Separation of Church and State

The issue of separation of church and state is an umbrella for a variety of disputes in the marketplace [Page 811]of ideas in the United States. For example, the separation of church and state prohibits churches from endorsing candidates for political office. Any church, temple, or mosque that specifically endorses a candidate stands to lose its tax-exempt status. Specifically related to public schools, the issues include prayer in schools, intelligent design, the Ten Commandments, the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag, school vouchers, and the teaching of the Bible in the curriculum. This entry reviews the arguments about the separation of church and state as it pertains to the First Amendment, outlines the significant U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have consistently upheld the separation of church and state, and suggests ways that school boards can be proactive in dealing with challenges to the separation of church and state.

Ninety percent of the children of the United States attend public schools. The diversity of religious beliefs among these children and their families defies description. The more diverse the country becomes, the more important the principle of the separation of church and state. The idea of separating church and state includes, but is not limited to, the First Amendment's insistence that no one church would be privileged in America. Thus, the United States does not have an established church. In addition, the First Amendment protects all citizens from the intrusion of religious beliefs into the public arena, especially the public schools.

On one side of the pressure to tear down the wall of separation of church and state are Christians who believe that the United States is a nation under divine authority, founded as a Christian nation, and intended by our founding fathers to be aligned with Christianity. The emotion-laden, reductionistic arguments that God has been outlawed from the public school, or prayer has been banned, have led to assertions about the moral demise of the nation in general and of schools in particular. Once again, as in the debates over intelligent design, the Bible taught in the schools, prayer, and the Ten Commandments, the public schools have been the target of attack; they are viewed as valueless institutions that are failing to teach both explicitly and implicitly the values young people need as they mature and grow.

The conservative religious reform argument that public schools are responsible for the moral fiber of the United States represents a common fallacy of logic: “After this, therefore on account of this—post hoc ergo propter hoc.” Some religious reformers want the church–state separation mitigated, or at least returned to the halcyon days of their own early educational experience.

On the other side are advocates for maintaining the wall of separation first envisioned by Thomas Jefferson with help from James Madison and a Baptist preacher, Isaac Backus. Since we are a diverse country, the church should attend to religious education, not the public schools. Some of these modern “separationists” are determined to have a religion-neutral and completely secular public school. Opponents of this stance argue that this approach denies the significant role played by faith in the development of this country. Americans, it is argued, are a very religious people, and a public education scrubbed of all references to God, faith, and religion would diminish the value of education. Consequently, we need reminders of our religious heritage and tradition.

...