Solicitation for God may have backfired

I received an unsolicited text message recently, suggesting that it's time to put God back in the Winona schools and asking me to make a financial contribution to help make that happen. I chose not to contribute, because at the risk of offending a group of people who, I'm sure, have good intentions, my first thought was — which god did they have in mind? As the years have gone by, our community, like most, has gradually become more diverse, and with that diversity has come a variety of religious beliefs and non-beliefs. There are, no doubt, a number of gods represented in our schools, and I have the feeling that the true intent behind the text message was to attempt to subordinate all but one of them. I confess to being a freedom-of-religion and a separation-of-church-and-state man. I was confirmed in a Lutheran church, and that's the religion of choice for me, but my instinct is that if I would try to force my religion down the throats of every child in the community, it would not only be a violation of the principles of freedom, equality and tolerance, but it would also be highly counterproductive. It was the 13th century poet Rumi who said, 'In every religion there is love, yet love has no religion.' It seems like a thought worth pondering. Allen Erickson, WinonaGet opinion pieces, letters and editorials sent directly to your inbox weekly!