wfn.org | Resist attempts "to put religion back in the closet"

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #5956 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

24-June-2000
GA00012

	Resist attempts "to put religion back in the closet," Bennett urges

	by Eva Stimson

LONG BEACH, June 24--Former U.S. Secretary of Education William J. Bennett
may be most widely known as author of the bestseller "The Book of Virtues." 
But when he finished writing the book he had a hard time finding a
publisher.

	The first editor who looked at his manuscript asked, "What's the point?"
Bennett told more than 500 people who packed a ballroom at the Hyatt Regency
here on Saturday morning, the opening day of the 212th General Assembly. 
"This is 800 pages of moralizing stories," the editor said.  "Who will read
it?"

	The book eventually did get published and to date more than 2.3 million
copies have been sold.

	"A lot of smart people didn't think "The Book of Virtues" had a prayer,"
Bennett told those gathered for an event sponsored by the Presbyterian Lay
Committee.  The Lay Committee identifies itself as an independent
organization that seeks to uphold "the Scriptural and Reformed heritage" of
the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

	"Your situation is similar," Bennett continued.  He urged the Presbyterian
Lay Committee and its supporters to stand firm in their beliefs that "man is
a moral and spiritual being," that "Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior," and
that "some things are right and some are wrong."  He challenged them to
resist attempts by promoters of tolerance and pluralism to downplay
Christian faith and "to put religion back in the closet."

	Many adults today are abdicating their responsibility to teach right and
wrong, Bennett declared.  "The young are looking to us for guidance. We
cannot shrug our shoulders and say, ‘Good luck.  We love you and we'll buy
you everything we can afford, but when it comes to moral decisions you're on
your own.'"

	Bennett criticized attempts to de-criminalize drugs, citing his tenure as
the nation's first "drug czar" under former President George Bush.  "We went
to 125 cities talking about the drug issue," he recalled.  "Drug use went
down by 70 percent between 1985 and 1991.  People took a stand [that drugs
are wrong] and the children listened."

	A former philosophy professor, Bennett came to Washington, D.C., in 1982 to
be chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities under President
Ronald Reagan.  He began his pre-Assembly address by identifying himself as
a "lay Catholic," and thanking those who invited him to speak for their
"generous act of ecumenism."

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