A Religious Butt Kicking

I took what could only be described as a religious butt kicking the other day in response to some comments I made in a guest appearance on a talk show on WAGG regarding the separation of church and state.  I understood at the time the intensity of emotion that my comments drew, but left frustrated that the discussion was limited to the emotions of the callers, and we could never really get into a discussion on the issue itself, because my viewpoint made the callers angry.  My motivation for sitting down and writing this column after months of absence was the frustration I felt at the end of the discussion.

The unpopular viewpoint that I expressed was that I do not believe that schools are the appropriate place to teach our children about faith, and by extension do not believe in mandatory prayer in schools.  I am a Christian, I take personal responsibility for teaching my children what I believe, just as the generation before me took personal responsibility for teaching me what they believed.  I would go one step further even, and note that my mother worked a full time job to generate the money to send my brothers and me to Catholic School, even though we weren’t Catholic.  And that at Saint Jude High School we prayed every morning and went to mass every Friday, and we were the better for it.

Saint Jude was a private school that my parents made the choice to send me to.  That is the important distinction, that my parents chose.  When our founding fathers embedded the concept of separation of church and state into our constitution it was not done to limit religious freedom, it was done to secure religious freedom.  Our founding fathers immigrated here from European nations where religious persecution was common place, the separation of church and state embedded in our constitution was not placed there to limit religious freedom, it was placed there to insure it.

During the debate I participated in, the host of the program noted that she did not mind prayer in school in general, but she would not want her child to have to pray a Muslim prayer.  Well so the Muslim child would not want to be compelled to say a Christian prayer, or the Jewish child would not want to be forced to bow to Budha.  She made the point for separation of church and state, if religion is not presented by the state, then the state cannot limit your freedoms.

A number of the callers indicated that they felt that removing God from the Schools is the reason for the decline in our communities.  I don’t agree with this point either.  As I noted on the air, I did not learn my religious values primarily from a school, or a school teacher.  I learned my values first of all from my parents, and then from my grandfather and the other elder members of my family.  They tried to insure that the seeds of faith that they planted had fertile soil to grow good roots in.  In my mind if we put God in school for five minutes and that is the only exposure that some youth get, then at best we will be planting seeds in shallow soil, and when they return to dysfunctional homes without Christ, their roots will soon expire as will what little faith they have been exposed to.

Unless those who feel that way, feel so strongly they are willing to pursue a constitutional amendment to change the definition of separation of church and state that has sustained this country since independence, then the question should not be how do get God back in our schools, it should be how do we get God back in, or in dysfunctional homes.

Lets look at this from one last angle before I let it go for now.  Schools are an extension of the state.  If we surrender the responsibility for teaching values to the schools, then we are surrendering the responsibility for teaching our children values to the state.  Parents of all income levels are already spending less and lesss time teaching their children anything of significance, or monitoring what the schools are teaching.  So because of a class of dysfunctional homes, do we all want to surrender to the state, the responsibility and the right to define the values our children will be taught?  My answer to that is a resounding no.  Welfare is the state program to enhance our families, anybody believe that the families in that system are stronger than two parent families functioning on their own?  Anybody believe the family unit is stronger because of welfare policies?  Anybody believe there is less crime in our communities because of the values taught by the state, through the welfare system?  I do not.  And I do not want to surrender to the state, the responsibility to teach my child what to believe in.  That is one my most sacred rights as a parent.

Jesus did not teach in a school.  For the most part he taught in open fields or wherever folks would come to him.  It is right as Christians to want to spread the word of the healing power of our faith, and of the redemptive nature of our Saviour, but it is our responsibility to find a way to spread this word of joy that does not impose on the freedoms or choices of others.

I would be very supportive of non-secular education on societal values and responsibilities being provided in our schools.   In my time these were called civics classes.  I have no objections to churches being allowed to recruit for after school programs.   I am proud of churches that provide counseling to at risk families.  But just as I have cautioned against unquestioned expansion of police and state powers in response to the fears of terrorism after 911, I would scream loudly against any efforts to impose religion into our school system as a short term fix.  We certainly need to fight to keep Christ in the lives of our children, I just think that fight is a personal responsibility that should not be delegated to the state.  And further I feel strongly that the problem is not that Christ is not in our schools, the problem is that he is not in our homes.  I believe the fight should be to reinforce traditional family values, and to return Christ to a position of prominence in our homes and communities.  I believe we have already tried too hard to replace family with state, and the welfare system is a flaming example of the failure of this way of thinking.  Or at least that’s the way  I see it.

(In addition to being a long time columnist with the Birmingham Times, Hollis Wormsby is the former host of Talkback on 98.7 and the current host of Real Talk on 101.9 WENN FM.  Real Talk can be heard on Sunday evenings from 9 to 10 pm.  Responses  to this blog are sometimes shared on the air.)