Does Religion Belong in School?

Does Religion Belong In School?

The Prayer Amendment has major implications for how our Constitution is understood.

“Astonishingly trivial!” So a liberal opponent decried the proposal for the School Prayer Amendment. The whole matter, he insists, is so inconsequential that no sensible person will waste his time arguing for or against it. The only justification for fighting it, he suggests cynically, is to “keep right-wingers pinned down on the Prayer Amendment battle for a number of years so they won’t be able to cause trouble on more important fronts.”

There is a piece of truth in what he says. The Prayer Amendment is certainly no panacea for the moral ills of our society. The evangelist who blamed the Supreme Court ban on school prayers for “crime, racial conflict, drug abuse, political assassination, the Vietnam war, sexual promiscuity, and the demise of American family life” is living in a dream world. Passing the Prayer Amendment will not result in an automatic upsurge of good laws for the relief of the poor, the downtrodden, and the disenfranchised. It will not roll back the materialism and secularism dominating higher echelons of our culture. And, above all, there are other great issues before our nation. Evangelicals must not allow themselves to be sidetracked by a concern for the School Prayer Amendment, making it into an issue out of all proportion to its true significance.

Why The Prayer Amendment Is Important

Nonetheless, our liberal friend labors under a very serious misconception. The issue over the Prayer Amendment is not trivial. It is a symbol of the fact that America for 200 years has labeled itself a nation under God. Secularists are struggling valiantly to try to pull our nation out from under its conscious submission to a supreme moral ruler. They are trying to make the United States into a pagan nation. While few, if any, defend their opposition to this amendment on the grounds that they wish to make America a pagan nation, that is nonetheless the heart of the issue.

We are not an obedient nation, nor are we a righteous nation. But in our national motto, in our Pledge of Allegiance, and in countless other ways, we have consciously chosen to be a nation that recognizes God as the Supreme Ruler and the Guarantor of our basic ethical values. The Prayer Amendment, for good or ill, has become the symbol of whether or not America still has the will to claim itself to be a nation under God.

Moreover, no one should ever think that evangelicals will remain satisfied with securing merely the symbol of our national recognition of God. If this amendment or some other action makes it possible for Americans to give public recognition to God, it will have far-reaching effects. It will prove to all that this nation has not drifted so far from its heritage as some have thought. The American people still want to commit this nation to God, however vague and hesitant that desire may be.

Therefore, God-fearing people everywhere will be encouraged. Evangelicals will gain a greater sense of their responsibility to act politically as Christians. They must not, and they will not, stop until they have reasserted their right to the full practice of their evangelical faith and its application in ways that are appropriate to a pluralistic society. They will certainly press for the right to provide meaningful instruction for their children in Christian doctrine and biblical ethics, however this can be justly safeguarded in our pluralistic society. No large segment of society has ever been willing to turn its children over to an educational process that undermines or neglects as irrelevant its basic values. On the current scene, this rests heavily as a major social problem and, as we shall see, is directly related to the issue of the Prayer Amendment.

This proposed amendment also has significant implications for the whole understanding of our American Constitution and how it works in practice. Over the last few decades, the Supreme Court has chosen to “interpret” our Constitution in ways that almost every student of the American system recognizes are really not interpretations in the usual sense of the word. They are instead adaptations of it to fit what the Supreme Court feels is good for the American people at the moment. In this process, most evangelicals are convinced that while the court has protected many basic human rights, it has also jeopardized other rights built into the original Bill of Rights. Passage of the Prayer Amendment would seek to reassert some of this precious heritage without endangering political and social freedoms the American people have gained in other areas.

Evangelicals Defend Religious Freedom

But some lament: “This is just the danger signaled by the Prayer Amendment. Fundamentalists and evangelicals wish to reinstate a theocracy and will not stop short of religious persecution if they have their way.” Far from it! Evangelicals are among the strongest proponents of freedom and relief from government intervention and control to be found on planet Earth. They know that they must protest any attempt to force a particular religion down the throats of the American people. They do not wish to destroy the child of the atheist or the antireligious person. Evangelicals, too, have been a minority; they know what it means to function in a school system that is unfavorable to the flourishing of their religion.

History illustrates the evangelical commitment to freedom. The nations historically dominated by evangelical Protestants were the leaders in the modern development of human freedom. The culture of the United States has been dominated by evangelical religion as few other nations in the world, and this nation has been at the forefront in the battles for human freedom.

Not that our record is unsullied. Liberty is a fragile treasure that we preserve only at the price of eternal vigilance. Yet for all their failures, Protestant evangelicals have fought for human liberty (not just their own) as no other major religious group. Evangelicals today need to be reminded of that part of their heritage, too.

Evangelical faith by its essential nature is committed to human freedom, and, in spite of a few lamentable exceptions, its history demonstrates how it has taken the lead in this area. Evangelicals, therefore, are wholly committed to freedom from governmental control. They stand firmly for the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, which protects its citizens from laws that will in any way seek to impose upon them either a religion that is not their own or any religion at all. But they are also concerned about freedom for religion and its free practice. The second half of the First Amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion and protects the freedom of American citizens to acknowledge God in every area of their lives.

Proponents of the Prayer Amendment, incidentally, are not really seeking to introduce anything new. They are rather restoring rights they believe the Constitution already guarantees to them but which have been eroded in recent years. In poll after poll, 70 to 85 percent of Americans make clear that they wish to acknowledge God, and for their children to be free to pray and worship God in the public schools. It is a shame, or so it seems to most Americans, that soldiers can have a chaplain minister to them, that our Senate has a chaplain who leads in daily prayer, but that our school children are not allowed to acknowledge the Divine existence or that theirs is a nation under God.

Religious Freedom In Public Schools

The First Amendment prohibited Congress from establishing any particular religion as the law of the land, and it guaranteed the people their right to worship freely as they wished. The Fourteenth Amendment has been interpreted (many think wrongly) to mean that these same rules apply to each of the 50 states and local governments. Immediately after World War II, however, a series of Supreme Court decisions upset the balance between these two principles of (1) freedom from governmental prescription of religion, and (2) freedom from government interference in the free exercise of religion.

• The famous McCullum case ruled out released time (for Bible classes).

• In Engle v. Vitale, the Supreme Court struck down a 22-word prayer prepared by the New York Board of Regents for voluntary use.

• In Murray v. Curlett, Bible reading and the Lord’s Prayer were forbidden in school exercises.

Although the Court decisions were not so clear-cut with respect to voluntary religious exercises as some have thought, the courts have made abundantly clear that: (1) any legislated practice must have a secular purpose, (2) its primary effect must not be to aid or inhibit religion, and (3) it must not significantly entangle the government in religion. Even more important than this set of tests has been the effect of the Court’s decision upon the practice of our public schools. In order to avoid litigation and to “be on the safe side,” school officials across our nation have pretty much eliminated voluntary prayer or Bible reading or religious exercises of any kind.

The cumulative effect of this upon our nation is disastrous. In the first place, it has deprived religious people of sharing with their children the basic structure of their own religious and moral commitments. Moreover, it has deprived our nation of communicating its religious heritage to its citizens. And finally, it has, in effect, established a religion of secularism.

As Supreme Court Justice Stewart noted in his 1964 minority report (Abington v. Schempp): “[A] compulsory state educational system so structures a child’s life that if religious exercises are held to be an impermissible activity in schools, religion is placed at an artificial and state-created disadvantage. Viewed in this light, permission of such exercises for those who want them is necessary if the schools are truly to be neutral in the matter of religion. And a refusal to permit religious exercises thus is seen, not as the realization of state neutrality, but rather as the establishment of a religion of secularism.”

The dilemma before the American people is simply this: How can we adequately protect the right of our people not to have an alien religion forced upon them by government but at the same time allow them the free exercise of their own religion in a way that will be appropriate with the nature of their deep religious commitment? In a pluralistic society like ours, how can these two basic freedoms be preserved in appropriate balance?

Is The Prayer Amendment A Solution?

We believe that the amendment proposed by the Senate (S.J. Res. 199) and sponsored by President Reagan will go a long way towards the preservation of both of these freedoms and secure the desired balance. The resolution reads: “Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to prohibit individual or group prayer in public schools or in public institutions. No person shall be required by the United States or by any state to participate in prayer.”

The slightly revised version also under consideration is, we think, an even better form, although we would support either. The revised form would read: “Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to prohibit prayer or other religious activity in public schools or other public institutions. Neither the United States nor any state shall require any person to participate in prayer or other religious activity or influence the form or content of any prayer or other religious activity.” Either form of amendment would significantly extend the freedom to exercise religion in the public school. The second form has the added feature that it would not permit simply voluntary prayer, but also the voluntary exercise of religion in debates, private meditation, Bible study, moral instruction, Bible reading, or religious clubs as long as these did not infringe upon the freedom of the nonparticipant.

Both readings also protect the student’s right not to have a religion he does not want crammed down his throat. The amended form again is stronger. It not only prohibits the government from requiring anyone to participate in prayer or any other religious activity, it also forbids the government from influencing the form or content of the prayer or religious activity. That is, the government would not be permitted to prescribe a particular form even for voluntary use. In this way it could not indirectly foster a particular religion by preparing sectarian prayers or forms of worship and making them readily available. More important by far to all evangelicals, it could not in the interests of peace and harmony prepare “harmless” prayers with all distinctively evangelical convictions safely removed from them.

Would This Foster One Freedom To Destroy Another?

In one sense, of course, by providing an environment in which those who wish to pray will be permitted to do so, some will be influenced toward religion and even a particular religion. Army chaplains, for example, sometimes influence a soldier toward a particular religion. But it is not the government’s aim in providing the chaplain to influence a soldier in the direction of a particular religion. Just so, if the government creates an opportunity for prayer or Bible study, its aim is not to influence anyone toward a particular religion, though that may sometimes happen. Its aim is to provide freedom for those who wish to exercise their religion to do so while retaining safeguards against unduly embarrassing or pressuring any students to participate in an unwanted religious exercise.

Of course, some insist that merely creating opportunity for prayer is in itself a dangerous push in the direction of fostering religion. Yet, in a pluralistic society we must retain a balance of both principles—freedom to exercise and freedom against compulsion. Most Americans believe in God and hold that belief in a wise and just Supreme Ruler is important to the moral fiber of the nation. Therefore, it is appropriate for our government to provide a favorable environment for the fostering of religion so long as it adheres to the Golden Rule and safeguards to the best of its ability the freedom for irreligion (applying the Golden Rule to others).

This is precisely what we now do with our Pledge of Allegiance. We gladly acknowledge that we are a nation under God. But we do not force the atheist or Jehovah’s Witness to repeat a religious commitment that runs against his conscience. Accordingly, teachers could pray if they wished, but they could not be forced to pray and they could not directly teach their students to pray. And if a teacher or student chose to pray, the government could not prescribe a prayer to shape their religious exercise.

Would It Destroy Genuine Religion?

Some object that such holding of religious exercises would be divisive, setting the religious against the irreligious. Not at all! It would be far more likely to lead to a greater understanding by each student of the other person’s religious values or of his lack of religious values. In most cases it would lead to a greater respect for religion. But it would also provide a marvelous laboratory in which children could learn mutual respect for diverse religious views and how those with very deep, but also very different, commitments can function effectively in a pluralistic society.

Again, Christians often object that the watered-down sort of religious exercise acceptable to the vast majority of American citizens could only be an impoverished civil religion offensive to any evangelical who bases his religion on the Bible. Evangelicals have no desire to “establish” a false deistic religion and promulgate it in our schools. But this is not what the amendment proposes or even allows for. The fact is, by the complete elimination of religion from the schools, we now have the establishment of a secular religion. We are not asking that this be replaced by an anemic, vaguely theistic, civil religion. Certainly we are not asking for a theology-free prayer or religious exercise. Rather, we desire freedom for each person to carry out his or her own religious convictions within the public school. The public schools of America are too determinative for our entire cultural heritage to allow them to become an irreligious preserve or to promulgate a religion of secularism. We are, in short, insisting—and the amendment as revised would certainly require this—that the religion students would be free to exercise should be their own.

Finally, we need to examine the often-repeated theme that religion is really a matter for the home and church. With this we certainly agree. By no means do we wish the school to replace the church and the home as the primary source of religious instruction to the young. But no one denies that the American public school plays a decisive role in transmitting culture in our society. It is to the degree a person thinks religion is important that he will be unwilling for this crucial influence upon the young of our nation to be totally divorced from religious influence.

Moreover, we dare not teach our youngsters that religion is a purely private affair that does not affect public life. Religion deals with one’s ultimate commitments and, if genuine, affects every area of life. It is important, therefore, to see that the state is not the highest authority. Like every other aspect of human life, the state, too, is subject to a higher divine law of righteousness and justice.

Pluralism in America does not mean or require that our government must root out every vestige of religion from public life. In recent years, even religious people have at times defended singing “Silent Night” or repeating a prayer as really not religion at all so as to keep it within the bounds of what has been decreed permissible by our courts. But these are, and should be acknowledged as, religious practices. America claims to be a nation under God. Indirectly, it may foster religion and even a practice of a certain kind. But we are not defending permitting religious exercises in our public schools for that reason. We are defending them because of the inalienable freedoms that are ours as human beings—freedoms no government has a right to take from us. It is our aim to permit U.S. citizens the free exercise of their own religion. And we believe this can be done without foisting their religious convictions upon all or coercing our citizens to adopt a particular religion.

The Sum Of The Matter: What Should Evangelicals Do?

In a pluralistic society such as ours, no solution is ideal or without problems. But the present situation has become more and more unjust. All too often it now foists upon us and our children a secular religion. Invariably it prevents the free exercise of religion. Accordingly, we stand forthrightly upon the Bill of Rights and the American freedoms we have uniformly honored in name, if not in reality, through our 200-year history. We insist upon freedom from undue coercion so that no citizen and certainly no child will have an unwanted religion forced upon him. We also insist on freedom for the full exercise of religion as essential to the life of our nation. We believe this amendment—particularly in its revised form—will protect both of these freedoms. We can thus become one nation, under God, as we have time and again indicated that we wish to be.

Therefore, we urge all concerned Christians to support the Prayer Amendment, particularly in its revised form. At the same time we urge evangelicals to remember that if this should be passed, it will lay a greater burden on every Christian to work as never before to secure just laws in our nation. We will have proved that our nation can, by earnest and prayerful effort of God’s people, be moved in a right direction. We dare not rest on our laurels over any meager victory of the Prayer Amendment if it should become law. Rather, we must struggle to secure just laws that will truly reflect the goodness and justice of our God.

Others Say

Should a Computer Do All It Can?

The electronics revolution … will profoundly alter the way people interact with one another. Social interaction will more and more be done by means of the audio-visual media. This will diminish direct personal contact in favor of an artificial and machine-dominated environment. Opportunities for manipulation and fraud will increase enormously.…

[This highlights] the need for critically evaluating the new possibilities with a view toward a restrained application of the new technology, rather than assuming that every technical innovation is good because it is possible.

The most worrisome aspect of this development is that it is led by scientists and technicians, many of whom are victims of an uncritical attitude toward science. Some of them are anxiously looking forward to the day when they are able to reproduce human intelligence. This is what makes them utter statements such as “… men and computers are merely two different species of a more abstract genus called ‘information processing systems.’ ” Or, “what does a judge (or a psychiatrist) know that we cannot tell a computer?” …

That not all scientists are thus minded is encouraging.… Joseph Weizenbaum [writes in Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation]: “There have been many debates on computers and mind. What I conclude here is that the relevant issues are neither technological nor even mathematical; they are ethical. They cannot be settled by asking questions beginning with ‘can.’ The limits of the applicability of computers are ultimately statable only in terms of oughts. What emerges as the most elementary insight is that, since we do not now have any ways of making computers wise, we ought not now to give computers tasks that demand wisdom.”

The Guide, July–August 1982

Used by permission

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