Special Guest Roundup - February 2024

February 2024 Special Guest Roundup

by Rob Sellers

The Interfaith News Roundup is a monthly publication of The Interfaith Observer. This month we have a guest Roundup author, Rob Sellers. An active participant in the interfaith movement locally (as president multiple years of the Abilene Interfaith Council), nationally (as a member of the Interfaith Commission of the National Council of Churches USA), and internationally (as a member of the Interfaith Relations Commission of the Baptist World Alliance and a trustee of the Parliament of the World’s Religions), Rob has a passion for the interfaith movement and for working cooperatively with persons of multiple faith traditions.

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Democracy at Risk

As democracy in America becomes increasingly fragile and under attack from those who fear progressive societal developments, it is important that we recognize the danger signals and engage the battle to keep religion and the government – or church and state – apart, divided, as in the visionary thinking of Thomas Jefferson, by “a wall of separation.”  

Many of us have looked with complacency, amusement or even scorn at the “culture war” which has motivated conservatives in our nation for so long. Perhaps we have assigned their strategies and campaigns to a cognitive wastebin, feeling they represent the unhinged actions of a group of far-right extremists. Maybe we have felt that these efforts to return America to the “good old days” of white Christian supremacy would never affect us or our families. Nonetheless, during this U.S. presidential election year, these kinds of radical assaults on “woke” culture are associated with the presumptive candidate of one of the two major political parties in America.

During the next few months, I will write several pieces (published in other places) that speak to this troubling trend in our country, with the hope that you will be informed and thus inspired to engage this struggle to safeguard our democracy and uphold the separation of church and state in American society. This focus of this article for TIO’s Interfaith Roundup concerns religious freedom in public education, especially in primary and secondary schools.

The Three Rs” – Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic as rudiments of good teaching in public schools, was a phrase popularized at the beginning of the 19th century [“The Three Rs,” Wikipedia]. But there is another “R” that precedes these academic subjects that is even more critical for overall success. Without it, students, teachers and school employees of all kinds are subject to discrimination and unfair disadvantages. This basic element of public education is Religious freedom.

A Case Study

The following school scenario – imaginary but realistic – illustrates the problems that arise when religious freedom is not valued in public education:

The Harpers’ oldest son was a second-string tight end on the high school varsity football team. The parents and the son both like the coach, Sam Guard. He was a disciplinarian but also seemed to care for the personal well-being of each of his young athletes.

Being fairly regular churchgoers, the Harpers were pleased to learn that coach Guard offered a prayer in the locker room before each game, especially since he didn’t simply pray for victory, but that the team, win or lose, might play well, follow the rules, and respect the other team. He also included concern for the injured players and ailing parents and siblings. They were consequently troubled to hear that a small group of Jewish parents objected to the prayers and at the next school board meeting were going to protest coach Guard’s practice of praying.

The Harpers’ friends, Ed and Sue Righteous, called to say they were going to the school board meeting to defend the coach; but they did not have a son on the team, and they felt if the Harpers would attend and speak up in his defense, it would be very helpful. Would they do that [Progressive Christians Uniting, “Religion and the Public Schools,” Progressive Christians Speak: A Different Voice on Faith and Politics, ed. John B. Cobb, Jr. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000), 1]?

Religious Freedom in Public Schools

School-sponsored public prayers are just one indication that personal liberties for some students, teachers and employees are being disregarded today. However, religious freedom in public schools, as well as in every area of American life, is safeguarded in the first 16 words of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” According to the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty in Washington, D.C., these two clauses, the establishment clause and the free exercise clause, “were intended to keep government neutral – neither helping or hurting religion, but disengaging from religion to allow people of faith (or of no faith) to practice their religion as they see fit”[“The First Amendment’s religion clauses,” BJCOnline].

From 1791, when the Bill of Rights was ratified, until the mid-20th century religious freedom was assumed to be a guaranteed right of everyone in this country. America was considered a Christian – in fact, Protestant Christian – nation. According to John B. Cobb, regarded by many as the preeminent theologian and philosopher in America: “The Supreme Court found no occasion even to mention Thomas Jefferson’s oft-quoted phrase ‘the wall of separation between church and state’ until 1879,” when it ruled that religious belief “could not protect Mormon polygamy from antipolygamy statutes.”

In the war-conscious atmosphere of 1940, the Court ruled that children who were Jehovah’s Witnesses could be forced to salute the American flag in schools, despite their families’ religious view that this was “bowing down to idols.” This case was the first instance of a Supreme Court decision about religion in public schools, but the immediate outcry of religious persecution caused the Court to reconsider and reverse its decision in 1943 [Progressive Christians Uniting, Ibid., 2].

Since the 1940s, there have been many more aspects of religious freedom in schools argued in state legislatures and tried in courts across the land. In this time of heightened sensitivity – felt by those on both sides of the philosophical and political divide – students may become pawns in the impassioned but often manipulative moves by parents and politicians. Organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State monitor and attempt legally to overturn infringements upon the religious freedom of persons in public schools.

Attacks on the Separation of Church and State

Currently, there are multiple examples of attacks on religious freedom as enshrined in the First Amendment.

Lauren Boebert — Photo: Wikimedia

Politicians like Colorado Republican Legislator Lauren Boebert express their opposition to the traditional understanding that there must be a “wall of separation” between religion and government. In a Sunday speech at the Cornerstone Christian Center in Basalt, Colorado, in her campaign for a second term in the U.S. Congress, Boebert said: “I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk – that’s not in the Constitution. It was in a stinking letter [from President Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut in 1802] and it means nothing like they say it does.”

She went on to claim, “The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church. That is not how our Founding Fathers intended it.” These comments were greeted with enthusiastic applause from the congregation [Brad Dress, “Boebert says she is ‘tired’ of separation between church and state: ‘The church is supposed to direct the government,’” The Hill].

The Supreme Court

During the administration of President Trump and since, the Supreme Court with its majority of conservative Justices has again acted on religious freedom cases. They voted to defend the actions of a football coach in Washinton state who was praying with his high school team at the 50-yard line after public school games. They ruled that Boston violated the Constitution with its decision that a religious organization could not fly their flag at the city hall. They struck down a ruling in Maine that private religious schools could not receive taxpayer-funded tuition grants. One of the Justices, Sonia Sotomayor, in her minority dissenting opinion to the Maine decision, wrote that the court “continues to dismantle the wall of separation between church and state that the Framers fought to build” [Ibid.].

State Legislatures

In numerous states, lawmakers are conspiring to “protect Christian values” and fight the culture war against the encroachment of other religions or of secularism. In a national piece published by the ACLU at the beginning of the 2023-2024 school year, the growing number of state legislative attempts to insert sectarian religion back into public education was condemned.

Photo: Unsplash

In Idaho, lawmakers passed a bill that gives school employees the freedom to pray at any time that he or she might otherwise be engaged in conversations or other personal activities. “Under this broad provision, a teacher could try to claim a right to kneel in prayer in front of students as they file in for homeroom or while they’re taking an exam, as long as the teacher would be permitted to send personal texts or read a book during that same period.” Kentucky has endorsed a similar statement while North Dakota many congressional leaders want to take the same action [Max Schlenker, “Back to school basics: public schools are not Sunday schools,” ACLU.org].

These measures, along with other attempts to insert sectarian, even proselytizing, religious events into public schools, have been inspired by Supreme Court rulings. Idaho’s teacher-prayer statute is even named after Washington’s Coach Kennedy, whose prayers at the 50-yard line were sanctioned by the highest court in the land [Ibid.].

Oklahoma progressives are trying to reverse a decision of the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board to allow a Catholic charter school, St. Isadore of Seville, from receiving tax money, since as a private religious institution it would be able to discriminate against any students, their families and employees on the basis of religion or their LGBTQ-identity [“In Oklahoma, a new test of religion in public schools,” PBS News Hour]. Erin Brewer, vice president of the Oklahoma Parents Legislative Action Committee and parent of two children in public schools, said in frustration: “We are already losing teachers, and the environment around public schools is just so bad and now we want to divert money to something that is unconstitutional. My [kids are] going to lose, and every parent is going to lose, and it’s not fair [Ibid.].

But the most blatant efforts to disregard the protections of the First Amendment are happening in Texas. Erin Walter, a Unitarian Universalist minister whose community of friends includes Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, agnostics, and others, writes about Texas politicians who are threatening increased religious discrimination and bullying by working to pass laws bringing religion into public schools. Some of the disturbing legislation they are proposing include the following:

  • Senate Bill 1515, which requires the display of [a distinctly Christian version of] the Ten Commandments “in a conspicuous place in each classroom of the school.” 

  • Senate Bill 1396, which authorizes school boards to require a period of prayer and Bible reading in public schools. 

  • Senate Bill 1556, which emboldens public school employees to claim a right to pray at any time, without interference or objection from the school [Erin Walter, “Keep religion out of Texas public schools,” ACLU Texas].

Sadly, despite concerted effort to oppose this kind of illegitimate merger of church and state, the Texas Legislature and Republican Governor Greg Abbott have already succeeded in passing Senate Bill 763, which allows so-called “chaplains” to serve as school counselors. As Walter notes, “these ‘chaplains’ will not need to meet any of the certification or advanced education requirements that actual school counselors are currently required to complete. During debate on the issue, a legislator noted that the largest proponent for the bill views this policy as a way to ‘infiltrate our public schools’ with Christian ideas” [Ibid.]

Departments of Education and Local School Boards

Book bannings have become more common in the last couple of years, as state boards of education or local school boards are removing books from school library shelves that don’t pass a censorship or purity test. Florida is the state with the most book bans, more than twice as many as the next state, Texas. In the 2022-23 school year, there were between 1401 and 1500 book bans in Florida, with some 601-700 in Texas. Nationwide, according to a free speech organization called PEN America, a record-number 3362 books were banned [Douglas Soule, “Florida is the nation’s book banning leader, according to national free speech group,” Texas Democrat]

This is a trend that is becoming normalized, particularly where departments of education or school boards are more conservative. Books that are interpreted to relate to sexual orientation, gender identity, race, Black Lives Matter, Critical Race Theory, pornography or violence have been targeted. One lawsuit in Escambia County  -- the oldest county in Florida with its largest city, Pensacola – claims that books have be banned there after only one person complained about the content of the books [Chris Walker, “Groups and parents file lawsuit against Florida district for banning books,” Truthout]

Conclusion

According to Civic Rights – an organization whose “mission is to ensure the social, educational, political and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial and religious discrimination” – “Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on religion in public primary and secondary schools, as well as public colleges and universities” [“Religious discrimination in education,” civicrights.com]. Yet, many contemporary conservative politicians and persons in power, including some pastors and parents of school-age children, are working to ensure that religious discrimination in our public educational institutions favors some ideas and rewards certain students more than others.

What steps can we take to combat these sorts of actions that are threatening our religious freedom in public education?

We can attend school board meetings to monitor decisions and lobby for adherence to the principle of the separation of church and state. We can write letters to our state representatives, or appear in person in appropriate ways at the state capitol, to speak against pending discriminatory legislation. We should read widely, listen carefully and reflect seriously about efforts to take away religious freedom for all Americans. We should talk with our friends and acquaintances where we live, work, worship or play so that they are informed of the dangers we have identified and encouraged to join in efforts to defeat them. Above all, we must vote for political candidates at every level of government who will honor and uphold the principles of our democracy.

If we don’t exercise our basic freedoms to assemble, speak out, protest and vote, “the fourth R” will forever be taken out of our public schools.  



Header Photo: Unsplash