The decision of the United States Supreme Court disallowing the New York Regents’ prayer aroused furor in many parts of the country. Another possibly equally perturbing decision is still pending—that concerning the constitutionality of Bible reading in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Florida public schools. To understand these situations one must understand the changes that have been penetrating the religious life of our nation.
No one questions that our nation, by and large, was founded and established by men of deep religious faith and conviction. Mostly of British background and also of German, French, Dutch, and Swedish heritage, the early settlers were, in the main, of Protestant persuasion. Congregational-Presbyterianism prevailed in New England, and Anglicanism predominated in the South. While some of the middle colonies professed and practiced religious toleration, or even religious freedom, they were the exception.
Our founding fathers considered the relationship of man to his maker a fundamental part of their philosophy of life and believed that human rights were derived from this relationship. They recognized also the fact of their Christian heritage. But they knew history well enough to recognize the dangers of an established religion and saw the necessity of encouraging the free practice of religion in a free society. Accordingly, they wrote this safeguard into the First Amendment to the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the exercise thereof.” By these words they rejected the idea of an established religion and guaranteed personal religious freedom.
They had no intention, however, of thereby encouraging a spirit of anti-religion. As Norman Cousins indicates, “It is significant that most of the founding fathers grew up in a strong religious atmosphere; many had Calvinist family backgrounds. In reacting against it, they did not react against basic religious ideas, or what they considered to be the spiritual nature of man. Most certainly they did not turn against God, or lose their respect for religious belief. Indeed it was their very concern for the conditions under which free religious belief was possible that caused them to invest so much of their thought and energy into the cause of human rights” (In God We Trust, p. 9).
While most of the men who authored our documents of freedom affiliated themselves with Protestant denominations as professing Christians and were influenced by eighteenth-century enlightenment, they nevertheless believed in religious freedom. They were well aware of the discrimination and persecution that followed whenever the colonies superimposed an established religion upon their people. Such evil they were determined to prevent. So they underwrote religious freedom, not to do away with the practice of religion but rather to insure it for everyone. They knew that religion as a whole would be destroyed if each group, in affirming the truth of its own faith, practiced intolerance and bigotry.
Despite this provision by the founding fathers for practicing differences of religious conviction, the nation shared a common bond of unity. As the various colonies ceased to exist legally as independent religiously established units and became a nation, the people of America recognized the fact of a common heritage. This common heritage was not only Christian and Protestant, but Protestant Christianity of Calvinistic orientation. For many years this special kind of faith characterized the American people as a whole. This faith was unique in its ability both to influence the new nation and to adapt itself to a changing environment without sacrificing any of its peculiar genius.
In the early days of American history the chief center of community life and culture was the Church, specifically the Protestant Church. It was the one institution that united people into a cohesive unit. While there were many denominations and sects, they shared a common belief in God, in Jesus Christ, and in the Bible as divinely authoritative. Protestantism also incorporated a healthy individualism that stimulated the nation’s growth. American Protestantism had no ecclesiastical dependence upon churches in Europe. Men were free to preach the Gospel, and even to establish new churches on the growing frontiers of American life. As the newer states matured from their pioneer status, their churches, which were Protestant, effectively influenced the shaping of community life.
The revival services that characterized American Protestantism aided the growth and impact of the Church. Whole communities were changed as thousands of people came under the influence of the Gospel message. In both the East and the West the number of those who professed Protestant Christianity continued to rise. There was virtually no competition. Roman Catholicism was but a small, almost negligible factor in the life and culture of those times. Its adherents were few; in 1787 there may have been 35,000 (Kenneth Scott Latourette, The Great Century, Vol. IV, p. 230) in a total population of about 3,900,000 (in the census of 1790 the total population was 3,929,214), or less than one per cent. Thus while the founding fathers espoused and provided for a pluralistic society, American culture for decades was predominantly Reformed-Protestant in perspective.
During this period in our national life no one seriously challenged the fact that religion (and by religion we mean Protestantism) was an integral part of the American scene. Public education, for example, knew nothing about excluding the major premises of the Christian faith from its pedagogy. Religion, in fact, was the mother of education in America. During the colonial period, the primary schools were conducted in close alliance with the churches. And until the turn of the present century, secondary education, especially in the newer areas of settlement, was provided largely in academies operated under religious auspices and taught by ministers. Most of our colleges and universities, including such revered institutions as Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Chicago, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt, were established by churchmen. The ministry of teaching has been a major contribution of Christianity to American culture (Ronald B. Osborn, The Spirit of American Christianity, pp. 33 f.). Schools were free to teach the Beatitudes or other Scripture passages in entirety. Classes could begin with prayers invoked in the name of Christ. The Bible could be taught and read, and hymns could be sung. Christian holy days, such as Christmas and Easter, could be observed accordingly. The culture of America was predominantly, even profoundly, Christian in the Protestant tradition. No one seriously challenged either this devotion to religious heritage, or the doctrine of religious freedom laid down by our founding fathers.
This situation, however, underwent gradual change. Before 1820 (200 years after our Pilgrim fathers) there were no more than 20,000 immigrants a year, and these were mostly Protestants. Between 1820 and 1860, however, about 5,000,000 immigrants entered the United States, and since then over 35,000,000 have come to our shores. Among these later immigrants were many Roman Catholics and Jews who brought with them—and this is no condemnation, but merely a statement of fact—ideas and cultures that differed extensively from those of the early settlers and founders of our nation.
In the 1820s and especially after the potato famine of 1846 in Ireland, the Irish came to America in great numbers. For the first time in American history our population had a sizable representation of Roman Catholics. Toward the end of the century most immigrants came from southern and eastern Europe and introduced new ethnic groups into our society. While most of these people were Roman Catholic, they incorporated also two sizable new elements, namely, the Eastern Orthodox and the Jewish. America was becoming less Protestant and less Puritan in spirit. We were becoming a more complex and pluralistic society.
Being new, and at first often of lower economic and social status, these new minority groups found it profitable and advantageous to adhere to our predominantly Protestant culture. This was the only way they could progress. There was still no danger to our Protestant heritage, however, and even as late as 1927 foreign observers like André Siegfried could speak of Protestantism as the United States’ only national religion. Someone else observed, however, that “they [the immigrants] still saw the more ancient stamp on our culture rather than the immediate dynamics of the situation.”
The Yearbook of American Churches for 1962 reported that the United States now has 63,688,835 Protestants, 42,104,900 Roman Catholics, 5,367,000 Jews, and 2,698,663 Eastern Orthodox. The Roman church, that for over a century was a relatively insignificant minority, is today a sizable group in our country. The Roman church has increased markedly in number, wealth, and prestige. Its members, by and large, are loyal to their church in active membership and support, while many Protestants, on the other hand, are Protestant merely in name.
Furthermore, America’s new culture is becoming urban centered, and the large cities which dominate this new culture are becoming, or have become, largely Roman Catholic. Cities like Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Chicago, are all concentrations of Roman Catholic population, and increasingly control the political life of our nation. For the first time in our nation’s history we have a Roman Catholic president, whose election, moreover, was largely carried by the city vote. The majority leaders of both the House and the Senate are Roman Catholic, a situation that 50, or even 30 years ago would have been quite improbable in American life. Whether this change is good or bad is not the issue. The point is that something new has appeared on the American scene, and Protestants must increasingly learn to live with this fact. The Roman church is now a powerful political force in the life of the nation. Its effort to get Federal aid for parochial schools has made many Protestant leaders fearful of this increased power. The doctrine of the separation of church and state has accordingly become a live issue that 50 or 100 years ago, when Protestantism had no competitors on the American scene, was nonexistent, or relatively unimportant.
Likewise Jewish culture has assumed an increasingly important part in American life. For one thing, Hitler’s persecution stirred the Jewish people everywhere to a renewed religious-cultural consciousness that, among other things, brought into being the new state of Israel. The establishment of this national Jewish state has had the active support of thousands of Jews in America. In this resurgence of religious-cultural consciousness, the Jewish people are investing vast sums to educate their youth in the Jewish religion, a revival of Judaism that is being felt in America, too. At inter-faith gatherings here, our Protestant Christian heritage must frequently be adjusted to avoid offending the Jewish faith. Bible readings, for example, must be selected from the Old Testament, and prayer must not be offered in Jesus’ name. And we are pressured to have an open Sabbath in deference to the Jews, who observe Saturday rather than Sunday.
These facts reveal the pluralistic state of our society, for which our founding fathers provided, but with which we have not had to cope seriously until the present time. This development, of course, comes at the expense of Protestantism, which through the years had enjoyed a preferred religious position in America. Whether this status was good or bad is another question. The fact is that Protestantism seemed unaware of what was happening. No longer is old-line American Protestantism in a position to guide the spiritual life of the nation as before. We have reached the place in our national life where many of our theories must be adapted to the practical outworkings of life. To do this is a new experience for us both as Protestants and as Americans and is part of the tension now operative in our approach to the problem of separation of church and state.
Secularism is another element in American life that cannot be overlooked. Many persons either do not believe in God at all, or have so diluted any concept of him as to make him virtually nonexistent. Many young people are being reared in a new kind of faith that makes God quite irrelevant to life. Because of this changing status of religious life in America there has come increased pressure to define what we mean by the separation of church and state, and by religious freedom. For the first time since its founding as a nation, America is being brought face to face seriously with the demands of a pluralistic society.
In a 1952 decision of the Supreme Court, Justice William O. Douglas said, “We are a religious people and our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.” These words contrast tellingly with the words of Justice Sutherland in an earlier decision of 1931 which refers to us as “a Christian people.” In the 21-year interval between 1931 and 1952 we moved from designation as “Christian” to simply “religious” people. It is doubtful whether we can ever again recapture the former identity. It is conceivable that in the not too distant future we shall even drop the term “religious” in reference to ourselves. If religious faith is to prevail in our pluralistic society, it must center increasingly around the life of our churches. Perhaps this is as it should be. Louis Cassels, United Press religion correspondent, concluded a recent column titled “A Look Past the Prayer Decision” by saying:
The Supreme Court ruling means that Protestant parents must now face up to reality. And the reality is that the average Protestant child is not receiving much religious education. Even if he attends Sunday School faithfully he gets only about 25 hours of solid instruction a year.
Some Protestants have reacted to the ruling by denouncing the Supreme Court and talking about a constitutional amendment to permit the public school religious exercises which parents have found so comforting.
Others, however, are already looking beyond this kind of emotional response to see what constructive steps the Protestant churches can take to provide children with the kind of religious-oriented educational experience which is now quite obviously ruled out of the public schools.
One thing is obvious. Recognizing what has taken place in the American scene, we must go on to meet further challenges that will confront us as we try to define what our founding fathers meant by the separation of church and state.
Preacher in the Red
NO RETURN ADDRESS NECESSARY
I was a minister of one of England’s great old Methodist churches, a splendid edifice dating back to Wesley’s time. Extensive renovation and restoration had been done and I invited an earlier famous and beloved pastor to share in the dedication services.
Seated by his side on the platform I said to him enthusiastically: “Beautiful isn’t it? You see how we have done out the front of the gallery in simple white and gold, replacing that hideous multi-colored blotch of a frieze—that gaudy, tasteless, inartistic abomination unto the Lord. Do you remember it?”
“Yes I do,” he replied. “I put it there twenty years ago.”—THE REV. T. L. BARLOW WESTERDALE, “Camelot,” 12, Cheriton Road, Winchester, England.
