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: 

The rule of the majority is a democratic principle. Equally valid in democracy is the freedom of the individual to think and believe as he will. Minorities have like rights. In defining the tasks of the public schools, how are the two principles of majority and minority interests to be reconciled? (“Religion in public education,” p. 256) 

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? 

Religion and the Constitution 

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.  

Although Franklin expressed skepticism that the level of separation called for in McCollum was justified by the Constitution, authors such as V.T. Thayer (“Our secular schools and religion,” June 1953) saw the notion of separation of church and state as inherent within the First Amendment. In fact, for Thayer, the separation of church and state “has encouraged the public school to foster common ideals and common ways of living in a highly diversified population, free from the divisive influences of sectarian religion and extreme denominationalism” (p. 394). In other words, because the schools are religiously neutral, they provide fertile ground for learning the important skills of engaging with those who hold different views.  

The debate over the wall of separation between church and state continued across the decades, often in tandem with discussion of important Supreme Court cases, as in the November 1962 article by Marshall Tyree (“Should what is rendered to God be commended by Caesar?”), which discussed the Abington School District v. Schempp case, then pending before the Supreme Court. This case involved school-sponsored Bible readings, and Tyree noted that whatever the Court decided, it was sure to engender a strong reaction from the public, but not necessarily a productive one: 

The question which the United States Supreme Court may be called upon to decide is far from trivial. It is a matter involving the deep convictions and strong emotions of a substantial number of American people. There is a great probability that the deeper the conviction and the stronger the emotion, the greater the oversimplification of an enormously complex constitutional question. (p. 76) 

The Court ruled against the school district in this case, deeming the Bible readings unconstitutional, and the controversy raged on, especially on the local level. 

Classrooms and communities 

Despite the Court’s call for religious neutrality on the part of schools, one study, conducted by Vincent Rogers and Bruce Barnes (“Religion in the classroom: Another look,” October 1964) found that when teachers were presented with hypothetical questions from students touching on religious matters (such as what happens when people die), more than half offered answers that promoted a religious point of view. Likewise, in September 1966, Donald Reich (“The Supreme Court and public policy: The school prayer cases”) observed that many schools, particularly in the South, continued including religious observances during the school day. Even when states changed their policies in compliance with Court rulings, they remained reluctant to interfere with actual local practice.  

Authors also found evidence that raising issues related to religion created controversy where none previously existed, as Thayer Warshaw (“Teaching about religion in public school: 8 questions,” November 1967) explained in his description of the polarization that occurred when a teacher polled her community about a potential objective, nonsectarian course on religion and the Bible. The opposition was so great that her department chair and principal decided that it might have been better to present the course as “a fait accompli — a course already under way, reasonably objective and responsible, demonstrably practical and successful” (p. 128). 

Decades later, in 1992, a Supreme Court ruling that disallowed school prayer during graduation ceremonies (Lee v. Weisman) provoked rebellion in districts across the country. In an October 1993 article, Martha McCarthy (“Much ado over graduation prayer”) wrote of one such rebellion: When their school ended the practice of praying during the graduation ceremony, students decided to remain standing and recite the Lord’s Prayer on their own, to the applause of the audience. McCarthy went on to note it may have been the Court’s ruling itself that made compromise impossible: 

Replacing prayers with inspirational messages that do not refer to a deity or conclude with “amen” might have been accomplished rather easily before the Supreme Court’s 1992 decision, but there is considerable resistance to such a change when it is judicially imposed. School authorities in a number of school districts feel substantial community pressure to continue some type of devotional activities in the graduation ceremony, even if it means that school officials might be liable for violating clearly established law. (pp. 122-123) 

Religion and values 

Some Kappan authors have worried that keeping religious instruction out of school entirely could create a moral vacuum that would endanger American society. W.W. Carpenter, for example, said “We can have education without religion, but it will not be the type of education that will perpetuate a democracy” (“Education without religion, May 1948, p. 368). And, in January 1951, George Buttrick (“The venture of faith”) asserted that secular schooling “leads pupils to assume that God does not exist and Jesus does not matter” (p. 249). And some, such as Gerald Read (“Concerns for religion and education”), saw instruction about religion as a vehicle to promote the important democratic values of tolerance and respect. In the April 1955 issue on “Religion in education,” Read stated that: 

Placing children of all religious denominations under one roof does not automatically insure the development of respect for each other. Competition and conflict between religious groups appear to be necessary conditions in a pluralistic society. There is a need, therefore, for developing young people with the understandings, attitudes, and competencies required for inter-group living. Unless students have some understandings of the nature of conflict, of the principle of diversity, of the principle of dignity and worth of human personality, and respect for each other, our democracy will be doomed. Where there is a lack of knowledge and a lack of understanding of the other person’s religious beliefs and practices, and of their institutional organizations, there is likely to be prejudice and intolerance. (p. 267) 

By the late 20th century, religious instruction in school sought to be objective, not promoting one view over another, as Elliott Wright explained in “Religion in American education: A historical view,” part of Kappan’s September 1999 special section on “Religion and the schools.” Wright further suggested that such an objective view, however, “fails to embrace religious values or moral standards, a fact that makes it suspect to traditionalists and raises questions about the competence of teachers to understand and convey the nuances of widely disparate faiths” (p. 20). In the same issue, Thomas Lickona (“Religion and character education”) maintained that teachers could avoid indoctrination and instead encourage students to “develop their ethical reasoning powers in ways that do not invoke religious belief” while also “judiciously bring[ing] religion into the picture” (p. 24). 

Gilbert Sewall, editor of the September 1999 special section, likewise expressed misgivings about removing religion from schools, although he noted that finding a way to incorporate religion responsibly was a challenge: 

Americans support teaching about religion in public schools. They overwhelmingly support character education in schools. When it comes to linking the two, however, they are often uneasy and sometimes even quarrelsome. Most educators avoid the phrase “moral education,” redolent as it is with religion-based sources of moral authority. Whatever their own beliefs and ethical principles, reflective educators are acutely aware of how easily religion riles administrators and parents. (p. 11) 

The September 1999 Kappan elicited a passionate response from Alan Singer, who wrote in the February 2000 issue that: 

The implications of the arguments presented in this special section for expanding the role of religion in public education go far beyond the use of religion to introduce students to moral values. These positions threaten long-established American legal precedents that protect religious freedom, they can be used to justify government aid to religious schools, they provide ammunition to groups that wish to restrict human sexual and reproductive freedom, and they undermine efforts to promote respect for cultural diversity and for the rights of homosexuals. Moreover, they also weaken efforts to teach students a scientific and critical approach to thinking, one that supports conclusions based on evidence and recognizes that our knowledge of the world can never be considered absolute. (“Separation of church and state protects both secular and religious world,” p. 465). 

And so the debate continued. 

In December 2011/January 2012, Kappan returned to the topic with an issue on “Religion and the public schools.” In this issue, Charles Haynes presented a model of a civil public school, one that fully understands and applies the First Amendment. Such schools avoid promoting a single religion or creating an environment free from religion. Students are able to express religious views and engage in academic study of religion, and school officials avoid favoring one belief system over another. In his view, this was both essential and doable:  

In order to live with our deepest differences in the United States, we must get religion right in public education, the institution primarily responsible for preparing young people for citizenship in a pluralistic democracy. If we cannot get this right in public schools, we have little hope of getting this right in the public square of what is now the most religiously diverse nation on Earth.  

Without minimizing the remaining barriers and challenges, I am convinced that a shared vision for religious liberty in public schools — a First Amendment vision that includes people of all faiths and none — is much closer to reality today than ever before in our history. Can we do this in public schools? We must. (p. 14) 

When it comes to religion and so many other issues, yes, we must. Let’s hope that we can.