The Long Battle Over Religion in the Schools
One of the more ambiguous moments during the memorial service for the students killed at Columbine High School last spring occurred when Franklin Graham, the son of the Rev. Billy Graham, delivered an impassioned eulogy. “It is time,” he said, “for this nation to recognize that when we empty the public schools of the moral teachings and the standards of our holy God, they are indeed very dangerous places.”
Graham spoke to a widespread but highly contested belief that prayer and the Bible ought to occupy a central place in American public schools. That belief has waxed and waned throughout American history, and its evolution is the subject of James Fraser’s “Between Church and State.”
A professor and a pastor, Fraser seeks to provide a neutral historical perspective on the current debates. In that, he succeeds. The book is workmanlike, stolid and effective. He begins with a simple question: How should a diverse and democratic society deal with the issue of religion in the public schools? He asserts at the onset that a distorted, rosy picture of the past serves none of us, and he avers that tolerance, including tolerance of fundamentalists by secularists, is a necessity. Yet Fraser’s fairness and balance dictate an acceptance of multicultural education that most of the players he describes would find objectionable.
Though most Americans cherish the myth that the country was founded on the principle of religious pluralism, Fraser correctly punctures that idyll. The colonies were settled by sects, each of which was intolerant of the others, but none of which had the power to impose its theology on a national scale. What resulted after the Revolution was local intolerance balanced by the neutrality of the federal government.
In the 19th century, public education became the battleground for the question of public versus private faith, secularism versus religiousness, and intolerance versus diversity. Fraser traces the various attitudes toward public schooling, the discomfort of Catholics with the Protestant character of most schools, and the struggles of immigrants, Native Americans and African Americans to carve out their own identities through education.
In the first part of the 20th century, the courts began to apply the Bill of Rights to the states. Because of that, states are now subject to the 1st Amendment, which guarantees freedom of religion. Until the middle of this century, states had wide latitude in determining the religious content of school education, as the legendary Scopes trial of 1925 demonstrated. That Tennessee could legislate against the teaching of evolution was a potent reminder that for most of American history, it was perfectly normal for religious beliefs to dictate school curricula.
That changed dramatically in the 1960s and 1970s as school prayer came under assault. Fraser shows how the religious right came to prominence on the issue of private prayer and, following the principle of fairness, he shows how the pendulum may have swung too far. Some now seek to eliminate all signs of religion from the schools just as early generations sought to eject any science that did not conform to doctrine. Fraser suggests that the intolerance of the secularist may have forced otherwise moderate parents into the arms of such groups as the Christian Coalition.
At several points in the 1990s, school prayer has become a national issue, especially with debates in Congress over a constitutional amendment proposed by Rep. Ernest Istook (R-Okla.) that would have ensconced in the Constitution the right of voluntary prayer. Fraser describes how complicated the debates were, and although the amendment did not pass, it showed how divided we are as a nation over this issue. Although the question of school vouchers is usually discussed in terms of public versus private schools, Fraser underscores the degree to which the voucher issue is also about parents having the choice to send their children to schools where Franklin Graham’s concerns would be allayed.
Fraser comes down squarely on the side of diversity and tolerance. He would like to see schools where religion and science coexist and where students are exposed to different perspectives on mankind and different answers to that inchoate question that all children and most adults ask: What is the meaning of life?
“The way to a better future,” he concludes, “is through an inclusive and engaging education in which schools encourage all . . . to listen respectfully . . . where all voices are heard and given their due rights.” This is a noble, liberal sentiment, but it is not one that many of the people in Fraser’s book are likely to accept.
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Zachary Karabell is a frequent reviewer for The Times’ Religion page.
