by I’m blogging about education on a law/religion/ethics blog, and I used to teach high school history, economics and government. So I feel more or less obligated to say something about the latest culture war flare up over social studies curriculum standards in Texas.
But it’s almost too painful. The New York Times, for example, quotes a Republican member of the Texas Board of Education: “I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state. I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.” And he’s right, of course. The word “separation” never appears (although my students always had to check for themselves – they were sure it was in there somewhere.) The NYT also reported that the following amendment, offered by a Democrat, was defeated on a party line vote: students should understand that “the founding fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring the government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion above all others.” Well, that seems right, too.
It reminds me of listening to an unhappily married couple snarl at each other over a comment that to an outsider sounds innocuous – “the roast tastes good, dear; you didn’t overcook it” – but clearly pokes at old wounds.
I have no relish for intervening in either marital or Texas Board of Education squabbles. Still, I did spend one 80 minute class period each year teaching my government classes about the religion clauses. Students in a Catholic school, I thought, needed to understand how the Constitution and the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution could make or break the entire enterprise. Besides, I’d read multiple drafts of the collected works of one of the nation’s leading scholars on the subject . . . and figured I might as well put some of those hours to another use. So MY students needed to learn that:
- It was Roger Williams, not Thomas Jefferson, who introduced the phrase “wall of separation into American political discourse: He called for a “wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world.”
- The biggest impetus behind the religion clauses was Virginia Baptists, who persuaded James Madison that they would throw their support to rival House candidate James Monroe if he did not back disestablishment and free exercise.
- Adam Smith opposed establishment, arguing that preachers who were paid by their own congregations would preach more enthusiastically. David Hume supported establishment and government salaries for preachers. . . for the same reason.
- At a publicly-funded banquet in Philadelphia to celebrate ratification of the Constitution, one table served kosher food. At Washington’s inaugural, three clergymen led the parade. One was a bearded Jewish rabbi.
- When the United States acquired New Orleans in the Louisiana Purchase, the Ursuline sisters wrote an anxious letter to President Jefferson, asking if they would still be able to run their school for girls. He replied that their endeavor would have the “patronage” – not just protection or toleration, but support – of the United States government.
- Between 1800 and 1830, the City of New York funded over a dozen primary and secondary schools. Many of these were religious, including Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Methodist, Quaker, Dutch Reformed, Baptist, Lutheran, and Jewish Schools, plus the “African Free School.”
- In the nineteen twenties the State of Oregon outlawed Catholic schools. This movement was spearheaded by the Ku Klux Klan and the Freemasons. The Supreme Court held this was unconstitutional.
- The Supreme Court has also ruled that that state governments can reimburse religious schools for secular textbooks, but not for maps; for bus rides to religious school but not bus rides from religious school to a science museum for a field trip. Nativity scenes on government property are verboten unless the holy family is accompanied by singing plastic reindeer. Prayers cannot be offered at public high school graduations or football games, but it’s still okay for Congress to open each day with prayer. Go figure. (If nothing else, I was discouraging one of the most common forms of idolatry taught in U.S. government textbooks: Supreme Court worship.)
At the end of class I would pose a thought question. Why have Muslims assimilated more successfully in the United States than in Europe? Could it possibly be because so many of their neighbors take their own religion seriously, and respect others who do the same? Could it have something to do with Americans’ insistence that religion does have a voice in the public square?
So I sympathize with – and disagree with – both sides in the Texas social studies war. The founders believed that religion was necessary to public virtue; but many, including George Washington, were not orthodox Christians. They did not enact the First Amendment in order to protect government from religion, or to eradicate religious speech. But neither did they set out to create a Protestant Christian republic. Religion has been a force for good in our history, as the abolitionist movement attests, and it has been a force for evil sometimes as well. I left out one of the anecdotes that woke up even the kids in first period: When the Supreme Court ruled that Jehovah’s Witnesses had to say the pledge of allegiance in school, violence against Jehovah’s Witnesses broke out around the country, and one man was publically castrated by a Nebraska mob.
And yes. I stuck it all on the test.
Mary,
I was in high school government class not too long ago, and unfortunately I was not offered the balanced picture you presented to your students. Having said that, I really don’t remember much from the class. I think what gives me the impression that it was imbalanced is that one of the few things I do remember is being taught about Jefferson’s Letter to the Danbury Baptist’s and the “wall of separation.”
To me, whether it is presented from Roger William’s point of view, as protection of the church, or from Jefferson’s, as protection of the state, this phrase – the wall of separation – is the real culprit. It is offered, or was offered to me and my classmates, as a real possibility and perhaps even an ideal situation. Whether it was a real possibility when it was spoken I do not know. But today, with the widening sphere of the state, it is at least impossible if not also a bad idea. Church and state need not be inextricably intertwined but they will inevitably interact. This is obvious to anyone reading this blog, but was probably not obvious to me or my classmates as highschoolers and is apparently not obvious to a large portion of the public, perhaps because they once sat through highschool government.
If this reality is offered to students rather than, or in contrast to, the myth of the wall, as a society we might circumvent the surface level argument about separation vs. integration which wastes our political time and move directly to the substantive debate about what degree of separation is appropriate.
The metaphor should either be presented and mocked as naïve or should be cast aside altogether.
Actually, I think you may underestimate Roger Williams’ legitimate concern that government could undermine religion. Remember that he was embroiled in conflicts with a theocratic government.
Still, I understand and largely agree with your point. I would tell my students that the wall of separation was a poor analogy, but that a hall of separation made some sense. The establishment clause prevented government from dictating religious practices; the free exercise clause prevented government from forbidding religion practices. In between was a corridor in which religious speech could and should be protected. Many of the Supreme Court’s mid to late twentieth century opinions seem to suggest that the two clauses were in direct conflict!
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