Several recent letters to the editor have taken exception to the state of Arkansas for enforcing the First Amendment by withdrawing taxpayer funding for some religious schools.
It is a good thing for children to learn some scripture verses and be told that “Jesus loves you,” the writers argue. What’s the problem with off ering a prayer before lunch or a Bible lesson that teaches gratitude?
Well, there’s nothing wrong with those things as long as you don’t expect taxpayers to fund your religious education. The First Amendment gives us the priceless gift of freedom of religion. That means we can teach our religious values to our children in our homes and in our religious houses.
No one can compromise or control that right.
The First Amendment also goes on to prohibit the government fromestablishing any particular religion. That means, among other things, that we do not use our public funds to promote or subsidize any particular religion - even if that religion is Christianity, which has enjoyed something of a majority status for most of our nation’s history.
We may be a nation with a Christian majority, but we are not a Christian nation.
The founders had plenty of experience with established Christian religion - Christianity promoted by the state. Some of our colonies were founded as Christian states, most of them fl eeing the Christian tyranny ofthe established Church of England.
Our country’s founders chose freedom of religion over the establishment of Christianity as our nation’s religion. In our nation, we enjoy a level playing fi eld.
All religions are equally welcome, and the state will not play favorites.
Some letter-writers disagree: What’s the problem with a few Bible verses on the wall? It’s good for children to say their prayers before meals, they say. What Grinch would object to a classroom picture of the Good Shepherd caring for the beloved sheep? They don’t mind their taxpayer dollars going to schools that include the building of religious character in our children as well as their mental, physical and civic character.
I wonder. Would the letter writers feel the same way about their taxpayer money going to a school with quotations from theKoran on the wall? Where children learn “Allah is great and Mohammed is his prophet”? Where mealtime prayers include some simple introduction to Sharia Law? Would our letter writers - good, evangelical Christians, for the most part - have no objection to their tax money funding a little Islamic preschool?
Somehow, I expect they would. And if so, they need to agree with the state and the First Amendment that it is wrong for the Growing God’s Kingdom preschool in nearby West Fork to continue to receive over a half-million dollars a year to help underwrite its good work of Christian formation.
Let the church or student families or generous donors pay for religious schools.
Keep the public’s money out of it. That’s a conservative position, by the way.
A few years ago an evangelical group proposed to offer an assembly program to FayettevilleHigh School. Their X-treme athletes would present an entertaining anti-drug/antismoking performance. The underlying agenda, however, was that the public school program served also as a major publicity opportunity promoting the group’s really big X-treme athletes’ event elsewhere, complete with Christian witnesses and a good bit of pressure for religious conversion.
I went to a school board meeting to object. Most of the other Christians there thought it was a great idea to let this good Christian group offer their fi ne anti-drug/ anti-smoking message in the public school.
I fell into conversation in the parking lot with one of those who had spoken in support of the performance. I asked him, “Would it have made any difference if the group was from Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam? What if they off ered a compelling, completely secular programto urge teens to say no to drugs and cigarettes?
What if their appearance at Fayetteville High coincided with publicity about a larger event which included presentations about some of their more controversial teachings? Would you make the same recommendation that we welcome their program in the public schools?”
He didn’t exactly answer.
He just nodded his head and said, “I see your point.”
If we are going to let government promote religion, I say, let the Episcopalians be in charge. After all, we’ve got experience. We were the religion others ran to America to escape from.
If you don’t want us in charge, then let’s just get government out of the religion business and honor the First Amendment.
LOWELL GRISHAM IS AN EPISCOPAL PRIEST WHO LIVES IN FAYETTEVILLE.
Opinion, Pages 13 on 01/15/2012