The Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Bingham for School Board?

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In 2005, Elizabeth Bingham worried in print--in what then seemed to be a throwaway line--about a candidate in that year's school board race dimming the line between church and state. She said, "As deep as my concerns are about the possibility that Mr. Meyer would dim the line that separates church and state, this comment is equally worrisome..."

Now, in 2007, this same Elizabeth Bingham, an active Congregational Minister, is a candidate running for the Claremont Unified School Board. Of course she professes, when asked the question, great respect for and fidelity to the separation of church and state, but how well does that claim hold up?

The Insider thinks it would take, well, a saint, to pull it off. And though the Rev. Dr. Bingham is a nice lady with a very pastoral demeanor, we don't think she can do it.

For starters, let's look at the Covenant of her own church, Pilgrim Congregational Church in Pomona, where she is Senior Minister. In the second paragraph, she has covenanted not only to accept the Holy Scriptures as her rule of faith--fair enough--but also as her rule of practice. Does this mean, as we interpret it, that she would be ruled by religious precepts in her public actions? Even more worrisome is the next line where she, every member, and the church accept the duty of the advancement of His Kingdom in the world. Is the Claremont Unified School District Board a vehicle by which to advance this aspect of the Covenant?

If the Rev. Dr. Bingham denies these duties, isn't she violating her covenant to her God and her church? If she doesn't deny them, isn't she setting aside the principle of separation of church and state that she professed--in 2005--to hold as important? It seems to us that while it might be possible for a lay-person somehow--temporarily--to back-burner these important church commitments, it would be well-nigh impossible for a Senior Minister of a large congregation to do so.

How does she square her candidacy now as an ordained minister with her concern about the "line that separates church and state" expressed in the 2005 letter above? Isn't there, as she puts it, a "possibility" of a problem?

The Rev. Dr. Bingham is also a trustee of Piedmont College, an avowedly church-related institution in Georgia supported strongly by the Congregational Church for more than a century. In 2003, the Rev. Dr. Bingham participated in a ceremony founding a new Congregational church at the school.

During this ceremony, the president of Piedmont College, Ray Cleere, said: "While many colleges in recent years have been moving away from their historical church affiliations, at Piedmont we have worked to strengthen our ties to the churches that have supported us for many years."

The Rev. Dr. Bingham is a trustee at this college. And we think this is exactly the right kind of institution for her to serve. She has an M.A. from the Yale Divinity School and a Doctor of Ministry from Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary. (The seminary's world view is informed by historic prophetic and social justice strands of United Methodism that equip Christians for engagement with the world.--from the website) She belongs with the kind of institution that Piedmont is and doubtless does an excellent job in its service.

However, as you read her biography and list of qualifications for service as a trustee of a public school, you find them pretty thin with respect to public education. Sure, she spoke at the Claremont Baccalaureate in 2007--possibly an audition for the school board race because the word on the street is that the departing board members "found" her to run. She was in the Baseball Dugout Booster Club, and was an "involved parent" at Condit, El Roble, and CHS. And, she was on the budget advisory committee in the district.

Her work on the budget must have inoculated her against common sense, since she wrote in the 2005 letter reproduced above that "Public education is not a business". And, "I shudder at the thought that decisions about the best way to teach our children will be made by dollars and cents..." This sounds naive. District staff and board members balance priorities and resources--dollars and cents--all the time.

All in all, we have little faith in the competence of the Rev. Dr. Bingham in the public school setting; and there is that whole Church and State thing...

She is asking herself to do the impossible in trying to reconcile these two sides. Where she is committed to her church, she is "involved" as a parent. That's like the difference between ham and eggs: the chicken was "involved", the pig was committed.

(While the Insider has no fear to step in it when the subject is local politics, the mix of politics and religion is, as they say, incendiary. It's been a long time since we flunked out of divinity school--at least we think that was us. So it's probably pointless to engage us in a debate of some of the nicer theological points raised above. It would be like having a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.)