July 30, 2001
Waco teen takes religious liberty lesson to Washington
___By John Hillman
___Special to the Standard
___WACO--Like most 14-year-old boys, Joseph Cullar prefers Boys Scouts or baseball to discussing and debating religious freedom. However, the subject has taken on new meaning during this past year for the member of Seventh & James Baptist Church.
___Last June, the son of John, a Waco attorney, and Meg Cullar, news editor for theBaylor Line, placed sixth among a field of 81 nationwide competitors in the junior division of individual performance at the National History Day held in Washington, D.C. In Cullar's 10-minute presentation illustrating the event's 2001 theme, "Frontiers in History," he portrayed United States Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Thomas Jefferson and Roger Williams, delivering their individual thoughts on religious freedom.
JOSEPH CULLAR, in his presentation for National History Day competition, portrays Thomas Jefferson. ...
___"Since I'm Baptist, and Roger Williams founded the Baptist denomination in America, I thought he would be a good starting point to discuss the idea," the incoming Waco High School freshman said. "Then I picked Thomas Jefferson over James Madison because of his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association and William Rehnquist because he referred to Jefferson's letter in an important court opinion."
___Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists is believed to be where the phrase "separation of church and state" was coined.
___Using the "wall of separation" as his focal point, Cullar opened the performance by stepping from behind a mock wall. Outfitted in a judicial robe, he voiced Rehnquist's dissenting opinion in Wallace vs. Jaffree. In that Supreme Court decision, Rehnquist somewhat breached the wall of separation concept, referring to it as "Jefferson's misleading metaphor" and calling his Danbury letter merely "a short note of courtesy."
___With the wall prop shielding his costume changes, the eighth grader then depicted Thomas Jefferson followed by Roger Williams. In both speeches, he cited the need for separation in church/state relations as reflected in the colonial Americans' historical manuscripts.
...William Rehnquist...
___"I tried to convey only the thoughts of each man rather than give my own opinions," Cullar said. "Sometimes when the judges questioned me after the presentation, they would ask what I thought about things like faith-based initiatives and not what Rehnquist, Jefferson or Williams had written."
___Not only did the research present the middle school student with a formidable task, the logistics of staging and costume design also posed challenges. Fortunately, the resources at Baylor University provided considerable assistance.
___"It was difficult getting the wall prop to Washington," his mother explained. "We shipped it there by Federal Express.
___"Joseph also had a lot of help with the costumes from the Baylor theater department," she added. "They loaned us the hats and coats and helped us design the remainder of the Jefferson and Williams outfits."
___Since primary sources play a major role in the judging, Cullar discovered a wealth of information at Baylor's J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies.
___He arranged an interview with institute director Derek Davis and spent two hoursasking questions primarily regarding Williams.
...and Roger Williams.
___Cullar, one of 700,000 students participating nationally in the event, began his project last September under the direction of Cindy Britt, eighth grade history teacher at Lake Air Middle School. Britt, a member of Columbus Avenue Baptist Church, has coached National History Day participants for 12 years.
___"I think Joseph did a wonderful job taking the viewpoints of three different men from three different periods in time and showing how the frontier of religious freedom has moved and changed over the years," she said. "It took a lot of critical thinking on his part, and he did a terrific job of illustrating that religious freedom is an issue still on the cutting edge of history."
___In addition to the actual presentation, National History Day rules require an introduction and thesis statement, a 500-word summary paper detailing the research process, an annotated bibliography separated into primary and secondary sources, and a question-and-answer session with the judges.
___The arduous experience has left the 14-year-old with a deep appreciation for a concept that yields no easy answers.
___"Religious freedom has been a frontier of thought since the early 1600s when the Puritans were persecuted in England," he said. "It's an ongoing frontier because there's no agreement on exactly what it is. Some judges rule one thing, and others rule another, and many people often disagree with the rulings. It's truly an unsettled frontier."_
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