Religion in the Schools

Religion in the Schools

(A simple opinion piece that gives credit where it is due, asks assistance where it is necessary, and begins at the beginning.)

Imagine, for a moment, that we’re watching the beginning together. The very beginning… of my teaching career, that is. My first lecture begins at 8 AM on the dot, but before I start discussing reading or mathematics, I begin publicly, with my students repeating after me: “Oh Thalia! Come, Muse, come. And you, Truth, daughter of Zeus. Inspire me this morning, and with your guiding hands, keep me from placing my decimal points in error and dotting my Is when I should be crossing my Ts…” That would be weird, to say the least, and highly inappropriate. At a public school it would be plainly illegal (more on that in a moment), and at any hypothetical private school I can imagine where publicly invoking, as a matter of course, various daughters of Zeus would be approved of they would be really wondering why in Tartarus I was appealing to the muse of comedy for inspiration in mathematics and basic writing.

All joking aside, though, the issue of religion in the schools and their curricula is an important, though still sometimes contentious, one. For public schools, the issue of whether or not religion should be formally included in the school day was decided by the courts in the mid to late 20th century. The issue was first dealt with by the Supreme Court in 1962, in a decision known as Engel v. Vitale. In this case, New York’s State Board of Regents had become concerned about moral decline and disciplinary problems in the schools, and were instituting a program of “moral and spiritual training” that included a nondenominational prayer that would be said every morning. The saying of the prayer was approved by lower and state courts, but these decisions were ultimately struck down when the case was appealed to the Supreme Court on the grounds that the policy violated the Establishment Clause. Other cases followed, firmly establishing, in the name of government neutrality, the absence of religious teaching and worship in the public schools’ curriculum plans. (Cline, 2009)

This having been established by the highest court of the land, I would say that it would be very much not in keeping with the principles of our nation to include prayer in the public school day. In order for prayers included in the school day, or officially endorsed by the school, to be in keeping with our official national stance on religion, the saying of them would have to pass a standard known as the Lemon Test. In order to do this, saying prayers in public schools would have to 1) have a clearly secular purpose, 2)have a principle effect that neither advanced nor inhibited religion, and 3)not foster an “excessive government entanglement” with religion. (Mount, 2007) Now, personally, I do not believe that formalized prayer in public schools (while still remaining, in any sense, prayer) could meet any of the three prongs of the Lemon Test, but, for the sake of fairness, I will take a moment now to play the Devil’s Advocate, so to speak, and see if such a policy could possibly meet the Lemon Test’s standards at all. Let’s begin with the last prong of the test, that whatever statute or policy in question “must not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion.” Hypothetically, if a prayer or other spiritual routine could be worked into the curriculum without favoring, in any way, any particular religion or other spiritual# belief system or stance, then it could pass this test. But, the kind of neutrality that is required in order to do this without officially advocating any stance, practice, or category of stances or practices would eliminate any such routine that involved more than simply setting aside a few moments of contemplative free time for the students to use as they would.

This is the traditional “moment of silence” option, without any suggestion that anyone pray. Such a moment is not in any way a formalized prayer, and does not even, in and of itself, acknowledge the necessity of including religion in the school day. If it’s legal, it can’t, which brings us to the next criterion of our test. In order to meet the requirements of the second prong of the Lemon Test, our hypothetical school prayer/spiritual routine would have to neither advance nor inhibit religion. This means it could neither ban nor promote any particular religious practice (or class or religious practices.) Since prayer is a religious practice, prayer would be eliminated by this requirement right from the beginning of our consideration.

And finally, the first prong of out test… in order to not be a violation of the First Amendment, the prayer/practice would have to have a clearly secular purpose. A frequently mentioned motivation for reintroducing religious practice into our public schools is to ameliorate problems with student discipline or with the allegedly declining morality of the student body in general. This (not inherently religious) purpose was the stated reason the defendants in Engel v. Vitale gave for their introduction of a vague prayer into their state’s schools. (Cline, 2009) However, this goal would probably be better accomplished by a more active attempt at character education and the teaching of moral reasoning, two things which can be completely religiously neutral. So, there is no reason why prayer would be necessary to solve problems of moral and/or disciplinary decline.

And so, now, we find ourselves back at the beginning again. The example I gave of a possible in class invocation is obviously inappropriate for the public school environment. It will strike most people as odd, because the names used in it aren’t the ones they’re accustomed to hearing in prayers, but the more familiar prayers are also inappropriate, for reasons grounded in our nation’s most deeply held principles. Outside of their proper context in history or geography lessons: The Lord’s Prayer is as inappropriate as zazen, which is in turn as inappropriate as Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus. None of the above, said or practiced as religious observances, can be a part of the public school curriculum, lest we compromise our cherished national principle of respect for the free practice of religion.



Bibliography
1) spiritual. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved September 29, 2009, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/spiritual
2)Bulfinch, Thomas (1997) Bulfinch’s Mythology New York, New York; Portland House
3)Cline, Austin (2009) School Prayer retrieved from http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/cs/blcs_sch_prayer_index.htm September 28th 2009
4)Mount, Steve (2007) U.S. Constitution Online retrieved from http://www.usconstitution.net/lemon.html September 28th, 2009