Religion

Title: "The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion"Author: Stephen L. CarterPublisher: Basic BooksLength, price: 328 pages, $25 Stephen Carter's timing is impeccable. In 1991, the 38-year-old Yale Law School professor published "Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby," a book in which he explored his ambivalent feelings about benefiting from affirmative action programs.In that book, he also called for the inclusion of black conservatives in mainstream discussions of black issues.

In the Book of Exodus, after hearing God's voice and with Moses on Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments, the ancient Israelites create and worship a golden calf, proclaiming, "This is our God." An angry Moses breaks the stone tablets when he descends to the foot of the mountain. According to the early 20th century commentator Rabbi Meir Simcha Hacohen of what then was Dvinsk, Russia, Moses' shattering of the tablets was not an act of anger. Moses saw that if the people could turn a golden calf into an object of worship, they would likely do the same with the tablets.

THE CULTURE OF DISBELIEF: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion. By Stephen L. Carter. Basic Books. 328 pages. $25.JUST published in September, "The Culture of Disbelief," a study of religion in America by Yale law professor Stephen L. Carter, has already become one of those books discussed at dinner parties by people who haven't read them.Mr. Carter has been interviewed at length on "The MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour," his ideas have been debated by political columnists and his book even garnered a recommendation from President Clinton at a recent prayer breakfast.

THE FEDERAL government's fraud and money-laundering case against Richard M. Scrushy, founder and former CEO of the HealthSouth Corp., appeared solid, if not airtight. His trial was preceded by guilty pleas from 15 other former executives of the nation's largest chain of rehabilitation hospitals and clinics in connection with $2.7 billion worth of accounting fraud. Five of the firm's former finance officers testified against Mr. Scrushy, saying he told them to cook HealthSouth's books to meet Wall Street's expectations.

Three hours of rapid-fire, informed discussion of religious issues was not enough yesterday for 200 teen-agers from 20 private, public, church and synagogue high schools in Baltimore. They needed more time to consider "how to be both religious and cool."Paul Springer, a Calvert Hall student, spoke for many of the participants when he said, "We have moral obligations. You can cheat and get by with it all your life, but is that what you really want to do? Having morals is not uncool."Jewish, Muslim, Roman Catholic, Protestant and agnostic -- with possibly an atheist here or there in the group -- the students had come to St. Mary's Seminary and University in Roland Park to offer their youthful perspectives on Pope John Paul II's visit.

For 2,000 years, Christians have been arguing over how the meaning of the life and teachings of Jesus applies to the world he left behind. The time was when the rivers of Europe ran red as Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox believers battled for the political primacy of their versions of the true faith. That debate didn't just push America's first settlers to these shores - it followed them here. In Massachusetts, the Pilgrims established a rigid theocracy, throwing dissenters such as Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, out into the wilderness.

Quick: Name the Four Gospels. How about the Ten Commandments? The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism? Seven Catholic Sacraments? Hello? Anybody? America purports to be a religious nation, yet what we know about religion is, well, sinful. Stephen Prothero, head of Boston University's religion department, says it's time to teach religion in America - not devotion but religion. Prothero and others have found a shocking lack of knowledge about the religions to which Americans purport to belong, bested only by their ignorance of religions to which they don't belong.

The Supreme Court was absolutely correct to rule that a state-sponsored prayer in a public school graduation ceremony is a violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution. The history of the writing and adoption of the amendment 200 years ago and the unwavering precedents of the Supreme Court since it began applying the amendment to state and local governments 45 years ago make that as clear as -- well, as a revelation.For over two decades the Supreme Court has applied a simple three-part test in determining whether state action breached the wall separating church and state erected by the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof.

The Supreme Court heard arguments last month on the perennial question of how far states can go in assisting religions in the field of education. At issue is whether a school district in Arizona should pay for a sign language interpreter for a deaf student at a Catholic school and whether an evangelical Christian church could use the facilities of a New York high school.The justices may use the two cases to abandon a 22-year-old formula or test that has determined what is a proper or improper state relationship with religion.

The paths of religion and science converge during a pair of shows on A&E tonight.On "Ancient Mysteries" (9 p.m.-10 p.m., repeats 1 a.m.-2 a.m.), Leonard Nimoy and company visit Lourdes, the famous French village where the Virgin Mary appeared to a peasant girl named Bernadette in 1858. Each year, millions of pilgrims visit the shrine, convinced that partaking of the scared waters will help cure them of their ills. Are they wasting their time? Or are miracle cures really happening?Then, "The Unexplained" (10 p.m.-11 p.m., repeats 2 a.m.-3 a.m.)