"The Rev." Barry Lynn: Continuing a long-standing tradition

In the June/July issue of First Things (not yet available online), you will find this little snippet about the latest exploits of the man who loves to be called "Reverend."

The Rev. Barry Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, is outraged, but then he usually is. When a few months ago the National Portrait Gallery removed a video showing large ants crawling over a crucifix, he declared, "This is religiously based censorship, pure and simple, and it's reprehensible."

The good reverend, a minister in the United Church of Christ, then lectured the video's critics about artistic freedom. "If some people believe a show offends their religious sensibilities, the answer is for them not to go to it. They should not have the right to control what art the rest of us can see."

We're wondering how exactly this qualifies as censorship. All the critics did was exercise their own First Amendment right to free speech and criticize the National Portrait Gallery, which receives substantial public funding, for including the video in an exhibit. The gallery then removed the video voluntarily. Anyone who wants to see it can easily watch it on YouTube. Any private art gallery can show it. Lynn could put it up in the AU foyer instead of a Christmas tree.

The separation of church and state, in the absolutist way Lynn understands it, has to mean separation of irreligion and state. Whatever ants crawling over a crucifix is supposed to mean, we're probably safe in saying it's some sort of criticism of Christianity. It takes sides in a religious controversy. In other words, it's a religious work. If Lynn were consistent, he would have joined the critics in demanding its removal.

The truth, we suspect, is that the Rev. Barry Lynn doesn't really care about the separation of church and state. What he cares about is advancing secularism, and screams of protest at any religious voice in the public square are a great way to do it. Never mind that these voices are often merely asking that the religion of irreligion be subject to Lynn's same view of the First Amendment.

There is a strange, but fitting, appropriateness in the fact that "the Rev. Barry Lynn" is a minister (so-called) in the denomination whose beginnings can be traced, however obscurely, to the colonial Puritans of Massachusetts Bay. In a sense, "the good reverend" is merely continuing a long-standing tradition.