Religious Freedom through Separation of Church and State

 

The Supreme Court

Romans 14:16-18 NIV

 Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men. 

Today, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled on the case "Kennedy vs Bremerton School District" in which football coach Joseph Kenedy often prayed after football games at the 50-yard line, frequently accompanied by members of the high school team.  A player who does not share Coach Kennedy's Christian faith, felt uncomfortable attending these prayer sessions and eventually the school board ruled that Coach Kennedy cannot continue to lead prayer with students as to do so promotes religion in public space.   Coach Kennedy felt that the school board's decision not to allow his public prayer gathering was an infringement of his first amendment rights of freedom of speech.

I have seen my social media timelines flooded with support and anger over the Supreme Court's decision to rule that Coach Kennedy did have a constitutionally protected right to lead prayer gatherings with public school students at public events.

The decision is shocking for a number of reasons:

1. The nation was founded on separation of church and state by religious people.  Meaning that leaders of faith supported the idea that government needs to be a secular institution, lest their faith be discriminated against.  These faith leaders were literally coming from hundreds of years of Church-state unions and often came to America to escape the persecution that accompanied that.

2. Precedent had been set in 1971 to keep a separation of public schools and religious activities (Lemon vs Kurtzman) recognized that religious activity permitted at government events should have:

                    A. A secular and not a religious purpose

                    B. The primary effect of the activity was not the advancement of religion

                    C. No evidence of "fostering excessive government entanglement with religion"

While most of the criteria in the "lemon test" as it is known, are highly subjective, it is clear that the intent was maintain a crucial separation of religions and government.  These criteria were set aside today.

Although I am a pastor, I attended public schools growing up, attended a private but non-sectarian college, and attended a state supported Medical and Graduate Schools.  First exposure to Church supported education came with attendance at Seminary.  My children who are now adults, attended public schools, state supported undergraduate and graduate institutions with the exception of 6 months in a private Christian school that they, along with my wife and I, would deeply regret.

As an aside, our children's experience in a Christian school is not an indictment against private Christian schools.  But in all honesty, their experience was marred by racism, narrow and prejudicial epistemologies, and comparably limited educational offerings.  Christian schools do not have the market on racism as they experienced it in public schools as well, but the degree of racism and conspiracy theories taught in their Christian school was alarming.  Six month later, they would re-enter public schools.

Early in our children's educational experience, we made a prayerful decision to demonstrate our devotion to our community by having our children in public schools. We tried to live in places where there were diverse people groups so that children would see and appreciate different ways of viewing and experiencing the world.  They were taught at home and at church the tenets and practices of the Christian faith and their freedom to use those disciplines at school if desired.  Our children knew at a young age that they could pray, read scripture, listen to worship music and talk about their faith at school, but that they had no right to demand that others do the same.  In the same way, other students who were of any other faith or variety of Christianity could not impose their beliefs and practices upon them.

It's a different issue when the religious practice is being led by a person of authority rather than the students themselves. There is a significant coercive component when the prayer or meditation is done by a teacher, principal or community leader that puts undue pressure on those who do not share the teacher's particular belief system.  In the Kennedy vs Bremerton case, the student felt that he had to show up at the prayer meeting because otherwise he would not have been seen in a positive light and this would limit his ability to participate in football, all despite his strong atheist leanings.

For many Christians it is important to see Coach Kennedy through a different lens; perhaps as a kind Muslim, Hindu, New Age practitioner or even another Christian with politically extremist views, in order to visualize the problem.  You did not send your child to public school to receive the promotion of any particular religious views and probably appreciated that your child is not coerced to participate in faith practices that you and your family may find offensive.  For those who desire that, private faith-based schools are available.

I support the freedom of expression that is listed in the constitution but do not feel that this is what is in play here.  I believe that the precedent set over 50 years ago that allows student led religious expressions but limited religious expression from those in governmental authority, protects all of our freedom of expression and freedom of religion.  

Scripture admonishes Christians to not allow our "good be spoken evil of".  No one believes that praying or leading a Bible study is evil, yet anything not done in love defeats the purpose of the practice. 

I want to give you an example of religious entanglement in governmental affairs that should have taught us to keep religion and state separately.  Before I share the example, I do not want to equate a coach praying at a football game with the violent assimilation of multiple generations of Indigenous people.  I simply want to promote your awareness that religious initiatives supported by public institutions that disregard the desires of the community end disastrously.

I have been mourning the discovery of children's remains at former Indian boarding schools and even more at the legacy of these nearly genocidal initiatives against Indigenous people in North America.  The premise was a government supported church initiative that forced indigenous children to learn Christian precepts hidden in White American culture.  This meant forbidding the use of indigenous language and ridding them of everything that was part of their indigenous identity.  The results have been disastrous.  Violence and mistreatment in the name of discipline and religious zeal occurred on a massive scale.  Fifteenth century Christian ethicist and philosopher Pascal said, "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." This is an example of when religious expression was coercively presented without regard to the self-interest of those in the community.

The issue at hand is that when religious activity is supported and thrust upon people who have less power and no voice, dehumanization results and every type of cruelty is justified. It is no different when the religious exceptionalism is supported by the federal, state, or local government.  The potential for abuse and coercion is there.

I am grateful for the religious freedom that is imbedded within the constitutional framework, but I am equally thankful for the constitutional separation of church/religious activity and government.  The framers of the constitution understood that you cannot have true religious freedom if you have government supported religious activities.  That which the government supports will eventually dominate and discriminate against all others.  This is story of European Church supported governments and the context in which the writers of the constitution engineered the dream of a secular society that allows the free expression of multiple faiths.