the Soho Church-State Separation? nineteen thirties, forties, or ??z?es can remember how oppressive it felt to be forced to particzpate in Christian prayers Yet the unintended consequence, argue Betty Mensch and Alan Freeman, has been to create an GleCdiIOJZdl system Dare we consider; ask Mensch and Freeman, that the rigid separatiom'sts have taken as in a mistaken direction? Losing Faith in Public Schools Betty Mensch and Alan Freeman ecently a colleague confided to us that she had removed her children from public school and enrolled them in a Catholic school. She is a de- cidedly lapsed Catholic and her husband a Lutheran, but neither objects to having their children learn the rosary so long as they also learn basic moral values like respect and concern for others. In their fancy suburban public school district, teachers assiduously avoid questions of morality. The dominant culture teaches rampant con- sumeriSm, and parents and teachers encourage academic achievement only for the sake of career. Her experience resonates with our own. Our young children attend a private school that is committed to di- versity, where a nonsectarian but pervasive religiosity is allowed to ?ourish. The school?s Thanksgiving cere~ mony, for example, would probably have been illegal in a public School: The headmaster emphasized our shared obligation as parents, teachers, and students to create a ?loving community.? Learning, he Said, is not just cog- nitive; it means learning to give to others. The student body president then described ?giving? as an affirma- tion of our belief in human goodness, even in the face of the sin and brokenness we find in the world around us, and in our own hearts as well. Originally we planned to transfer our children to pub- lic school after preschool: Private schools seemed by def- inition antidemocratic. But now we wonder. Alexis de Tocqueville, for one, saw religious values as crucial to democracy, though he also praised America?s separation Alan Freeman and Betty ensch are professors oflaw at of church and state. Through their religion, Tocqueville wrote, Americans learned the meaning of a civic re- sponsibility that did not become idolatry, and a freedom that was not undisciplined greed. American schools were once intended to be helpmates to local churches in the moral training of the young. As recently as 1979, the Supreme Court af? firmed that a "state prOperly may regard all teachers as having an obligation to prom0te civic virtues and un- derstanding in their classes, regardless of the subject taught.? Since the 1960s, however, the Court has also in- sisted that those virtues be neutral with reSpect to reli- gion, and that insistence has created a bracing challenge: How can schools teach the values rooted in our religious traditions without teaching religious values? To teach values as autonomously secular seems not only dishon- est but ultimately destructive: By aggressively severing values frOm their religious roots, an exclusively secu- lar values curriculum becomes, in effect, antagonistic to religion. Such antagonism is no more consistent with the establishment clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution, which requires government neutrality to- ward religion, than the nineteenth-century conception of public schools as helpmates to local churches. The starkly secular character of public education became a matter of constitutional mandate when, in 1962 and 1963, the US. Supreme Court outlawed the of- ficial reading of a nondenominational prayer and the reading of Bible passages (without commentary) as part of opening exercises. Neither practice could be saved by prOvisions allowing students to excuse themselves from 31 participation, reasoned the court, for coercion is not the issue. It is the very fact of public (governmental) reli- gious expression that triggers the constitutional ban. Nevertheless, concluded the court, schools could still ?teach about? religion, but not ?promote? it. Thus the Bible might be studied for its ?literary and historic? qualities, if ?presented objectively as a part of a secular program of education.? Religion as religion was out, but not religion as literature or history. 0 liberals in the sixties, and to many Jews who have been in the forefront of enforcing those de- cisions, the distinction between ?teach about? and ?promote? appeared both logically compelling and easy to apply. Schools were vie_wed as an extension of state power rather than as benign, autonomous ?medi? ating structures? located, like churches, somewhere be- tween state and individual. Active state promotion of religion seemed obviously inapprOpriate and eSpecially threatening to anyone who did not share the dominant Christian faith. The fear of teaching naZnes is now so great that a mother reported to as that her son?s fnna?ea? preschool would not are the word ?wrong? even when one child ctohhered another. In practice, however, the facile distinction between promotion of religion? and general education has proved elusive; the ?neutral? space where schools are nei- ther promoters of religion nor antagonists to it may be nonexistent. By insisting on the vigorous application of this doctrine, Jews may have simply effected a minority holdup of the dominant culture, one that has ill served the long-run need to teach values in public schools. Details of curriculum and teacher conduct must now be scrutinized lest they run afoul of establish ment-clause doctrine. For example, in a case recently affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals in Colorado (December 1990), Kenneth Roberts, a fifth-grade teacher, was told by Principal Kathleen Madigan that he could not read silently from his Bible while his class had its ?silent reading period" (the students could choose whatever they wished to read), nor could he keep his Bible visible on his desk. Moreover, he was ordered to remove two books, The Bible in Pictures and The Life ofJernr, from the classroom library of 239 books he had accumulated 32 TIKKUN VOL. 7, No. 2 over a nineteeneyear teaching career. Left alone were other books in the same library dealing with Greek gods and goddesses and American Indian religions. Playing their characteristic role with respect to church-state issues, national Jewish organizations (such as the Anti- Defamation League and the American Jewish Congress) had submitted amicus briefs in support of the prevail- ing side of the Roberts case. The American Jewish Congress also supported the winning side (in the lower courts) in Whitman v. Lee, currently before the US. Supreme Court. Deborah Weis- man, a student, objected to the program at her junior high school graduation in PrOvidence, Rhode Island. The objectionable feature was Rabbi Leslie Gutter- man, who offered an ?invocation? addressed to ?God of the Free, HOpe of the Brave,? and a ?benediction? that began, God, we are grateful to Toward the end of the benediction, he called on_students ?to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly,? a paraphrase of Mic. 6:8. Both the district court and the court of appeals (by a two to one vote) concluded that ?a benediction in- voking a deity delivered by a member of the clergy at an annual public school graduation violates the Establish- ment Clause.? The example is a telling one, since sym- bolic or ceremOnial events are traditionally subject to less constitutional scrutiny than the day-to-day curricu- lum. As a result, teachers are tempted to steer clear of religious subject matter altogether. Public schools are not consiStent in their interpreta- tion of the Supreme Court?s mandate. Many princi- pals simply ignore constitutional requirements; others, often at the behest of vocal Jewish minorities, are over- zealous in guarding the wall of separation between church and state, and this in turn can stifle the teaching of values. To say to a Student that a particular act is ?erng? is to invite the question, "Says who?? and any attempt to answer that question is fraught with church- state dilemmas. The fear of teaching values is now so great that a mother reported to us that her son's pub- licly funded preschool would not use the word ?wrong? even when one child clobbered another. hen educators self-consciously strive to be ?value-neutral,? students apparently receive the message. In Education for Character (Bantam, 1991), Thomas Lickona tells of a Harvard professor who discovered in trying to teach about the Holocaust that his students had a ?no-fault? view ofhis- tory. They believed that Nazism was inevitable, so that nobody was responsible for its rise, or for preventing it. Nazism, along with its ugly consequences, was simply an ?amoral? fact of history. .-.- n? .- NECESSARY. ?to msua: WEAPONS ME NOT Ema BAGS ALSO MM BE SEARCHED P. METAL DEVICES OR OTHERWISE 19 Mom DAMAGE. Fina-u COMPUTER DISV-S tapes snoum st ass-om . - This stark separation of ?fact? and ?value? derives primarily from the post-Enlightenment positivist as- sumption that only facts have objective existence. It found its fullest expression in twentieth-century ana- lytical philosophy, which argued that both morality and religion are merely ?emotive,? matters of subjec- tive ?feeling? or ?Opinion.? The analytic school, as aptly characterized by phiIOSOpher and historian Alasdair regards ?moral commitment as the expres- sion of a criterionless choice? between ?incompatible and incommensurable moral premises? for which ?no rational justification can be given.? hat supposed Split between fact and value is by no means undiSputed. It runs counter to the long natural~law tradition of discovering objective values in human nature itself. In both its secular and religious versions, natural law formed the background for the eighteenth-century legal order (?We hold these truths to be self-evident?) and is now seeing a philo- sophic revival in neo?Aristotelian virtue theory and communitarian political thought. In other words, a school?s decision to teach facts as separate from values is not neutral?it means taking a stand on a hotly dis- puted issue in current theology and moral philosophy, :1 stand with arguably corrosive effects. While parents and churches remain ?free? to teach morality to their children, the implicit message conveyed by the schools is that parents are then teaching only their own ?emo- tive? opinions, not objective truth. Sign of the timer: Should riua?eiztr tum their backs on schooir that teach ruler instead ofvafuer? Any school system that tries actively to teach values, however, faces a daunting intellectual (and constitu- tional) challenge. Under current law, public schools must Opt for an ethics that does not depend on religion. The easiest Option is simply to institute ?rules? with no sup- posed moral grounding?which of course conveys the message that the only reason for obeying the rules is to avoid punishment. Few schools (or cultures) are capable of inflicting enough punishment to maintain order on that basis alone. Moreover, such a regime is hardly value-free, since its implicit message is that arbitrary au- thority is its own excuse for being. Academic philosophers might suggest that we turn to Kantianism and utilitarianism as readily available sources of secular, rational morality. These positions, however, are subject t5 all manner of logical refutation, not least because they are incompatible with each other. More to the point here, however, is MacIntyre's con- vincing account of how those Enlightenment rational- ist traditions derived their Operational moral content from various forms of the Judeo~Christian worldview-? Lutheranism for Kant and Calvinism for Hume. Similarly, the current philosophic move toward neo? Aristotelianism, while taking avowedly secular forms, is rooted in the long Thomist natural-law tradition?the fusion of Christianity and AristOtle that formed the ba- sis for much of our ethical heritage. MacIntyre?s historical account of how rationalist mo- rality arose out of particular religious traditions finds its sociological counterpart in contemporary America. RELIGION IN THE SCHOOLS 33 Most Americans (more than 95 percent) believe in God and seek their values in religious sources; this suggests that the secularism of those born in the 19403 and 19505 may be a fast-fading blip on the screen of history. Many regard the very notion of a totally nonreligious morality as alien, shallow, and unable to speak meaningfully to the dilemmas of ordinary life. erhaps schools should ignore the question of morality?s ultimate source and appeal instead to consensus, thereby teaching our shared core of values in secular terms. There are two problems with that approach. First, the appeal to consensus (as op- posed to objective truth) implicitly concedes the mod- ernist intellectual insight that an objective moral order is impossible and adOpts the relativist position that morality is whatever a particular culture defines as its value system. This leads to the second major problem with any ap- peal to secular consensus, which is its nonexistence. On some of the most pressing iSSues of justice (affirmative action, gender equality), personal freedom (premarital sex, homosexuality, family structure, artistic expres- sion), and even life and death (euthanasia, abortion, cap- ital punishment, environmental ethics), Americans are deeply divided. Moreover, according to a number of scholars (see, for example,]arnes Hunter?s Culture Wars, Basic Books, 1991), that division represents a widening gap between more orthodox or fundamentalist religious worldviews on the one hand, and those that see them- selves as religiously modernist, or simply secular, on the other. To insist that values be taught from a supposedly ?shared secular perspective? loads the debate in favor of the secularists and excludes the orthodox, who insist that many of these issues cannot be discussed apart from theology. On the other hand, a consensus approach might shun controversy altogether. The result would be a suffocatineg bland education that ?ies in the face of pedagogical wisdom: One learns moral sensitivity only by taking on hard questions, not by repeating unobjec- tionable clich?s. Many who advocate a return to teaching values are looking not to consensus, but to an implicit natural law, which assumes that we can derive universal norms from the essential nature of human beings, and that we can reason about the fulfillment, in time, of human poten- tial, purpose, and meaning. The natural-law tradition presupposes the need for rules to guide the develOpment of a moral sensibility. It also requires careful analOgic reasoning?by reference to category, exceptions, condi- tions, and the natural and social world. The label for such reasoning is casuistry, which has unfairly been given a bad name. During the Gulf War, for example, it was 34 VOL. 7, No. 2 reassuring to hear theorists debate the morality of the war in terms of reasoned moral criteria?justice of purpose, as further conditioned by weighing the conse- quences of war, by exhausting best efforts to avoid vio- lence, etc. Such criteria provide a baseline of decency, a hedge against the wanton exercise of power, while also acknowledging that moral norms like ?do not kill? must be subject to exception. Similarly, reasoned criteria for evaluating personal behavior operate as a constant check on unrestrained egoism, self-gratification, or bigotry. Lickona, for example, whose program of values edu- cation fits this model, would distinguish between essen- tial norms of human decency and respect, not to be questioned, and areas of wide disagreement as to real- ization of those norms, where serious debate is to be both accepted and encouraged. Thus his take on teach- ing about homosexuality: Lickona would insist that one should ?require all citizens, regardless of their pri- vate views of homosexuality, to respect? the civil and human rights of homosexual persons.? He would make it equally clear, however, that ?one cannot in fairness accuse someone of being a bigot because that person, in good conscience, makes the judgment that homo- sexual activity is not healthy or right behavior. The eth- ical obligation to treat every person justly does not mean that one must approve all of a person?s behaviors, sexual or otherwise.? Fundamental to natural-law theory is the ontological assumption that there is an objective human nature, along with a morally purposeful natural order, from which our well-schooled reason can discern basic hu- man values. That assumption is of course at odds with the postmodern message of freedom and contingency. Even earlier, it had been shattered not just by the epistemological skepticism of the Enlightenment, but by the Protestant Reformation, which assigned a pri- macy to faith that necessarily reduced the claims of reason and law. Teaching natural~law precepts appears neutral and nonreligious because of the Thomist as- sumption that one can distinguish those ethical com- mands God has specially revealed to the faithful from those that can be known to all through the exercise of natural reason. Arguably, however, that assumption it- self is peculiarly Catholic. Jewish ethical thought, in its carefully reasoned methodology, often seems similar to Thomism, yet the underlying assumption is radically different: The law is a Special gift from God to His people, and Righteous ness lies precisely and exclusively in fulfilling the obli- gations of the law He has given to us. Thusjames Hunter qu0tes Orthodox Rabbi Yehuda Levin: Being Jewish means a total surrender of my intellect to God. In other words, God tells me what?s right r11 Iv v?v r- 7-75 I and what?s wrong. I may attempt in my limited capacity to try to understand that, but I have to start from the point that I am surrendering my personal intellect to God. . . . God said, ?Thou shalt not steal? and so I don?t steal?not because crime does not pay, but because God said not to steal. [Likewise with abortion] I do not need any proof that [the fetus] is human. In fact, if somebody somehow would bring proof positive?scientific evidence?tomorrow that the fetus is just a glob Of gelatin or something like that, it would not in one iota change my view on abortion. (In contrast, Catholic doctrine views abortion as a violation of natural law, understood as such through the exercise Of reason, and not depen- dent upon the revealed word Of God.) Thus, to suppose a ?natural,? universal ethics separate and independent of God?s direct command is to sup- pose a profoundly non-Jewish ethics. he Protestant tradition shares with Ju- daism an emphasis on surrender to God as the primary ethical requirement. Some Protestants have rejected natural law altogether, while others followed Calvin in accepting its ex- istence, but remain doubtful about how much moral guidance a fallen human reason could find in a fallen natural order. The Reformation rep- resented a return to biblical sources, the true Word of God, and was in that sense a rejection of the Thomist natural-law tradition. In turning to Scripture, however, the Reformers sought the transformative power of the gOSpel message. With their intense emphasis upon sin and the need for faith and salvation through Christ, they sought righteousness, not in following God?s law (which a sinful human nature would be forever incapable of fulfilling) but rather in God?s promise Of for- Growing Up Without Religion I grew up in a suburb: roast chicken, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, overcooked vegetables, the green beans a limp brown. My grandmother still cooked Jewish, but she also told fortunes and became a Christian Scientist as soon as she got cancer. She had a very Optimistic cancer til she died. My rnOther practiced her own brand of personal voodoo, making my dead grandfather her bloodthirsty stone idol that answered her prayers and if he didn?t it was our fault. My father was an atheist who sent money to Israel at the Yom Kippur war, but the rest of the time he talked centrifuges and recombinant DNA at the breakfast table and we all learned how to react by the tone of his voice. My sister worshipped horses and spent all her time riding. I spent all my time pretending I wasn?t anything I?d been born. I wasn't related to my family. I didn?t live in that house. When I read sci-fi I?d pretend I wasn?t human. It never occured to me to pretend I wasn?t Jewish because it never occured to me to pretend I was. That sort of suburb. And when the sirens went off in Jerusalem I huddled in front of the radio as ifI were rocking the Jewish child I never was bleeding in my arms, calling me by name. Julia Vinograd giving grace. Faith would lead to righteousness, experienced not as rigid adherence to scriptural law, but as a new and loving relationship with God and within the human community. Protestant theology, as exemplified by practitioners like Karl Barth or Dietrich Bonhoeffer, emphasizes the stark reality of sin and grace, describes a world that is more dialectical and paradoxical than the self-contained world of Aristotelianism, and reminds us that the Gospel message cuts through time and space. In concrete ethi- cal application, however, the Protestant tradition, with its insistence on context, on particular cases rather than universal rules, runs the risk of being incomprehensible to those outside the tradition, or being reprocessed, as it was in the sixties, into a ?situation ethics? that is vir- tually indistinguishable from secular utilitarianism. Thus, even when Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant ethics offer similar answers to particular moral prob- lems, the illusion of consensus is belied by the radically different notions of moral truth that inform those tra- ditions. In addition, there is a vast realm of difference within each as to Specific moral norms, the legitimacy of reinterpreting traditional rules to fit changing circum- stances on abortion or homosexuality), and over- all accommodation to modernist sensibility. In fact, RELIGION IN THE SCHOOLS 35 Hunter suggests that the Split between ?orthodox? and ?progressive? visions, America?s current ?culture war,? is far more important than sectarian differences within each type of vision. Taking both into account, one finds, even within the Judeo-Christian tradition, a pluralistic array. If not to teach values at all is to imply (non-neutrally) their ob- jective nonexistence, and if value-teaching is empty and distorted without reference to religious sources, how can one contend with the cac0phony of pluralism? ne familiar answer is to Steer a middle and in? offensive?but not wholly secular?course by relying on America?s traditional ?civil reli- gion,? the basic core of values shared by (at least main- stream) Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. Instead of quibbling over precise sources of moral authority, it is argued, we should affirm our shared belief in a God who is abstract enough to obfuscate sectarian difference. Recognition of ?civil religion? has been advocated by both Christians andJews, such as sociologist Robert Bel- lah and Reform Rabbi (and liberal political activist) David Saperstein. However appealing, the civilreligion approach, at its worst, creates the blandness of the 1950s ?Protes- tant/Catholic/Jew? imagery of Will Herberg, in which all three religions became little more than alternative ways to celebrate being American. In the effort to ?at- ten out difference, religion loses the distinctive appeal to truth that makes it a source of moral authority. This may well be the lesson of the continuing appeal and per- vasive vitality of more orthodox outlooks. Moreover, ?civil religion? in its content often appears indistin- guishable from mainline Protestantism (with a niche available for Reform Jews). The result is not only pre- sumptuous and elitist, but directly contrary to the actual conditions of pluralism. Those committed to a single faith tend to believe, as did John Courtney Murray (the great Jesuit theologian and proponent of religious liberty), that ?pluralism may be a fact of history, but it is against the will of God.? Paradoxically, to teach values credibly we must affirm the reality of pluralism, while acknowledging that basic moral values are rooted in visions of truth. To affirm only pluralism is to affirm nothing but postmodernist fragmentation. This is the danger of the most radical versions of multiculturalism: Pluralism becomes not an enriching inclusion, but internecine warfare, with each heritage claiming its own privileged access to truth. In challenging the exclusive privilege and compla- cent power of dominant culture (be it Right, Left, or cen- ter), radical multiculturalism threatens to make power the only arbiter of truth. 36 VOL. 7, No. 2 our own (tentative) version of an ideal values curriculum, we would, perhaps faintheartedly, at- tempt to have it both ways. We would affirm the civil-religion tradition as the core of the American heritage, describing key examples such as the Christian themes in Lincoln?s Speeches: How else can one understand their appeal? Nor would we hesi- tate to teach as ?our? shared values those that are ex- plicitly rooted in the civil?religion tradition. To do otherwise is either to teach no values, or to teach ?com? munity values? without being honest about their source. Yet we would also point out ways in which the country has fallen short of its highest ideals, including ways in which civil religion can become an excuse for arro- gance, oppression, and exclusion the smug con~ ventionality of the 19505 that produced such excesses as ?Kill a Commie for The goal would be to recognize tragedy and sin in American history without thereby inducing loathing for the best of our Judeo- Christian tradition. No culture can survive on self- loathing alone. We would, however, vigorously celebrate pluralism by also allowing various religious voices to Speak for themselves. At SUNY Buffalo, Oren Lyons (a Native American SpokCSperson) is often asked to Speak in classes because he conveys so effectively the power of Iroquois traditions and values. We would use that ap- proach as a model, exposing students to speakers who could convey the Spirit of their own religions in their undiluted particularity. Such a program would include not only the mainline Protestant, Reform Jew, and lib- eral Catholic, who are least offensive to secular sensi- bilities, but also the fundamentalist Southern Baptist, the Orthodox Jew, the Black Muslim, and traditionalist Catholic. It also means including some from outside the Western tradition, as well as those who are ready to de- nounce all religion as outmoded superstition with a sex- ist and violent history. We are convinced that a robust encounter with reli- gion offers the vigor and intensity that should inform our quest for value and that religion remains, in our culture, the natural language of virtue. Furthermore, exposing children to various religions might diSpel prej- udice, eSpecially across the great divide of our current ?culture war.? Students from secular liberal backgrounds need exposure to the transformative power of both centuries-old traditions and evangelical fervor; and students from more orthodox backgrounds need expo- sure to ?liberal? theology?s courageous struggle to deal with a ?world come of age? and a pluralist reality. Right now there is too much pride on each side of the divide. Students (and all of us) could use a dose of humility, which may be the beginning of a responsible ethics.