Church, state, and Kappan 

In the April 1955 issue of Kappan, Rolfe Lanier Hunt of the National Council of Churches of Christ posed an important question regarding the many different truths held by the diverse members of a democracy: 

For educators, religion has been a significant battleground for hashing out disputes about what constitutes the truth. How are schools to educate students about the role of religion in society in a way that is respectful of students’ and families’ beliefs? Is there even a place for religion in public schools? 

The answer to these questions hinges on how we interpret the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which declares that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” In the May 1948 Kappan, John Franklin (“The Champaign case: Education and religion”) took the position that this statement is intended merely to prevent the establishment of a state religion, not necessarily to create a wall of separation between church and state, an idea that came from Thomas Jefferson’s 1802 letter to a Baptist church in Danbury, Connecticut. Yet, Franklin charged, it was Jefferson’s logic that the Supreme Court used in the 1948 McCollum v. Board of Education case to declare that a series of voluntary religious classes, held during school and sometimes led by clergy, was unconstitutional.