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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (May 9, 1963)
MEDFOHD MAIL TRIBUNE, MEDFORD. OREGON THURSDAY, MAY , 1963 " n n on Prayers Retired Episcopal Bishop Reviews Court Decision (Editor't not - The U.S. Supreme Court loon will hand down a decision on iha con stitutionality of prayar and Bibla reading in public schools. In the following die patch, one of America'i moit respected church leaden die cusiet what the court il like ly to rule and why. and he suggests wayi in which the anticipated decision may be uied as a lever to bring about general strengthening of re ligious education of America. (The author is the Rt. Rev. Angus Dun, who retired last year after 18 years as Episco pal bishop of Washington. Since retiring, he has con ducted an extensive study of the religion-in-schools prob lem as chairman of a commit tee on church and state ap pointed by the National Capi tal Area Civil Liberties Caption.) By The Rt. REV ANGUS DUN Written for United Press International The decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the New York regents' prayer case and the cases having to do with Bible readings and the use of the Lord's Prayer in pub lic school, now awaiting deci sion, have focussed attention on fundamental questions re garding the place of religion in American education. Our society is committed by the Constitution to two prin ' ciples of church state rela tions. On the one hand there is the negative principle which provides that Congress and the authorities of states shall make no laws or binding de cisions respecting an estab lishment of religion. This principle bars our federal gov ernment and state authorities from giving special privileges or support to any particular religion or religious institu tions. Positive Principle On the other hand there Is the positive principle which provides that Congress and the states shall make no laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion. This principle is designed to guard the free dom of al individuals and groups to profess and witness to their religious faith or lack of it; to worship according to their convictions and alle giances; to provide for the religious education of their children and youth; and to carry on other activities and good works expressive of their faith. We accept these principles as fundamental to the main tenance of justice and free dom. But it does not require much reflection to conclude that they cannot work them selves out without presenting difficult problems and real conflicts of interest. Religion Accepted ' Education is our most de liberate undertaking as a so ciety to pass on to our chil dren what we consider most important In our cultural in heritance. From the stand point of any serious faith, re ligion has a central place in the total educational process. There is an empty place in any scheme of education which fails to offer a faith to live by, a central devotion and an object of final trust. For Christians and for believ ing Jews, God as apprehend ed by faith is the object of central devotion and the ob ject of final trust. To leave God out of any total educa tional experience is to teach effectively that he does not count. The family has a primary role in education, particular ly in the areas of religion and morality. Humanly speaking, parents determine for good or ill the intimate exposures and contagions shaping a child's life in the earlier years. In this sense, religion and morality are generally "home made." Parents Lack Skill Although religious educa tion begins in the family, it does not end there. Few par ents have the knowledge and skill to provide for their chil dren a religious education which will' keep step with their schools. If a child's religious and moral education is to be car ried forward outside the fam ily, the primary responsibili ty rests with the churches and synagogues. Churches and synagogues have sought to carry out their distinctive ed ucational role by Sunday schools and in other ways, with markedly varying edu cational effectiveness. Some 85 per cent of Ameri can children attend our pub lic schools. We must acknowl edge that as things are now, the time in the lives of chil dren and youth which most churches and synagogues can command, and the education al skills and resources they muster, are heavily outweigh ed by our public educational system. It is this situation which has led the Roman Catholic church in a massive way, and synagogues in a substantial way, to set up systems of paro chial and synagogue schools, parallel to our public school system. These provide over all elementary and secondary education under religious aus pices and pervaded with reli gious beliefs and influences. Into Focus So we come to the particu lar issues brought into focus by recent and anticipated de cisions of our Supreme Court. Can or should we expect our public schools to take any part in the religious teaching and nurture of the children of religiously committed par ents? The question would not arise if it were not for the fact that some modest reli gious observances have been widely included in public school practice in the past. The churches had a large part in the beginnings of American schooling. Despite the fact that our country has from the beginning been a land of many denominations, there were in the past many areas where evangelical Protestantism- was heavily domi nant. In that situation it was quite natural for Bible read ings and Christian prayers to be an acceptable part of pub lic school practice. By the middle of the last century, the number of Roman Cath olics and Jews in our popu lation had greatly increased. Questions began to be raised as to what translation of the Bible might be used in pub lic schools. In the past 20 years, problems arising from religious practices in the pub lic schools have been steadily mounting. Obviously, these problems do not arise in the courts. They arise out of the American community in which people of many reli gious beliefs and of none have been increasingly mingled. Beliefs Differ It is surely understandable that faithful Jewish parents do not wish their children to be asked to listen to a reli gious reading of Christian scriptures or to lake part in a religious or semi-religious observance of the birth of Christ. It is understandable that parents who are consci entious agnostics or atheists do not want their children to be asked to join in or even listen to a prayer to the God of Christian faith, or be put in the position of publicizing their dissent. Once these ques tions have been raised, it is difficult to see what decisions the Supreme Court could make save the ones it has made or seems likely to make. Those of us who are believ ing Christians have mixed feelings concerning the direc tion in which these court de cisions have been , moving. Many Christians have wel comed for their children in their public school experience even a small reference to God and to Christ. Some believe that even a relatively exter nal act can in time come to have inner meaning. But we know that faith cannot be en forced. It Is free. We know that the Bible was written from faith to faith, and can only be read religiously in a setting of faith. We know that public prayer belongs in a community of faith. And a public school cannot provide that setting. The same can be said with equal force of the religious reading of Jewish scriptures and the offerings of Jewish pcayers. Accept Removal Most of us who have re flected on these issues, and not simply reacted emotion ally, conclude that in com mon justice and in conformi ty with the principles of our Constitution we must accept the elimination of the vestigi al remains of religion from our public schools. We do this with some sense of loss but likewise with a sense of lib eration. If this be the outcome, it will be all the more important that our public schools, in their task of providing our children an understanding and appreciation of our Ameri can heritage, do full justice to the large place of the Jew ish and Christian tradition in that heritage. Our history and our political and - social thought can not be dealt with faithfully without an objec tive interpretation of the part played by religious convic tions, motives, movements, and institutions. Our litera ture and music and art and communal observances can nrt be understood apart from the religious ' content and leaven found in them. We hope that with the elim ination of official religious ob servances from our public schools there may be a gen erous and imaginative explor ation of ways in which young people in our public schools, especially at the high school level, might be encouraged to express voluntary their re ligious interests and concerns, outside regular school hours. Their school associations arc a major part of their experi ence, and offer a natural framework for such activities. Such voluntary activities would help to offset the im pression that this period in their lives is one from which religion is rigorously exclud ed. The exclusion of religious observances from public schools will have the advan tage of clearly placing respon sibility for religious educa tion where it belongs, on par ents and on the churches and synagogues. It is likely that this will stimulate further the estab lishment of church-controlled schools, to the possible detri ment of the public schools and perhaps to the detriment of the quality of all educa tion. We hope that continuing study and experimentation may go forward In the direc tion of cooperative relation between the religious commu nities nd the public schools. . For example, the type of arrangement commonly called "shared time" might free pa rochial schools from . the heavy financial burden of teaching subjects of only re mote religious significance, and at the same time enable the churches and the syna gogues to provide a far mors substantial religious and mor al education for children whose parents desire this for them. NIXON'S FUTURE HOME-A New York real estate firm has confirmed that it sold a cooperative apartment on the fifth floor of this building on New York's Fifth ave. to former vice president Richard Nixon. 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