices. I do not know whether Anglican traditionalists found this change troubling. If the chapel is to be preserved in the way historical sites are preserved--as a museum or as a working historically accurate facility--it should be restored to its original configuration and limited to the English liturgy. If it is to serve as a space for the William & Mary community to use for religious purposes, a compromise is necessary, one that recognizes the religious plurality of the community. To do otherwise is implicitly to make Christianity the official religion of the college. Again. As I see it, the Wren Chapel affair is a matter of freedom of religion--Christian practice is not constrained by offering the public a cross-free chapel. A cross can be installed for functions that require it. But the freedom to practice other religions (or to live without organized religion) is!
affected by practices that demonstrate the primacy of one rel!
igion. 
We learn from history that our understanding of matters changes over time--the founders, for instance, said they believed all men were created equal, and they meant only men, and specifically men of a certain race and economic class. We are comfortable today with extending the boundaries of liberty to include women and people of every class. So we ought to be able to extend our understanding of religious freedom to include consideration of the always present and still growing population of non-Christian citizens. This is too important an issue to be dismissed as ACLU-think. 

Kevin Joel Berland

P.S. As a Jewish American, I am comfortable with the slow dismantling of official Christianity, a religion whose rites and beliefs are worthy of constitutional protection, but which have never deserved the exclusive charter assumed by so many....>




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