Congress Gives Student Religious Groups Access to Public Secondary Schools

However, a federal appeals court bars a Bible club from meeting in a Pennsylvania school.

Equal-access legislation, ardently supported by almost all evangelical and mainline church organizations, has become federal law. It prevents public secondary schools from disbanding student religious groups that want to meet for prayer, Bible study, or discussions of religion (see related editorial on p. 12).

Heartfelt, sometimes rancorous, congressional debate about the measure hinged on a question that ordinarily lies dormant beneath the surface of national consciousness: May individual rights of free speech and assembly cross over the boundary between church and state?

In response, the U.S. Senate voiced a resounding yes, voting 88 to 11 in favor of the bill. The U.S. House of Representatives followed suit in July with a 337 to 77 vote. But on the same afternoon the House took its decisive vote, a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Pennsylvania said no. The court overturned an earlier ruling in favor of Williamsport high school students who organized a Bible club called Petros.

To protect groups like Petros, the Equal Access Act makes it unlawful for any public secondary school to discriminate against student groups based on the subject matter they are discussing. It protects “religious, political, philosophical, or other” types of speech rather than singling out only religious speech. The law does not allow nonstudents to “direct, conduct, control, or regularly attend” such meetings.

The act does not authorize the government to withold federal financial assistance to schools that do not comply, a provision earlier drafts included. It defines “noninstructional time”—during which extracurricular groups may meet—as occurring before or after the school day begins. It does not specifically prohibit religious meetings during free periods throughout the school day, but court decisions around the country, including the recent Williamsport ruling, have done so.

Conservative members of Congress, discontent over compromises in the wording of the act, pushed ahead with proposals for vocal and silent prayer during class time. A measure endorsing silent prayer passed in the House, while a more sweeping proposal failed. The silent-prayer amendment that passed the House stood slim chance of coming up in the Senate, which would have to debate and pass it before it became law.

An earlier version of the Equal Access Act failed to pass the House in June after it was blocked by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), National Education Association (NEA), and several Jewish lobby groups (CT, June 15, 1984, p. 58). In the wake of that narrow defeat, Senate sponsor Mark O. Hatfield (R-Oreg.) redoubled his efforts to work out an acceptable compromise.

Drafting the bill and nudging it through Congress proved to be a grueling decathlon of unusual procedures, power plays, and negotiation. Hatfield’s staff lawyer Randy Sterns met with strategists from the Christian Legal Society (CLS), National Association of Evangelicals, and Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs. They painstakingly weighed and measured the nuances of each phrase troubling the bill’s opponents. Finally, the ACLU declared itself neutral toward the measure, and Hatfield attached it to a bill providing federal funds to upgrade math and science teaching—a program dear to the heart of the NEA. Once the ACLU declared a truce, “that broke the logjam and changed a lot of votes,” Sterns said.

Hatfield’s involvement with the issue began in 1981 after a court decision in Lubbock, Texas, prevented a student religious group from meeting at school. In response, Hatfield shaped a coalition of 24 senators who filed an unprecedented friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the Lubbock students. “We built a strong basis of support from which to introduce this bill,” Sterns said, including 50 cosponsors by the end.

After achieving Senate passage, the bill went to the House. It was promptly shelved by House Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill, who sent it to two committees from which he never expected it to emerge. But Democrats who supported the measure threatened to use an obscure confrontational tactic to upstage committee chairmen who tried to block the bill.

O’Neill backed down and agreed to suspend the usual rules of debate. That move was necessary to prevent opponents from choking off debate by offering hundreds of meaningless amendments.

Opponents voiced fears of cults infiltrating student meetings; of “student-initiated catechism or baptism or other religious services”; and of school districts “inundated by demands from students for religious meetings of various types of cults, fringe groups, and allegedly religious movements.”

Throughout the congressional wrangling, equal-access supporters drew attention to the Williamsport case, a classic illustration of the type of discrimination they wanted to remedy. To their relief, the appeals court decision opposing the students came down after Congress approved the Equal Access Act.

The appeals court ruling acknowledges the students’ right to free speech and the school’s prerogative to allow clubs to meet in its classrooms. But the court applied a traditional three-part test of whether a religious activity is constitutional, and it gave the Petros club a failing grade because it would have the effect of “advancing” religion under the auspices of the state.

The majority said high school students are apt to be immature and impressionable, thus “less able to appreciate the fact that permission for Petros to meet would be granted out of a spirit of neutrality toward religion and not advancement.” Some students may come to believe that the school endorses and encourages religious practice, the decision says, because “involuntary contact between nonparticipating students and religious groups is inevitable.” The club is unconstitutional, according to the court, because “public schools have never been a forum for religious expression.”

A strong dissent by one circuit court judge pointed out that Petros is the only club in the school’s history to be denied the right to meet. This “selective exclusion,” he said, raises a more pertinent question: Is the school officially hostile to religion?

Sam Ericsson of CLS, lead counsel for the Williamsport students, said he will appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Because a number of similar lower-court rulings conflict with a two-year-old U.S. Supreme Court decision permitting college students to meet on campus for religious purposes, it is likely that the high court will agree to rule on the Williamsport case.

Court decisions have made school officials increasingly wary of allowing student religious groups to meet. But passage of the Equal Access Act trumpets a clear signal that these clubs are legitimate and acceptable. Even so, future court challenges are expected.

“We have no sense of smugness about resolving every issue that’s going to come up,” Sterns said. “The particulars will have to be worked out in case-by-case litigation.” Meanwhile, it is up to students, parents, and schools to work out ways to exercise their equal-access rights.

U.S. Churches Debate Wide Array Of Issues During Summer Meetings

The General Board of American Baptist Churches (ABC) has affirmed the competence of Christians to make decisions regarding “covenantal, intentional family arrangements,” an apparent reference to homosexual unions. The board also asked the 1.6-million-member ABC to help strengthen family units of all kinds, including “covenantal family-like groups.”

The action came as part of a policy statement on family life approved by the general board at its summer meeting. The statement was adopted by a vote of 140 to 24, with 4 abstentions.

One denominational official stressed that the statement upholds an individual’s right to choose, and does not address the morality of all choices. Some board members asked if the reference to “covenantal, intentional family arrangements” could be construed as approving homosexual unions. Robert Chew, a member of the task force that prepared the statement, said it does not condone all family lifestyles. Instead, the statement is a “mandate to ABC churches to minister to every kind of lifestyle that exists,” he said.

The statement also says remarriage for divorced Christians is “appropriate where the issues which ended an earlier marriage have been addressed.” However, it affirmed that God intends marriage to be monogamous and lifelong.

The general board also urged the U.S. government to reject a military approach to problems in Central America and instead stress assistance in economic development. In addition, the board spent four hours debating American Baptist involvement in ecumenical organizations. At its December meeting, the board will vote on a statement that reaffirms the denomination’s commitment to the National Council of Churches and World Council of Churches.

Other major American denominations met during the summer, debating issues from abortion to ordaining women as deacons. Actions taken include the following:

• The all-male general synod of the 300,000-member Christian Reformed Church voted 82 to 75 to allow women to be ordained as deacons. The synod gave local congregations the right to decide whether to implement the decision. Women continue to be excluded from the offices of minister, elder, and evangelist.

The 160-member synod also declared that theological support for apartheid—South Africa’s ideology of racial segregation—is heresy.

• Delegates to the Lutheran Church in America (LCA) convention adopted a statement that says nuclear weapons must not be seen as a permanent deterrent to war. The statement deplored the sale of military arms and expressed alarm at the “proliferation of nuclear weapons.” The delegates, representing three million Lutherans, also condemned foreign military intervention in Central America and asked that U.S. economic aid be withheld from regimes that violate basic human rights.

• Delegates representing the Church of the Brethren’s 164,000 members adopted a statement that reiterates its opposition to abortion. In other action, delegates appointed a committee to study and make recommendations on how the historic peace church should respond to the dilemma of paying for war through taxes.

• Commissioners to the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) general assembly voted not to call the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA) “apostate.” The assembly said it did not want to put itself in the position of labeling more liberal church bodies. Commissioners also rejected a proposed study to explore a possible role for women as deacons in the 135,000-member denomination.

As the world’s attention was fixed on Olympic athletes striving for the gold, another quieter yet massive effort was taking place. Some 11,000 Christian volunteers from 77 countries were sharing their faith with foreign visitors and Los Angeles-area residents.

The evangelistic outreach—sprawling over an 80-mile radius surrounding the Olympic competition—was assisted by 1,800 area churches. Campus Crusade for Christ, Messengers International, the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, Youth With a Mission, and 10 other major organizations recruited volunteers. Participants served without pay, and were responsible to cover their living expenses during the effort. Some were housed by Christians in the area, while others lived in churches, schools, or missions.

Several methods of evangelism were used, from one-on-one conversations to dramatic and musical presentations. Drama and music were employed in more than a thousand outreach sites, including stages set up near Olympic athletes’ villages. Singers such as Debby Boone, Andraé Crouch, and Donna Summer, and 150 groups, performed 700 hours of gospel music.

Much of the Christian witness was focused on the athletes’ villages. The U.S. Track and Field Team contained 60 professing Christians among its 120 members. Some of these, including gold medalist Carl Lewis, gave public testimonies of their faith at an event organized by Laywitnesses for Christ International. Several Christian athletes sacrificed thousands of dollars in promotional fees from athletic clothing manufacturers by choosing to wear Christian T-shirts at public events.

Volunteers witnessed to international visitors on the streets. The mayor of Paris expressed surprise at the numbers of Christians he saw engaged in evangelism. Egyptians involved in the outreach focused on Arabs, giving Bibles to athletes from Muslim countries that are difficult to penetrate with missionary activity.

On Hollywood Boulevard, Christian groups performed on a stage set up near massage parlors and pornographic movie theaters. Other groups witnessed in Los Angeles’s many ethnic neighborhoods.

A Fijian group called Island Review was warmly received in black and Hispanic areas. At one performance in an inner-city park, 20 gang members stepped forward to acknowledge Christ as their Savior.

Olympics outreach chairman John Dawson estimates that during the Summer Games, at least 1,000 persons a day made decisions to follow Christ.

JANICE ROGERS

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